Sounds and Spelling of Irish / Fuaimniú & Litriú na Gaeilge
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ต.ค. 2014
- HANDOUT UPDATED November 2020 (new URL):
www.acleversheep.net/wp-conten...
Learn to pronounce Irish (Gaelic). A brief but thorough introduction to broad/slender, vowel combinations, fadas, séimhiú and urú. This reference is especially for North American learners of Irish.
Suggestions for improvement welcome.
NOTE: This is intended as an introduction to pronouncing Irish and as such does not cover all aspects of pronunciation in detail.
irish is such a beautiful elegant language. It should occupy the place french has in the world. You know, that language that makes people feel fancier about themselves. Irish is my french
:^)
Thank you so much! I'm trying to learn Irish on Duolingo because that's the only way available to me, but they only tell me how to pronounce a few of the words. None of it made any sense to me. I watched this and then went back to the same lesson, and was finally able to sound out "ainmhithe". This is too much information for a beginner to absorb all at once, but I had many "aha" moments while watching this, and I will come back to it often as I learn. Very helpful!
That's so cool to know that Irish has broad and slender like Russian. :) So for and russian speaker the difference between broad R and slender R is very distinctive :))
watching this I learned one important thing. It seems I am a phonetics geek.
Maruk yu kann :^)
If I make a follow-up video to this one, what would you like to see?
Several people have suggested more on broad and slender 'r'.
Would you like some practice words and phrases, where you see them first, try saying them, and then hear me pronounce them?
Thank you for your comments!
stwidgie I've only listened to the first 2 minutes of this video, so far and I think I've spotted a mistake.
It should be urú [uh-roo], not úrú [oo-roo]. Just letting you know.
By the way, which dialect are you using? There are lots of words that you pronounce a little differently to the way that I was taught.
stwidgie That would be very helpful, thanks! It'd be nice to have more information on the differences between broad and slender in consonants that weren't covered, like 'b' or 'c'.
stwidgie Well right now the broad and slender thing is what's mostly preventing me from pronouncing things right. It's very intuitive as you can probably guess. A 15 minute or so video of you just pronouncing words might help make it easier. Whatever it is just please don't stop. These videos are very helpful and about the only formal Irish learning aids I can find.
If I can place a request though, perhaps pronounce each word twice and then once more and a much slower speed, to help us better place the noise. Thanks a lot, cheers!
stwidgie
Maybe something on sandhi effects in the spoken language? I've read there are quite a few but I haven't found a systematic explanation about them. For example, and I realize that I haven't really got a real clue yet, "go raibh maith agat" sometimes seems to my ear rather like "go raibh mágat". Maybe the h sound is still there, but it seems the first a of "agat" has gone.
+stwidgie Yes, common phrases would be most helpful. Also, any "rules" as to feminine or masculine would also help. Yours are the most helpful videos I've seen so far to help me learn the language. Thank you for putting them together.
So nicely done. This is the clearest presentation on this topic that I have seen anywhere, including in Irish grammar books and dictionaries. Thank you. It is late now but if you ever do a follow up, I would love to see more examples. So for instance, a written paragraph from a children's story (so fairly simple Irish) spoken first and then followed by commentary on the application of the various rules you have explained. Thanks again.
A butt load of thanks and a farm pond of gratitude for this. I've never found a usable explanation of broad and slender consonant values. I was ready to chuck irish Gaelic for good when I stumbled across this.
I'm glad you're finding it helpful! I started out with a book and no cassettes and no reliable pronunciation key (it was sort of a faux IPA which made me cross) - so I gave up. Twenty years later I was able to join a class in Chicago and finally start learning. I made this video because no one should have to wait twenty years to do something they love.
This is the clearest and most logical explanation of Irish spelling/pronunciation I have ever seen. Thank you from someone who has been struggling with this for years!
I speak a few European languages and have always wanted to learn my parents' language, Irish. But, every time I've started, I've been put off by the spelling. This video is so clear that at last I've made sense of the sound and spelling rules. I'm now able to equate particularly the phonological rules with those of other languages such as Greek, which helps tremendously. Thank you so much!!!
My Grampa was the last of his family line who spoke fluent Gaeilge but he never taught much of it to the following generations before he died so I'm learning it on my own. This video helped a lot and made it so simple even I could understand it! LOL!
