Hi all,

I haven't posted here in a while, but I'm hoping to hire someone to review a list of words/phrases (a list of about 150) and their correct phonetic pronunciations. I need someone who's an expert speaker, preferrably Conamara... I was really hoping to get ahold of Bríd.

I'm a bit limited on time for this and was hoping to find someone who can help. I'm willing to pay for the person's time. Is this something anyone here would be interested in? Does anyone know how to get ahold of Bríd other than direct message? Are there any other expert speakers of Conamara here who can take on this little job?

GRMA!!

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I'm very much a beginner learner. Don't hesitate to correct me, as long as you explain why. This is how I learn best!

Hi! I’m definitely no expert, and my specialty is Ulster, but I do have a few invaluable pronunciation resources that may help!

1) https://www.teanglann.ie/en/ (an online Irish dictionary with pronunciations of nearly any word in all three dialects. You can search for words/terms in Irish and English.) (It’s also a free app.)

2) https://www.focloir.ie/ (basically a more condensed version of the previous website and you can only search for words in English though) (It’s also a free app.)

3) https://abair.ie/ga/ (It’s an Irish speech synthesizer for all three dialects) (It’s particularly helpful for hearing whole sentences pronounced and for the occasional word that one of the two previous websites doesn’t have in its vast database.) (It can occasionally get a little wonky, but it’s usually super accurate.)

4) http://www.fuaimeanna.ie/en/ (Just click option 2 on the homepage to search sample recordings by word or by a particular sound (phoneme) to hear the various sounds of all three dialects!

I hope this was helpful! Good luck, and hopefully you can get a hold of Bríd too!

Thanks, Rosie. So, what I need is not the initial pronunciations (I already have them all spelled out phonetically), I just need a second set of eyes to review the list and confirm the pronunciations are correct or make any corrections if they're not. It's just very important that they are correct, and I can't trust my own ears sometimes... I suppose I could check them against more than one source, but then I'm still using my own ears... and since I'm not anywhere near a fluent speaker I just don't want myself to be the only confirmation here. I can't even understand people speaking my native tongue sometimes!! lol

In the meantime, I'm going to start checking them against a second source (the first source is forvo) because that's better than nothin', and I'm a bit short on time here...

So thanks for your list.

I do have one Ulster phrase in the list, Go díreach
I have that as GOH JEE-rukh (or JEE-rahkh?)
I just checked it against teanglann.ie and I'm hearing GOH JEE-dah

It's just so tricky.

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I'm very much a beginner learner. Don't hesitate to correct me, as long as you explain why. This is how I learn best!

Yes, the 2nd way is closest. (go•JEE•rah{khh}) … the “d” you’re hearing is sorta like an Italian opera singer saying “Figaro!” (FEE•gah•roh)…not quite FEE•gah•doh, but just a slight flicking touch to the roof of the mouth, without it being a full-on rolled “rrr”.

In Ulster, the the {khh} part at the end will usually sound much softer than in the other dialects; so much so that it’s nearly a pure breathy {hhh} sound, and some Ulster speakers leave it off all together (go•JEE•rah)…in that 2nd way (of just dropping the breathy ending all together) an (hhhh) sound at the end would only be detectable if followed immediately by a vowel sound…then an (hhh) is used to kinda “push off” into the vowel sound.

Example:
Go díreach ina dhiaidh sin (meaning “immediately after that”) (go•JEE•rah•hinn-uh•YAY•shinn)

But, with all that being said, (go•JEE•rah{khh}) is a perfectly acceptable pronunciation, I believe!

Awesome, Rosie, thank you!! That tapped r sound vs. d sound is so hard for me to pick out on audio clips. Is it safe to say that if the word is SPELLED with an R, that it is most likely (or always?) okay to make it a tapped R?

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I'm very much a beginner learner. Don't hesitate to correct me, as long as you explain why. This is how I learn best!

At least for Donegal (Ulster) Irish, I’d say yes, that would be safe…(except if another consonant comes after it…e.g. cairde (KAHR•juh) or bearna (BAHR•nuh), then it sounds like regular English “r”.

I know that there’s a slight difference between an r that comes before/after a broad vowel (a,o,u) and one that comes before/after a slender vowel (e,i)…but my ears aren’t tuned enough yet to tell the difference in most cases, to be honest. I’ve heard some speakers pronounce all their r’s like a regular un-tapped English r (but I don’t know if that’s a matter of region, age, experience, etc.). And I’ve definitely heard speakers (from Munster and (maybe?) Connacht that pronounce r’s at the end of a word (if the last vowel before it is an e or i) almost like “zhh” (e.g. leabhair [LAO•izhh])

That’s all I know about it though. I still hope Bríd or someone more experienced can help you in time.

Traditionally, there is no regular English r in Irish.
The English regular r is an approximant /ɹ/ which at least until recently never occured in Irish.