I'm on Unit 4 of TY Irish. In the dialogue at the beginning the word beidh (and bheidh) was used several times. I listened to the reading four or five times, and I swear I heard it pronounced as both bay and bye at different points in the recording. Can someone explain this to me?

Since I've started to learn Irish the hardest thing hands down has been pronunciation. I've been through the guide in my book (with audios CDs) probably 3 or 4 times now, but I'm still terrified of saying anything outloud from fear of imprinting it incorrectly into my memory. I'm quite sure I don't even pronounce Éire or Gaeilge correctly.

It's very frustrating because I feel I can't say even one sentence accurately, which makes me not use any Irish outside of my textbook (online, reading books, etc.) because I'll just say every word wrong, and I feel like I can't seriously move on to anything else as I haven't mastered this most elementary aspect of the language. Do all you other students have this much trouble, or is the pronounciation guide in TY just crap? I'm usually pretty good with language, but I'm so stuck with this. =( I never had any sort of trouble with Russian, or Mandarin, or German ...

I'd love to hear any advice you have! Thanks for your help!

Dia dhuit!

I hate to be blunt but I think that you should relax and let yourself make mistakes. I'm just starting and it is frustrating that the word for Gaelic is so impossible for me to say. But as I've moved on (I've been stuyding 3 months) that other words are coming out somewhat right. I took an online class called Gaeltalk, and in the audio many of the words were said differently by different people living in the same region, taking into account that there are so many regions I think you can get away with just going for it. I wouldn't worry. I learned the Spanish "t" wrong for years but when I got more advanced someone pointed it out and I was still able to improve. You could sign up for a class with a live speaker and let yourself make mistakes :) so you can get corrected if you need to!

shoshana
ps. easy for me to say. i got so freaked out over the "copula" that I just gave up for a week in despair!

Shoshana's explanation was quite complete, so I can only add a further example regarding dialectical variations: the word maith. In the Ulster dialect, it's pronounced as the English word "my," where as in the other major dialects (Connaught and Munster) it's pronounced as the English word "Ma" (as in the affectionate word for "Mother").

So, maybe one way of thinking about the issue of correct pronunciation is consciously or subconsciuosly allow yourself to "choose" one of the dialectical forms and after time, you'll gain familiarity with the others. Since I ascribe to the "all dialects are equal" theorem, I don't think you're really not using neither incorrectly.

If you want my opinion, there seems to be some sort of feedback 'loop' between input/output; that is, if one can read Irish, one can then write it to some degree (assuming one is literate to begin with).

As for speaking, the logic would be that if one can't hear the words/or can't speak them, one is a bit hobbled too

The strange thing for me is that most of the language courses want you to speak immediatly, before one is even able to generate a sentance. This leads to a lot of frustration on the part of the learner.

I've found Mícheál Ó Siadhail's Learning Irish useful as one can just learn by reading the texts and checking back once something is unclear. The strenghth of that is that constructions like 'ceann eile' become (more) clear because they are in context, ex: "sa seomra, tá planda in aice leis an bhfuinneog, ach tá ceann eile in aice leis an doras"

As for pronounciation, most courses cop out by telling you that irish sounds like english (untrue), or give ropey comparisons which are generally false. Any attempt to follow them renders sppech unlike the recordings. A good dialect study will contain instructions on where to place the tongue. Besides, hearing the difference can even take longer than learning to make the sounds!

In Munster, beidh is pronounced "beh" or "bay" (without the y-glide at the end) when the following subject is "mé, tú, sé, sí, sibh, siad, mise, tusa... etc, and seo, sin, siúd" (ie. all personal pronouns, or seo, sin, siúd). In other cases, it is pronounced beg /b'eg'/.

In Donegal, beidh is /b'e/ (beh) when the subject is mé, tú, etc (same list as above, and /b'ej/ (bay) in other cases.

In Connemara, beidh is "beh" before pronouns as above, and often "bye" before other subjects.


so:

beidh sé... /b'e s'e:/ (Ulster, Munster and Connemara).
beidh Seán /b'ej s'æ:n/ (Ulster), /b'eg' s'ɑːn/ (Munster), /b'aj s'ɑːN/ (Connemara)