I'll be the 1st to admit my verbal skills are shite but I can read & write Gaeilge somewhat decently, nowhere near as well as my French. In Canada we also have 2 official languages, French is everywhere starting with Sesame Street & I had 10 years of it in school same as Gaeilge & English in Eire.
this is the first resource I've seen that made me feel like there might be hope; everything written is never going to help me because I need to hear these words spoken....slowly enough to hear the sounds. Thank you for doing this. I don't so much want to learn Irish as not be at a complete loss of how the words are pronounced....thank you.
Exactly I was looking for! Nicely structured, nicely put. Well done! Thanks, Karen!
Absolutely brilliant. I have looked for something like this for a long time. A million thanks!
You are awesome. Best 15 minutes spent in my life. Now I can read most things in irish gaelic without fear of making mistakes.
Very interesting. Irish words always looked weird to me (especially after hearing the actual pronunciation). Now I get an idea what it's all about. Also as a German it's interesting to see that we also have this broad/slender thing going on with ch even though we don't call it that.
This video answered so many questions and made everything make much more sense! keep em comin! :D
Finally a good explanation of the Irish pronunciation. Your video was very helpful. Thank you!
it wasn't quite clear in case of vowel combinations whether they are considered slender or broad, i.e. aoi? And pleease do proceed with Irish language lessons, this is the most clear and comprehensive one I've found so far.
Combinations are used so they can be slender to one side and broad to the other. For example, aoi is broad to the left and slender to the right.
Looks like the handout is no longer available. Glad the video is still here!
Wow, I understood A LOT from this video in comparison to the Wikipedia articles and other online articles that I bored myself with. I loved the way you explained things - it made everything a ton easier! 😀
Wonderful lesson. I hope you will post more.
Thank you! This is an excellent break down.
This is exactly what I needed to make Irish click for me Thank you.
A few points: the difference is indeed broad (velar/velarised/lip rounded) vs. slender (palatal/palatized/lip spread), not plain vs. palatized (this is just the speaker on the video). Also, the consonants are set to broad or slender; they are NOT heavily influenced by vowels but stay mostly as they are -you can hear glides, on or off a consonant ('tuí' [t̪ˠiː] is an example of a strong velar off-glide), rather than the consonant agree with the vowel. This is a mistake sometimes made by extending the logic of the orthography too far.
On phonology, it is often assumed (from English) that the only 'important' differences are those that parallel English (d/t/l/n/s, or the coronal consonants plus w & v) or are obvious to native English speakers (ch/gh). This is not the case, as languages vary by physical articulation as well as 'cognitive sensitivity' to contrasts (two languages can sound the same, but speaker brains pick out different differences. Native Irish is different on both accounts).
The video fails to differentiate the labial consonants, stops g and c, velar and palatal ng as well as giving broad and slender d & t as in English. The broad/slender difference is very clear in a good native speaker (though the contrast is often neutralised for l and n, word internally for younger speakers and the ng sounds are not always contrasted).
I will also add that in the West and in Donegal, there is a 3-way distinction for l and n (formerly 4), so 'nua', 'sloinne' and 'féin' would have different ns, and that slender r becomes broad before slender t/d etc nearly everywhere, and also that the speaker's slender r is pretty good :)
Séamus Ó Blainn Thank you for the more detailed explanation. It's more than I intended to get into for a video for beginners. Thanks for presenting the differences in more detail than I have been taught them.
This is very useful Every day I've got to thank you
This could not be clearer. Thanks so much!
Very helpful, thank you.
that was a great lesson i really want to learn Irish and that gives me the courage to forge on
A Karen, go raibh míle maith agat!
That’s one of the best explanations of Irish pronunciation I’ve seen. Very helpful! Will share this with my Irish course ;)
Stefan G M Tá fáilte romhat, a Stiofáin!
This is the clearest and most concise explanation of the Irish pronunciation system I've come across in nearly a decade of trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to learn Irish. It accurately reflects the pronunciation needed to pass oral examinations and converse in urban settings with other speakers who also learned their Irish in school.But it won't help very much if you visit a Gaeltacht and try to speak with a native speaker there. The Irish they speak is usually so different from "school" Irish that you can't understand them. It's almost as if the native Gaelgeoiri are diglossic and speak a different language than the written one. It's a lot like visiting Switzerland and expecting to hold a conversation in modern standard German (aka SchriftDeutsch).
Tá an ceart ar fad agat. You're quite right. I've had the experience of being competent in standard German and getting a gut wallop as I sat through a meal with my host family and understood next to nothing -- until it dawned on them that I didn't know their dialect. They switched to Hochdeutsch and it was as if someone had finally tuned in the frequency!
