I didn't think that this post would be the subject of so much comment. Yes even I picked up pretty quickly the fact that the speaker on Is Féidir liom wasn't a native speaker, which I entirely agree, is a great pity. The way he pronounces 'é' is an obvious example and the way he pronounces liom, though there were other examples that others here picked up on that I didn't, me being not enough of an expert. What I did like was the way the Interactive pages were designed and that you can go back and repeat the sentences and words. Perhaps you could lobby the publishers to get them to find a replacement speaker or tell people like Foras na Gaeilge. It makes me think of a long and heated discussion we've had on whether someone who has an Irish English accent is better equiped to pronounce Gaeilge than someone who doesn't have any kind of Irish accent at all - clearly it isn't the case here. It also raises the question of dialects - not only being able to identify them aurally but being able to model one's own accent on one of them and finding a way of accurately reproducing the finer points without giving the impression of 'mimicking' - if you see what I mean. (the sound difference between ar and air for example) Meanwhile I'm still waiting for Abair Leat to come back fully on line and I dearly miss their Cas Amhrán audio file - though you can download and print out their coursebook - all 700 pages or more of it (and it's in colour).
Slán
Franc

Normally there's no difference, if you're talking about the preposition "ar" and its prepositional form "air".
Despite it is spelt "ar", the r is slender (except when followed by a broad consonant, which makes it broad too).

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I still presumed that Ulster Irish was very much a minority but when I see the success of Oideas Gael, and the fact that people abroad seem to learn the Ulster dialect, I think the rest of us are the ones who are more likely to go the way of the dinosaurs. I never thought I would think that (if that makes sense! On the other hand, the continuing success of Gaelscoileanna may increase the influence of a Galltacht dialect - a bit of everything, often in a Dublin accent!


The "Galltacht" way of speaking (which may or may not be called a dialect) seems to me to already be a reality. I heard it everywhere and from pretty much 90% of the learners. I think that was the whole idea of standardisation. It enables Ireland's speakers to all center around a medium that's not a big struggle for any Irish speaker to understand. I asked the little kid in our home if he could understand a strong southern accent and he admitted that he really couldn't (I guess he will over the years of listening). I saw a real example of this morphing that was interesting: The first home where I stayed in the Donegal Gaeltacht (where the lady had a bit of a speech defect) would gather each night to watch their son who was a reporter on TG4. He also is one of the announcers of the Gaelic football games on TG4. He had a very very toned-down version of Donegal in his speech. I could understand him way easier than the people in the home. I think it's sort of like in the USA where TV announcers are schooled to sound like they're from Kansas or some mid-west area. That way they don't sound too regional but rather they just speak in a clearly broadly understandable way. They don't sound like they're from Appalachia, New York City, or West Texas. I suppose the theory is that producers don't want the accent to get in the way or be a distraction from the message.

People quickly get used to other accents and dialects. Before RnaG existed, maybe it was more difficult to Munster people to understand Donegal people and vice-versa, but now people have got used to the other dialects. I spoke with people from Kerry, Cork, Connemara, Mayo and Donegal and none of them ever had difficulty to understand me (although you may have understood I speak Donegal Irish with no standardisation at all). So I mean, you don't need to a standard dialect or of a Galltacht accent, people understand each other without difficulty, if they know enough Irish. I think it's even more difficult to a Gaeltacht speaker to understand badly pronounced standard Irish, than to understand another Gaeltacht dialect.

"The "Galltacht" way of speaking" is simply the way learners speak before they manage to speak properly. Most of the learners try to speak a dialect once they're getting fluent, because in all languages, the model to follow is the speech of native speakers, and in Ireland, native speakers don't speak Galltacht Irish or standard Irish, but Gaeltacht Irish.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

In answer to Lughaidh, trying to pronounce accurately a broad 'r' and a slender 'r' and trying to pick up the difference when listening isn't easy for a beginner. For me air has a kind of soft 'd' together with the sound of 'j' we have in French - at the end.

"ar" too. Actually I don't really know why "ar" isn't spelt "air" in Irish (in Gaelic, both are spelt "air" and both are pronounced the same way, it's much simpler).

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

It's the same here. You'd be hard pressed finding a regional accent among the presenters on RTÉ.
The all have that Dublin 4 accent. (4 is a postal code). They do these communications courses that teach them all to speak the same. The only exception were the weather men/women. They were meteorologists rather than trained presenters so they had lovely varied accent, until RTÉ got rid of most of them and replaced them non-meteorologist presenters
That trained articulation is apparent in TG4 and RnG too to a certain degree. They pronounce the words correctly but they have a different intonation in their speech.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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(Unless you mean the ar for past tense, franc, which is /ər/)

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

And then along came Hector!

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But ar is never reduced to [əj], which air can be.

Still, it’s not like that’s ever even mentioned in grammar books or prounciation guides, so it’s meagre grounds for maintaining an otherwise artificial distinction …

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.