hi,
I have just recently started learning irish with the book Learning Irish by Micheal O'Siadhail. After having listened to many of the audio recordings supplied with the book, i am still somewhat unsure of the right mode of articulation of certain consonants. I have in particular a lot of trouble with saying the slender 'r'. I have read many descriptions on websites as to how to pronounce this sound but I still can't seem to arrive to a statisfying result. Is there any way i can get this sound right? Is it possible to get a video version of the pronounciation of irish consonants?

I have also another question. Some consonants have a so-called u-offglide or i-offglide depending on the context. I have learned that these are not individual vowel sounds but rather the result of the connecting articulation of the consonant. Now I was wondering, is it the same thing for labial consonants such as b,m,f,p,bh,mh. It seems to me impossible to pronounce these letters with a natural i or u offglide, I always have to add an extra 'wuh' or 'yuh' sound after saying them. How do I say these properly?

Help please!

quote:

I have in particular a lot of trouble with saying the slender 'r'.

Tá sé an-chosúil leis an 'j' i bhFraincis. Ça ressemble beaucoup au 'j' français. Ach tá sé níos teinne. Mais la langue est plus raide.

quote:

Now I was wondering, is it the same thing for labial consonants such as b,m,f,p,bh,mh. It seems to me impossible to pronounce these letters with a natural i or u offglide, I always have to add an extra 'wuh' or 'yuh' sound after saying them.

Bíonn /w/ beag le cloisteáil idir na litreacha sin - b,m,f,p,bh,mh - agus guta caol a thagann ina ndiaidh. On écoute un petit /w/ après ces consonnes et une voyelle 'mince' qui les suit, c'est-à-dire /i/ /i:/ /e/ /e:/. C'est justement un 'w' comme en anglais, donc "buí" se prononce 'bwee'.

1. You should join the yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coisfhairrge/ studying this very book. The people there can help you a lot.

2. I don't think a comparison with a French "je" is at all correct or helpful. It is completely the wrong sound. Lughaidh will probably confirm that. The slender r is an "apical" sound, formed with the tip of the tongue - I am not sure that this is the case with the French sound, which I thought was more palatal. The slender r has been described as apical post-alveolar fricative: It is made with the tip of the tongue, a little behind the teeth ridge. In terms of the IPA:

/ʒ/ is not /rʲ/

3. Angmar, to get it exactly right, it is the quality of the consonant that makes it slender or broad. The shape of the mouth when saying bó is different from beo - the latter has much more spread lips. And it is owing to that the different quality of the consonant that some glide vowels are pronounced. If you get the consonant right, the glide will come naturally.

Now with most consonants there is not a u-glide. In terms of the IPA:

broad t = tˠ
slender t = tʲ

in the case of labials the glide is a wː

broad b = bʷ
slender b = bʲ

Could Dennis put his explanation in English please, sorry, early learners do not have all the vocabulary yet. Even if it is not 'exactly' correct, understand his explanation may work for 'up and commers."
GRMA

A Dennis,

I've always wondered why the slender "r" in Irish is described as having a "z" sound to it. Now, with your explanation above, I think I understand, go raibh maith agat. For example, when I hear the word "láidir", pronounced by native/fluent speakers I hear the quality of that French "j" that you describe, rather than a "z" sound which it is often (mistakenly?) called.

Idea: I always enjoy reading posts in Irish here; I think it's the way we learners get better at Irish. When there's a request for translation of a post from Irish to English, maybe some of us learners could give a try at translating?

What do you think about that idea, a Dennis agus a Aonghuis agus you other native/fluent speakers? It would avoid the burden of having the native/fluent speakers translate and give us learners an opportunity to improve our Irish. I thought I would present the idea, good or bad since I don't think it would be appropriate to take the liberty of translating your postings myself.

P.S. Maybe some of us other learners would like to try their hand at it? I would like to hear from fellow learners whether this is a bad or good idea.

Go raibh maith agaibh.

Dennis was only interested in feeling "adequate" (his terms not mine); why else would you place a dual language post in Irish and French to a learner?

quote:

sorry, early learners do not have all the vocabulary yet

An bhfuil foclóir acu? Dá bhfuil aon ceann acu, feic:

http://www.englishirishdictionary.com/

P.S. The posting above from "Mac Léinn Aistriúchán" was from me.