Practicing by watching TG4 with Irish subtitles (now finally available for some shows) can help.
Thanks a lot, Karen. This will help me for sure!
This was extremely helpful. Thanks very much.
thank you for this video! it helps so much.
Very good.
🔎great explanation! I thought this was very helpful. Thank you for doing this video.
Thank you and i can say it in irish too:Go raibh maith agat
great video....Im still in beginners 1, but I think it will be really useful to appreciate patterns in the words that we are learning
Go raibh mile maith agat
Seems it just wasn't available on my iPad for some reason. Happy to have the handout printed now. Thank you for making this available.
Updated handout April 2017:
drive.google.com/open?id=0B9VHiM8EUhqyYWh4cG1rU19XbFU
I had always learned, slender with slender and broad with broad, before and after a consonant, when it comes to vowels.
For example, the Irish words for "mother and sister." Máthair agus deirfiúr. Notice the position of the broad vowels in 'máthair' and the slender vowels in 'deirfiúr'? Many times, when it came to spelling, I may have wondered, "is it 'I-A' or is it 'A-I'?" Then recall that little slender with slender, broad with broad trick and realize, "It's a broad vowel before the consonant, that means it would be a broad vowel right after the consonant ... So it would be 'A-I'." You could say it is the Irish equivalent to the English, "I before E, except after C." However, like that English language trick, that Irish trick ... there are some rare exceptions. In those cases, you simply need to know those exceptions.
On a sidenote: Here is a link to a poem with the 51 English exceptions. facebook.com/georgehtakei/posts/665778686784921
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is so helpful
+Jamie Campbell You're very welcome. :^)
Many thanks for the help from the video. if you wouldn't mind, could you please write 'Fáilte' in the IPA?
This is very useful! Thank you!
ANNYLOST93 You're welcome. I'm glad you found it helpful.
This was *extremely* helpful, Karen! GRMA!
¬Niamh
The Rainbow Cauldron I'm glad you found it useful. TFR!
Very good video, thank you very much.
It's interesting to note that the vowels are almost exactly the same as in German. The distribution between normal and fada vowels is exactly the same as between short and long German vowels - the only slight exception is u, where I believe the German sound is still a little more rounded.
It's really interesting. Last week I spend a day on Inis Mór and got told by a native speaker that she is sometimes quite taken aback when some German folks walk into their shop and speak really well pronounced Irish. Even more than the ich and ach sounds, this similarity in vowel might be the real cause for that.
I imagine that native English speakers would have a much harder time in acquiring those vowels, considering the sort of impure English vowel system, which has off-glides after almost every vowel.
You did a really good job in pronouncing, though - assuming that you are indeed a native English speaker, as I suspect.
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! The handout is also extremely helpful. Go raibh maith agat!
Get Duolingo it's awesome it's an app and it really works
Nice video. Which I will need to come back to again and again. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this video. Am very new to speaking Irish but I dream of getting it right one day. Reading it has been a constant struggle and this helps a lot. Go raibh maith agat! :)
Get Doulingo it helped me a lot it's awesome and I know more Irish then ever before because of it
By the way it's an app
wow, great video.
Excellent guide. It would be great to hear examples and see/hear practice sentences. and longer pieces of text
+Fintan Smyth Thank you for the suggestion; I'll see what I can do.
I love this video! Thank you so much for making it!
This has been and continues to be so useful, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.
Ehm... I mean "go raibh mile maith agat!" ;)
Go raibh maith agat. Great post
more Irish learning videos please! i've subbed for this. no rush though :P
+q0w1e2r3t4y5 Thank you; I hope to find time this summer.
+stwidgie Thank you Karen.
So helpful
Pretty good on the whole, I'd say. It covers all the basics without getting bogged down in too much detail. Not bad for an American -- LOL!
Btw. for anyone who wants to get into dialect differences, you can have lots of fun using the three "listen" links on these pages, e.g. :
www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/o%C3%ADche_mhaith
(If YT have removed address you can Google "foclóir" and find it yourself. After looking up the word of your choice, hit the "Pronunciation" tab).
If nothing else it should boost your confidence to know that there's no one Right Way.
marconatrix I love it that there are now so many pronunciation samples there. Next I'd like to see audio of all the forms of the irregular verbs!
