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Irish pronunciation

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23 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5060 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 17 of 23
15 August 2011 at 8:00pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
Iversen wrote:
I think it would be positively dangerous to use the
slender/broad consonants of Russian as a guide to Irish pronunciation.

Марк wrote:

Gweedore is in Donegal. What do you mean by "positively dangerous"? Russian and Irish
consonants are quite similar. The difference is that p, t, k are aspirated, there are h
and voiced h, broad and slender ng in Irish.


Explaining the sounds of one language with a reference to another is always dangerous,
although it is common in textbooks and small language guides.

Even if the differences in the actual pronunciation of those consonants (in isolation)
are so minimal as you say (I'm not going to start a debate about this here) then the
general 'sound' of Russian is utterly different from that of Irish. Besides the role of
the opposition between broad and slender consonants in Irish morphology can only be
described within that system, it has no parallel in Russian.

The sound is different because of vowels, intonation, frequency of consonantsand the
differencies I mentioned before. It doesn't matter what role palatalization plays. If
you can distinguish between broad and slender "l", you will be able to distinguish
between focal and focail, for example.
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5060 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 18 of 23
15 August 2011 at 8:07pm | IP Logged 
Here there are a lot of samples of Western dialect. Doesn't it seem to you that
consonants are similar to Russian?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=RUFwGFO0cfU


Edited by Марк on 15 August 2011 at 8:08pm

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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6707 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
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 Message 19 of 23
16 August 2011 at 3:42am | IP Logged 
I'm not going to try to debate whether the sounds in this case are more or less the same - my point is that the sounds of one language quite generally shouldn't be described as more or less the same at the sounds in any other language. As I mentioned it's a common practice in small language guides and text books, but the general rule is that the sound aren't exactly the same, and in these days where you can hear the sounds through the internet you should concentrate on learning them from the target language itself. Pronouncing a certain language is more than putting isolated sounds in a chain, and Russian does NOT sound like Irish.

Besides I know that making sounds broad or slender functions as a marker in morphological tables on equal footing with things like eclipsis and lenition (and endings), and even though each sound in isolation may be the same as some isolated sound in another language the irish sounds are part of an intricate system which you don't find in Russian. Why then clutter the description of the sounds of Irish with references to an (in this context) irrelevant language?

When you first present the letters and the sounds of a certain language it is tempting to follow the line of least resistance, and that is of course to use sounds from wellknown language as an illustration. But after that initial phase it is better to sit down and listen to the language you want to learn.


Edited by Iversen on 16 August 2011 at 3:43am

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CommanderK
Bilingual Triglot
Newbie
Israel
melearninglanguages.
Joined 5193 days ago

24 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, Russian*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 20 of 23
16 August 2011 at 7:15am | IP Logged 
@Ivensen Do you mean that I should learn Irish pronunciation by IPA?

Edited by CommanderK on 16 August 2011 at 7:16am

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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5060 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 21 of 23
16 August 2011 at 8:13am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
I'm not going to try to debate whether the sounds in this case are
more or less the same - my point is that the sounds of one language quite generally
shouldn't be described as more or less the same at the sounds in any other language. As
I mentioned it's a common practice in small language guides and text books, but the
general rule is that the sound aren't exactly the same, and in these days where
you can hear the sounds through the internet you should concentrate on learning them
from the target language itself. Pronouncing a certain language is more than putting
isolated sounds in a chain, and Russian does NOT sound like Irish.

Besides I know that making sounds broad or slender functions as a marker in
morphological tables on equal footing with things like eclipsis and lenition (and
endings), and even though each sound in isolation may be the same as some isolated
sound in another language the irish sounds are part of an intricate system which you
don't find in Russian. Why then clutter the description of the sounds of Irish with
references to an (in this context) irrelevant language?

When you first present the letters and the sounds of a certain language it is tempting
to follow the line of least resistance, and that is of course to use sounds from
wellknown language as an illustration. But after that initial phase it is better to sit
down and listen to the language you want to learn.

You can listen for hundred hours of Irish but still cannot pronounce Irish sounds
correctly or even hear the difference between phonemes. It's not easy to find a good
source of a particular dialect. You need an explanation. The explanations through
position of the tongue are not very user-friendly. The person who asked knows Russian,
so sources in Russian can help him. You do not need to sound like a native Irish
speaker - you have to understand and be understood.
Listen to me reading a poem and to recordings of Irish native speakers, that I gave
above, and say how different the sound is, and we will see if my method works.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Khublei
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Yugoslavia
homestayperu.net
Joined 5351 days ago

90 posts - 141 votes 
Speaks: English*, Irish*, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Khasi, French, Albanian

 
 Message 22 of 23
16 August 2011 at 8:54am | IP Logged 
Марк wrote:
I recorded a Munster Irish poem and was told that my pronunciation was good.
http://narod.ru/disk/1188
7097001/mo%20chatin%202.mp3.html

Tá caitín agamsa atá bán agus buidhe,
I n-aice na tine a bhíonn sé ina luighe.
Ní féidir leis léaghadh, ní féidir leis scríobhadh,
Ní labhrann sé focal le muintir an tighe.
Bímse ar scoil ag obair go dian,
Is mo chaitín ag baile ina chodladh fén ngrian.


Wow! Your accent's really good!

I would agree about listening to irish first and then seeing how it's written. I know written guides help, but I've
taught Irish a lot and those guides seem to confuse my students more than anything.

As for which dialect you should chose. It's just like how a learner of English decides on American or British. I
speak Munster Irish so I think that's the best! There is a very neutral type of Irish from the East coast (mostly as
they learn from books rather than being native speakers). If you learn the most northern dialect even Irish
speakers from other parts of the country won't know what you're saying!!
1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6015 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 23 of 23
16 August 2011 at 10:42am | IP Logged 
CommanderK wrote:
@Ivensen Do you mean that I should learn Irish pronunciation by IPA?

The IPA isn't very helpful, because:

1) any new sound comes with a new symbol, so if you don't know the sound, you don't know the word.

2) The IPA is approximate, and uses the same symbol for slightly different sounds.

3) Most languages "simplify" the IPA to make it more easily readable in their dictionaries (for example, many drop the superscript-H after aspirated consonants). The Celtic languages have some horrible multiply-marked IPA symbols, and Celticists have generally abandonned them and replaced them with a lower/upper case letter distinction.

So I'd say you should start from (as others say) a description. Once you can match the description, you'll start to be able to hear the small differences between what you're doing and what you hear other people doing.


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