Below are three recent questions we’ve received at Bitesize Irish Gaelic from learners of Irish Gaelic. Our Irish language expert is at hand, so you’re not alone learning to speak Irish.
Question 1
On Bitesize Lesson 13: Initial mutations, Roshni asked:
Is lenition required in all the consonants or only in some cases?
Angelique a chara,
Thank you for your question!
Lenition only applies to those consonants listed in the lesson. You cannot add a séimhiú to the other consonants.
Question 2
In our Irish for Beginners free email course, we teach you to say hello as “Dia dhuit.“, with it pronounced as: /Jee-ah ghwitch./
Drew asked:
I have heard the phrase pronounced “Diah ghuit” – without a j and no th on the end. Is this just another accent?
Drew a chara
I think this is much the same phonetically as our example. Ours end in ch rather than th maybe that’s where the confusion lies?
However you are right in saying there are different dialects in Irish so pronunciations can vary from place to place!
Question 3
On Bitesize Lesson 93: What is your home like?, Rachel asked:
Just a question about pronunciation: in the conversation Aodhán [i think] says “an-deas” which i thought would be pronounced ‘an-jeas’ but it seems like you are saying ‘an-yeas’ . Is there are a typo there? Or is it just idiosyncratic?
A Rachel a chara
You are right, Eoin is using the Munster pronunciation of this phrase. In this dialect ana dheas is what is said although an-deas is written!
Therefore you get the sound yeas in this case
Now a question for you
Do you find this type of post useful? If so, we can look at making it a regular feature on our blog. Be sure to leave your reply below.
9 thoughts on “Recent questions from Irish learners”
Yes I think it is very useful!
Hi Francesca,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate it 🙂
Yes, your blog on pronunciation and grammar would be very helpful. Also, would it be possible to set up an Irish conversational webinar once a month?
Hi Tony,
Thank you for sharing your ideas. I will forward your comment to Eoin.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’m noting down that idea. We already tried to match learners one-to-one with tutors, but it proved too difficult.
What type of things would you like to learn through webinars?
A smaoineamh breá!
Go raibh maith agat!
Is maith liom e
Helpful as usual! I have a long list of questions…it’s nice to know that there are people out there who can address them.
Go raibh maith agaibh!
Jane
Hi Jane,
Thank you for taking the time to express your opinion. Feel free to contact us with the questions. We will be glad to assist you.