Tá sé seo go maith. Go raibh maith agat!
Thank you!!!!! Finaly I understand.... :)
My previous comment doesn't show up, so I'll say in brief what I said before: consonants are set to broad and slender, and are not heavily influenced by the nearby vowels. That is why we get the heavy glides, as the tongue 'refuses' to move. 'Caoi' [kˠʰɰiː] is a good example.
Also, there is no mention of contrasts on b,p,f,m, c, and g, while 'ng' is given in one form only. No velarisation is apparent on the broad t and d either
Séamus Ó Blainn Thank you for the clarifications. I think about the nature of broad and slender differently, or I guess I'm less concerned about whether vowels induce it on consonants or the other way round than I am about how to help beginners pronounce words reasonably confidently. You're right that I didn't include every broad/slender contrast - just the ones I thought most critical to help beginning learners.
Are the handouts still available? The document links didn't work. Great video!
Updated the handout April 2017:
drive.google.com/open?id=0B9VHiM8EUhqyYWh4cG1rU19XbFU
tá sin an mhaith would it be possible for you to email me the sheets for this as some of the screen shots are very blurred grma
Generally good, but I'd like to hear the distinction between broad "t" and "d" and the English sounds of these letters, which really is quite different. In all three dialects, broad "t" and "d" are pronounced with the tongue against the back of the top teeth, which gives them a very different sound from the English letters, which are pronounced with the tongue tipping off the hard palate.
Audrey Nickel Thank you for the suggestion!
You ask for 'Suggestions for improvement'
2 things I noticed
- The 1st letter of the Irish alphabet is 'a' is never pronounced as you do throughout 'æ'; it is NOT an English 'a'
In the section on séimhiú (for s), you give as an example: lá breithe shona
lá is a masculine noun and hence the s would not be aspirated
Right you are - thank you for pointing those out. I've replaced that example on the updated handout:
drive.google.com/open?id=0B9VHiM8EUhqyYWh4cG1rU19XbFU
Where can I find this list? It would be very nice to have on paper, for making notes
The latest version of the handout is here: drive.google.com/file/d/0B9VHiM8EUhqyYWh4cG1rU19XbFU/view?usp=sharing
Wow! Exactly what I was looking for! Only the broad and slender r could be more explained. That's the letter I have most difficulties with! :|
Solar Wind Thanks for the feedback. Several people have mentioned that. I'll see what I can do.
any way to get copies of the handouts featured in this vid?
The latest version of the handout is here: drive.google.com/file/d/0B9VHiM8EUhqyYWh4cG1rU19XbFU/view?usp=sharing
Great video. The narrator is learned. I think the dialectical differences would make parts of this video inaccurate though.
You're right - dialects can sound very different from the caighdeán! This is meant to be a simple(ish) guide to get started pronouncing Irish with some confidence.
Hello, thanks very much for this video. I notice that the /l/ in /sile/ is not pronounced as slender/palatal, why is that? I also can't hear that the broad consonants are truly velarised, they just sound neutral to me. So this makes me wonder about the nature of the contrast. (ps I'm a linguist and very happy to see some IPA, makes it so much easier to get pronunciation right!)
Doug Marmion You're welcome, Doug. Well, I'm not a native speaker, so I may be downplaying or missing the palatalization in some situations. I suspect the length of the previous vowel moderates the power of the final e to influence the 'l'. Compare the word for poet: file.
I'd say the contrast is +palatal vs. neutral, but that's just my intuitive understanding of it. I'm sure there are proper phonetic studies out there.
BTW, there are lots of great audio samples at focloir.ie - you might find that helpful.
And yes, IPA is a wonderful thing!
In short words like that, the l can be plain, the reason being that the system of broad and slender was added to an ancient strong and weak system inherited from Celtic (apparently), like how Italians speak, so you got a 4-way contrast, but as Old Irish developed only l, n, and r (and m) maintained the 'heavy' articulation and you got 4 r sounds, 4 l sounds, and 4 n sounds (whether there was ever a strong slender r is unknown, there is no evidence for it, even from speakers born prior to the Famine).
Anyway, the system throws up the potential for 4 l sounds, and while the weak broad l has been lost as a contrast in the West and Donegal (and the South has just 2 anyway), it's hard to be clear at all times with the weak slender l, so it can vary from clearer to darker, so is written about as plain in some of the newer studies.