FRC-GRMA

Mura bhfuil foclóir agat?

Scríobh Kieran: Mura bhfuil foclóir agat?

Mise, a Kieran? Tá. Ar mhaith leat sin a fháil ar iasacht?

quote:

Idea: I always enjoy reading posts in Irish here; I think it's the way we learners get better at Irish. When there's a request for translation of a post from Irish to English, maybe some of us learners could give a try at translating?

Maith an smaoineamh!

quote:

why else would you place a dual language post in Irish and French to a learner?

Toisc gur Québecois é Angmar. Tabhair súil ar a phrofile. Scríobh mé ar ais chuige ina theanga féin, agus i nGaeilge don chuid eile againn. Ní raibh fonn orm Béarla a úsaíd. Bhfuil tú sásta leis an míniú sin?

Is mise sásta...

profile-shrofile

Mac Leinn a chara,

You registered. But what about your fun names that change each time? You always keep people guessing. :)

Beir bua agus beannacht

A Riona, thanks for the compliment about fun names. I shall miss them. I suppose I could re-register everytime I make a posting....... just kidding Caoimhím! .

But I think I'll be busy as a junior translator, thanks to Dennis' approval in his posting above. So...... how 'bout it a Ríona - would you like to help with the translations?

I think I'll start another thread in regard to us learners helping with translations for beginners.

quote:

Tá sé an-chosúil leis an 'j' i bhFraincis. Ach tá sé níos teinne.

Bíonn /w/ beag le cloisteáil idir na litreacha sin - b,m,f,p,bh,mh - agus guta caol a thagann ina ndiaidh.

It is very similar to the 'j' in French. But it is not as ridgid.

The /w/ is small (not as noticable?) when heard between these letters - b, m, f, p, bh, mh - and followed by slender vowels.

Er den riktig? Jeg kunne ikke finne "teinne", men jeg fand "raide".

Thank you Dennis for your reply,

unfortunately I still don't know how to pronounce correctly a slender 'r'. Telling me that it's like a French 'j' but with the tongue being stiffer doesn't tell me very much how to produce this sound(although I do speak French). I think I can more or less make a similar 'r' sound as on the audios I heard but i would like just the same to have it described to me. Would you or anyone mind giving me a clear description of how to make this sound, please?

I would also be interested to know wether it's possible to get a video version of the pronounciation of irish consonants. I'm worried since i am a beginner, about fossilizing mitakes into my pronounciation making it therefor harder later on to correct.

As for Kieran thanks,

but I'm still a bit confused about the offglide thing. Do you mean to say that a word like 'tuí' (which to me sounds somewhat like 'twee') gets its 'w' glide sound from its quality not from the fact that its an added sound to make the consonant broad. To me it seems impossible to pronounce a broad 't' (tip of the tongue against the teeth) with a natural offglide resulting from its place of articulation. I would tend to add when saying 'tuí' somekind of a semi-vowel 'w' after the broad 't' as in the english word 'betWeen'(but with the 't' being dental as in French).

Any help would be appreciated!!

I could explain, but...I promised not to. Very frustrating.

A good place to start for Irish pronunciation is the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_phonology

As I said previously an offglide w is only heard after labial consonants, not after a t, so pronouncing tuí as "twee" would be completely wrong. The transcription used for a broad t is /tˠ/, ie a highly velarized t. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velarization
The glide does not come from the place of articulation, but from the manner of articulation - the fact that a broad consonant is heavily velarized.

Labials

A palatalized consonant has a very closed mouth, as if you are trying to pronounce a "y" at the same time as the consonant, making your tongue hug the roof of the mouth, and making the lips smile. If you pronounce a "b" like that and then an "o" it will sound like you have said "byo", but there is no independent "y" sound after the b, it is just that having palatalized the b, this glide sound naturally intervenes. If you do a palatalized "b" and then an "i" the glide is not so apparent, as the mouth is not moving as much as in the case where you go from a palatalized "b" to an "o".

