quote:In hindsight, I have made a clear mistake:
/nairi:n/ should have been /nair'i:n/ pronounced with the slender "r".
Well, in Connemara, probably the n's would be different too: I'd guess /N'air'i:N/. Isn't the first one slender since it's followed by an é ?
quote:Again, given the context, though, I think that a Scottish "r" would be more acceptable to an Irish speaker than an English one, would it not?
Yeah of course.
quote:I believe that there are degrees of precision. You often just have to give beginners rough equivalents at first and let them work towards finer precision over time. Your phonetic transcription is a beautiful work of art, Lughaidh, but requires a lot of background knowledge that is probably not available to the learner in this case to decipher it. Context sometimes requires simplifications.
Yeah but we never know if the person who's asked the questions can read IPA or not... It may happen ! :-D
quote:I see that you have used [ɾ̝] for the slender "r". What IPA symbol(s) do you use for the Scottish "r"? What about the Spanish "r"? Are the Scottish "r" and the Spanish "r" significantly different from each other ?
I've not studied these languages so I can't say. I know there are two r-phonemes in Spanish, a one-tap r [ɾ] and a trill [r]. I'd say both exist in Scottish English, although they are not phonemes (I think).
Now about the way they are realised in these 2 languages, as I said I've not studied these languages so I can't say more.
quote:I am still trying to find a good way to explain the slender "r" sound to English speakers who don't know a foreign langauge (or at least an explanation for times when I cannot assume that they do). It seems almost like the french "j" in je /ʒə/ or the /ʒ/ sound in "version" /vɜ:(r)ʒən/ yet subtly different, further back onto the alveolar ridge, but this is not easy to explain to someone who speaks only English.
I usually say that the sound is halfway between the zh-sound (as in pleasure), z, and a one-tap r (as t or d between vowels in parts of America... I guess).
quote:Is there a sound in English that is closer than the /ʒ/? Even if we cannot expect a perfect match, I think we can at least look for the "nearest closest fit".
Yeah. I gave the IPA just in case Sandra knew it...