Thar a bheith spéisiúil. Go maire sibh. Buíochas. Brian
Great stuff,one small caveat the biggest problem for Irish learners is double consonants vs single consonants.Most learners and indeed teachers tend to ignore this.Go back and listen to how you pronounced the word "baile" there is no "ll" in Baile hope this helps
Thanks for pointing that out - you're absolutely right.
ceartúchán beag, mura miste leat: urú (mícheart: úrú. Tá "scour" nó "washing" ar úrú ach "eclipsis" ar urú.)
Tá an ceart ar fad agat, GRMA. Cheartaigh mé an bhileog ach níor aimsigh mé am go dtí seo chun an físeán a athdhéanamh. Tá sé ar an liosta!
The slender R sounds somewhat like the "s" in the word measure, to me. Is it so?
Roberto Dias Vieira That's a good approximation. The degree of hiss and length vary by speaker and context.
I have to say that as a chinese speaker (not as first language) this is quite more difficult than chinese pronunciation (except for the tones).
Interesting! I find that each language I've studied has some aspects which are simpler and others which are more elaborate. I believe they balance each other out. For example, Irish has a wealth of initial mutations, but conjugations for regular verbs are really simple.
I didn't quite understand what is "úrú" for and when is it used. Can you explain, please?
Mistake when I made the video: urú not úrú. Urú (eclipsis, nasalization) is one of the main initial mutations in Irish. It occurs in different situations, such as after the preposition 'i' or after plural possessives: ár, bhur, a. A good grammar should help you find other situations that call for urú.
Who was the drunken monk who gave Irish such a complicated writing system?! Beautiful language, but its writing system is freaking scary!
+Nycco Mcwackynuts GOA (= LOL as Gaeilge).
Hahaha makes a lot of sense. :3
It's not complicated. It's just not English. And shocker for you: not every language that uses the *Roman* alphabet uses it the same as English. Unlike in English, every sound in Irish is spelled the exact same way every time, with very few exceptions. Learn the sounds, learn how they are spelled, and you can pretty much say and spell any word minus a few minor errors. There's no "thawt, threw, thurrow, tuff (i.e. thought, through, thorough, tough)" nonsense in Irish.
English is another mess. SHOCKER FOR YOU: I speak up to four languages and I know they're all different and have crazy writting systems or at least really weird spelling rules. Don't take it so personally. I didn't mean to offend any one. Take it easy. You sound angry. :(
My sentiments exactly, but better expressed! :)
Amazing teaching
Go raibh maith agat!
How many people still pronounce the /ˠ/ in broad consonants in Ireland? Do they still say /fˠ/ instead of /f/?
Samuel Lo I think some native speakers still do.
Samuel Lo What is written by /fˠ/ in phonological transcriptions is realised as [fw] before front vowels (/fˠi:/ = [fwi:]) in phonetics. Before back vowels it's more or less a normal f. By the way, older speakers use a bilabial f (and also a bilabial v) in Irish.
The actual pronunciation is rushed, as though the viewer knows how to make the sounds already. It needs to be slower, and maybe repeated. otherwise admirable attempt. Also, what are the consonants and their default sound?
Go deas. = Nice.
New video: The Three Bears read aloud
th-cam.com/video/UpOfCd0P34U/w-d-xo.html
I would like to understand how to pronounce past participles
+Caoimhín Ó Murċaḋa There's an interesting idea. Are you talking about 'verbal nouns', e.g. feicthe, ólta, oscailte, ceannaithe ?
Verbal adjectives as they are called
Maidir leis an Séimhiú, ceard faoi an ainm 'Siobhán'? Tá litreacha leathan ann roimh agus tar éis an ainm, ach deirtear leis an fuaim 'v'.
Sea, sea, níl freagra agam ach "sin é mar atá sé".
If anyone is looking to greatly improve their Irish maybe you haven't learnt Irish before that's fine just get the app Duolingo it's awesome it helped me a lot so anyone who wants to learn should get it.
Oh and by the way you can learn more than just Irish on it too
Hello, I don´t understand why they use other words to write it when it is nothing to do with the real pronuntiation, for example : Dia duit ( the first word is ok, but the second is pronounced something like "gich" or "jich" or "jid" or "rid" instead of what we see: "duit" or "dit" or "dut"...
+Dragon Jkd The second word actually is dhuit (with the lenited d), so it sounds something like ghich. The problem here is that almost all Irish dialects here do lenite duit, but the standard norm does not, so it is most often written as Dia duit, and not Dia dhuit (which is actually pronounced by most language users).
