Hello all,

I have a doubt regarding the way most people tackle learning pronunciation; consider this two excepts:





This is from TYI (Dillon / Ó Cróinín), which is on the heavier side of the spectrum in terms of grammar emphasis from what I've gathered, but my doubt is independent of the specific resource used: I seem to be unable to memorise and even sometimes understand the gist of this sort of descriptions. As soon as I have convinced myself I understood them I start to read the next one but my brain behaves like a queue, only keeping the most recent reading and forgetting everything before; on the other hand listening to the exercise sound files over and over seems to work much better, especially since many times (but not always of course) the rather convulsed way pronunciation is explained in terms of English has a direct, native and natural equivalent in Portuguese (i.e. I'm spending half a page dedicated to teach others how to say a sound which is native - or at least close enough - to me, and I only this is not always obvious).

So, two questions:

1) Is my apparent inability to memorise from the very beginning the pronunciation rules something that I should address immediately because it is indeed fundamental to drill it in before anything else, or is it somewhat common amongst learners to skim it, go on with reading, speaking and writing and hope that further exposure will in the end make the explanations more easily understood, a more "back and forth" approach? Feedback is important to me because I'm not sure if my difficulties are to be expected or if they stem from a specific shortcoming on my part.

2) For those whose native language is not English but are learning Irish through that medium, do you find that this makes it harder to understand some concepts? I must say that the whole broad/slender subject confuses me to no end and I'm unsure if it is partially due to this indirection.


Thanks!

Given that IPA might as well be Greek as far as I'm concerned, I certainly wouldn't find the descriptions helpful.

In any case, I think that any written rendering of the sounds of a language is no more than an approximation. The best way to learn the sounds of a language is by listening and imitating -- preferably native speakers, but if that's not an option, emulating fluent speakers who have good pronunciation. And the best way to make sense of the spelling system in Irish is to look at words while listening to, and then repeating, the correct pronunciation.

I suspect those pronunciations in TYI are meant to be an auxiliary to the recorded lessons, and not really intended to be used on their own.

When I teach a beginners' class, the students always want some kind of printed pronunciation guide, but when they get one, they're totally overwhelmed by it. I give one to them, go over it with them, then tell them to put it away and only pull it out if they absolutely need to for reference. We address pronunciation in context.

Redwolf

Edited to add: When learning by ear, do be careful to listen only to speakers who are either native or are generally acknowledged to have decent pronunciation. Learning the wrong thing straight off can make it that much harder for you to correct yourself down the road. Be especially careful if you use songs for ear-training: Not everyone who sings in Irish had good, or even acceptable, pronunciation, and music has a tendency to make things "stick."

The rules at the beginning of the book weren't meant to be memorized.
After all of the rules are given, it says at the bottom of page 19:

"Obviously these rules for aspiration and eclipsis are not to be memorised. They are given together here, so that you may refer to them when you are puzzled by examples in the Lessons."

So there you have it. Just forge ahead with the lessons and refer to these rules whenever you need to.
I know what you mean; my first language is not English, (but I'm allegedly pretty fluent – ha, ha) and it's easy to see that these explanations are made for English speakers – but you'll still get a lot out of them.

Yes I agree when you look at the way they explain the pronunciation, it does seem pretty bewildering.
If you look up the words in the on-line dictionary, you also have the possibility of not only checking how the word is used, but you can click on the grammar to see what the genitive and the plural forms are and you can click on the pronunciation and listen to it in the three main dialects.
For instance - maoin - sounds like mween, whereas mín sounds like a long 'mean' if you see what I mean.

http://www.breis.focloir.ie/ga/fuaim/maoin
I tried putting in their pronunciation for mín, but the link doesn't work.

I find the difference between their pronunciation for labhair and leabhair difficult to pin down.

Thank you Redwolf, WeeFalorieMan and franc91 for your insightful comments, which were as always highly appreciated. Based on them I will not be particularly concerned at my inability to commit to memory everything that is explained about pronunciation but will instead focus on the vocabulary in order to assimilate those rules more naturally and then revisit the theory.

Having said that, and while not directly related to the topic, what do people generally complement TYI with? I have read the Munster Irish learning resources but I'm not sure if there is something that complements TYI rather demanding nature. I have also used Buntús Cainte (I think that the sonority of it is very good, if I'm not mistaken it's broadly based in the Connacht pronounciation which sometimes doesn't get a lot of love) since I find that the way it drills things in is quite good - that being said I'm trying to begin with something from a single "region" since I noticed I was mixing and matching words and it was having a negative influence on how I was reading some words. From a purely vocab POV though, it's hard to fault it.

The verb conjugations that are on the Cork Irish site are what you need if you're learning from the original Teach Yourself Irish.

Here's the link:
https://corkirish.wordpress.com/verb-conjugation/

edit: This page'll help you out a lot, too:
https://corkirish.wordpress.com/pronunc ... ntonation/

Great stuff, thanks!

You're welcome!

You can also listen to Conchúr on forvo:
http://www.forvo.com/user/Conchur/

* edit: I just clicked on the link that I gave you and I noticed that all of the recordings from May 9th 2014 sound like some kind of weird alien voice.
Fortunately, all of the other sound files are okay, as far as I can tell.

Also, there is a very good Munster speaker named Carmanach on forvo. He doesn't have his own account, but he has posted some good pronunciations that you might run across when you look for specific words.

It's the Alpha Centauri dialect of Irish, it has a distinct feel to it and is under threat from the CO!

More seriously, thank you for the hint, I knew Forvo but not that particular speaker.

heh, heh …

You should also check out Pimsleur Irish if you haven't done that already.

Here's a link to the one that's for sale on Amazon in the U.S.:
http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Understand- ... and+simple

Of course, you should order one from someplace closer to where you live. I recommend the "Quick and Simple" version instead of the more expensive (and not as good) version in the red box. There are only 8 lessons and there's nothing in writing at all, so this is only meant to get you started off on the right track. The big advantage with Pimsleur is that they drum everything permanently into your brain so that you will utterly remember everything that it teaches you for the rest of your life! In fact, if Pimsleur taught a complete course, I'm sure that I'd be fluent by now. The male speaker is from Cork (Múscraí) and the female speaker is from Kerry (Corca Dhuibhne), so you'll get to hear 2 fluent native speakers from different parts of Munster.