A velarized consonant is the opposite of a palatalized one: the tongue does not hug the roof of the mouth but makes a hollow inside the mouth and the shape of the lips is much more centralized. In the case of a broad "b" the shape of the mouth is the same as for a "w", a bit like you set up to say a "w" and then say a "b" instead, but keeping the deep internal mouth contour all the same. So when you go from saying a broad "b" like this to an "i" it will sound like you have said "bwee". The glide is not as evident when you say "bo" as the broad "b" is being followed by a broad vowel, ie one where the shape of the mouth is similar to that for the consonant "w".

Others

Let me start the other way round with "t". A palatalized t is where the tongue hugs the roof the mouth, so palatalized t followed by o, sounds like "tyo". A palatalized t followed by an i sounds like something inbetween "tee" and "chee". And in fact I believe Irish dialects have a continuum of pronunciation from tee to chee, with a genuine palatalized t in between. If you have no Irish people where you live, you could ask a Russian to demonstrate some of these sounds as Russian has the broad and slender contrast too.

The broad t: a velarized mouth shape, but not labialized as with the labial consonants. I believe the official IPA symbol is /tˠ/ with a suspended gamma, because the /ɣ/ itself stands for a voiced velar fricative - ie the voiced equivalent of the sound in the German word "ach". Actually /ɣ/ is the sound of the g in the German words "sagen", and sounds quite similar to a French "r". The point is that if you set the mouth up to pronounce velar sounds like the /ɣ/, and instead pronounce a t, you would have the right mouth shape. It is a deep mouth shape. If you go from a broad "t" to an "i" it can sound like an offglide of sorts is produced -but not a "w".

Find a Russian and ask him to pronounce the following:

бы, бо
би, бео
ты, то
ти, тео

Mise: Tá sé an-chosúil leis an 'j' i bhFraincis. Ach tá sé níos teinne.

Aaron: It is very similar to the 'j' in French. But it is not as ridgid.

Recte: But it is more rigid.

Mise: Bíonn /w/ beag le cloisteáil idir na litreacha sin - b,m,f,p,bh,mh - agus guta caol a thagann ina ndiaidh.

Aaron: The /w/ is small (not as noticable?) when heard between these letters - b, m, f, p, bh, mh - and followed by slender vowels.

Recte: There is (always) a little 'w' to be heard between those letters and a slender vowel which comes after them.

quote:

Er den riktig?

Half riktig a déarfainn. ;-)

quote:

I still don't know how to pronounce correctly a slender 'r'.

Ní nach ionadh. Tá múinteoir - duine beo os do chomhair - ag teastáil uait. Pas de surprise. Tu as besoin d'un prof en chair et en os, quelqu'un sur place pour t'enseigner.

A Angmar,

Regarding your initial question about the pronunciation of a slender "r" in Irish, here's what I found in the pronunciation guide of Teach Yourself Irish by Ó Sé and Sheils:

quote:

The slender r is like a combination of r with the sound of s in leisure, e.g. Máire, cuir.

This description seems to fit well with Dennis' comparison of the slender "r" in Irish to the "j" in French.

Mac Léinn Consan Caola

I'd say that Irish slender r is half way between the French j, a z and a one tap alveolar r. The z sound isn't far either.

Hey thanks everyone,
I guess I’ll have to look this up a bit more by my own. But I have one more question: do you suggest i should try getting the pronunciation right before i actually start on Irish grammar or should I just move along and learn it properly as I go through the stuff. What would be your method? Although i have recordings of native speakers it still seems like a hard thing to do (yes, I’m somewhat of a perfectionist). Anyway in the future i will probably get a teacher as suggested Dennis. But for now what do you guys suggest I should do?

Not everyone is the same - but for me, weeks of making sounds in front of the mirror would be frustrating and thoroughly unrewarding. I need to learn words and put the words into sentences.

I'd say get the pronunciation approximately right - well enough that you can be understood - but don't worry about sounding native-speaker-like just yet. That'll come with time and practice, and in the meantime you'll still be able to communicate just fine if your vocabulary and grammar are able for it. (Think of how easily you understand English speakers even if they have fairly thick accents.)

Angmar,
there is only a few dozen sounds, a few hundred common verbs, and rules for other things like relative sentances, verbal nouns, copula that you need to know. The grammar is more intrinsic as you need to use it accross examples/cases as there is no end to the sentances you can generate with a few rules.

So, I would say, no grammar, no language. So, grammar would be give more weight, in my opinion