Same with Dia daoibh/dhaoibh. You can find both variants on the web.
+Dragon Jkd because it is actually "dhuit" in that position. Some spelling conventions don't spell it "dhuit" and keep it as "duit." DH is /ɣ/ not /d/. The "t" at the end of "duit" is next to an "i" which makes it a slender consonant, and thusly pronounced /tʲ/ insitead of /t/. /tʲ/ sounds a bit like "ch" in English.
Mysteries solved!
Haigh a Phóil Stiobhard - tá an bhileog ar fáil anseo: drive.google.com/file/d/0B9VHiM8EUhqyUEFqOXpTcDg3Tmc/view?usp=sharing
stwidgie go raibh maith agat! I was looking for this list.
so many to remember...excellent video though!
GRMA
a lot of irish is based off dialect. for instance i go to school in leinster and do the leinster dialect, however my teacher learned the munster dialect and so we would pronounce ceithre differently. so thats important to note aswell
Right you are. I tried to note a couple things that are particular to Munster Irish (séimhiú pronunciations), but of course there's more to it than that.
An dtuigeann tú "tuigim"? Ni thuigim!
Is breá liom an scannan seo. Go raibh mile maith agat é a roinnt dúinn.
maith thú
omg! so complicated! It would be nicer to use dots and marks on or under the letters instead of H, this endless H, these chains of silent letters and the whole alphabet just to say one sound. Aeioughghbhmhaeioughhh
+John Smith before the h was used dots were put above the letters getting sémhiu
Practice words and phrases would be wonderful, especially if pronounced very s-l-o-w-l-y, with each syllable separate from the others. Once each words is thus clarified, then it could be spoken at a speed considered "slow" by a native speaker. The final iteration could be at normal speed for a native. As an aural rather than visual learner, I've had great difficulty committing the pronounciation rules to memory, never mind putting them into actual practice. I tried learning from several different teachers but always felt that there was insufficient time spent on any one area.
That's a great suggestion - thank you.
the way things are pronounced is a lot like faroese.
I was thinking that many words are similar to Portuguese...
Marek Arawn well some of the ppl from irelands dna traces to spain
Apparently Portuguese gets some of its pronunciation from a proto-celtic language. I would guess that this is the stem of the similarities.
Very complicated....
Urú, not úrú.
+preasail You are absolutely right. Mea culpa.
I drink IPA
Harry Balzak Maith thú! Ní maith liom an bheoir IPA. :^p
stwidgie Is IPA an beoir is fearr
Overall this is a good video but there are a number of significant mistakes throughout. This is almost inevitable, however, when Irish is being taught by a non-native speaker. My best suggestion for improvement would be to research native Irish speaker resources for learning Irish and recommend them to viewers at the end of the video or in the suggestion box as a follow up that has more potential for accuracy.
This is also extremely important for cultural reasons. Irish is a minority language that is struggling to survive. To have people from a more dominant culture/language group explaining our language to the world is not the most culturally sensitive thing. Compare it with a white person making videos to explain the struggles of African Americans. For a majority culture to explain a minority culture, while a step in the right direction, is not the answer. It is better to give a voice to the minority culture and allow them to explain their own experiences. For this reason, recommending native Irish speakers or resources in your videos would be highly beneficial to the Irish language community.
Nonetheless, seeing Irish brought to a wider audience is always a good thing and one that as a native Irish speaker, I highly appreciate. I hope you keep learning Irish and spreading it as much as possible.
Thank you for the constructive comments. I've learned a lot from the feedback people have given me here.
While I agree with you that a native speaker is the best source for authentic pronunciation, I won't apologize for trying to share what I've learned as a student of Irish. I know how hard it is to hear the distinctions between broad and slender if you didn't grow up with that. I know how frustrated I was trying to study on my own without a satisfactory explanation of how to pronounce the written word.
I don't claim to be a native speaker, and I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. Thank you again for letting me know how this made you feel, and I like your idea of steering people to native speakers. Do you have a favorite resource you'd recommend that would be accessible to beginning learners who don't live in Ireland?
why not simplify? so much ink wasted on typing all those hbhgsss and endless silent letters or four-letter combinations which only give one sound and could easily be written by one letter! Same applies to English, French and other not very phonetically written languages, but Irish seems to be an ink waster, too.
I rather go to prison than to listen to that crap again , it would put you off learning Irish , man help me