This came out of a discussion I had with a friend last night. We were trying to identify common mistakes that we should try to avoid.

1. Pronouncing r like an English r, and ch like an English ck.
2. Not distinguishing between slender and broad consonants.
3. Using the verb “tá” in place of the copula “is.”
4. Not knowing which preposition to use.
5. Translating phrases/thoughts from English instead of using natural Irish idiom.

I think I've finally got the first three issues under control, but 4 and 5 still trip me up. Anyone have any others to add to the list?

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

Prononcing the word abhaile or baile as ''UH-WALYUH/bal-yuh'', almost every learner don't prononce it properly.

Its simply ''uh-wah-luh''.

Ben



- and broad gh as g

- Pronouncing all long vowels as diphthongs...

- Not pronouncing the irish diphthongs (ex: pronouncing all "ua" as "oo", all "ia" as "ee")...

- Pronouncing broad g before /e(:)/, /i(:)/ and /æ:/ as gw- (eg. Gwaylga for Gaeilge etc), same thing with broad c as cw- in the same cases


I'll write more another day

It's cool you've noticed all that and try to avoid them

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

Putting 'Dé' in front of Déardaoin.

Cool idea for a thread! I bet there'll be a useful and varied collection here after a while.

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Two of those are not - in my (admittedly short experience) - mistakes peculiar to learners:

3. A lot of native speakers (mostly younger ones) have trouble with "is"/"ta" (especially in the infinitive).
5. The older ones' Irish is also heavily influenced by English

Missing fadas or not pronouncing them!

Using Tá for every sentence and every tense.

Mixing up the endings aimíd, ama(i)r etc... except of course when "amid" is meant to be "muid"

Using "táim" when "bím" is more appropriate, likewise using the "Aimsir Chaite" when the "Aimsir Ghnáth-Chaite" should be used and vice-versa.



Hmm, maybe its a case of the English phonetics, but pronouncing "Gae" or "Gao" as "Gway" I would say is a common phonetic feature of Munster Irish, for instance you'll never hear a Munster speaker pronounce Gaeilge or Gaoluinn as "*Gail-ga" or "Gail-ing" its "Gway-ul-ga" or "Gway-ling"

*Gail- as English speakers pronunciation of the name Gail

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

A mistake I hear a lot of beginners make is pronouncing short vowels as if they were long.

Another thing I hear a lot (and this may be an American thing...I don't know) is pronouncing é as if it were spelled AY-ee, rather than using a pure vowel sound.

Also failing to articulate broad "d" and "t" properly (with the tongue against the teeth rather than the hard palate).

Redwolf

These are all good. Keep them coming.


Do you really pronounce Gaelainn with a "w" sound? Because I hear it as more of a "u" sound. "Gu-ae-ling" (with the first two sounds kind of slurred together into one syllable). I think that's what Lughaidh was driving at. He wasn't suggesting that it should be pronounced like the English "Gail."




This one was never an issue for me, because in my dialect of English, we use Irish vowel sounds. I would pronounce the words "say" and "pay" as if they were written "sae" and "pé" in Irish.

I don't think the "AY-ee" thing is exclusive to America though. I hear a lot of people doing that in Ireland, but just not in the area where I grew up.

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

, its very difficult to say using English phonetics, we might have the same pronunciation of it !

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

examples?... I never heard that mistake from any native speaker, and even advanced learners don't make that mistake so it would be quite surprising...



examples? If you're talking about loanwords, that's not a problem (2/3 of the English vocabulary is French and English still isn't French )



I already told that one That's making diphthongs where Irish has long vowels


Another one : pronouncing all slender l's as "ly" between vowels and at the beginning of words (but not at the end of words even when it's needed). That's what Ben said about "baile" and "abhaile" but learners do that in other words to.

Pronouncing -igh and -idh endings in the same way in all contexts (-igg in Munster-like Irish, -ee in Ulster-like Irish), while they aren't pronounced the same way before pronouns.
For instance many learners pronounce chuaigh mé as "cweeg may" or rachaidh mé as rackigg may while it'd be chua' mé (or chuas!) and ragha' mé (or raghad) in Munster, and then they say "cwee may" (instead of chua' mé) in Ulster and "rackee may" (instead of racha' mé) in Ulster.

Pronouncing the pre-verbal-noun preposition "ag" as "egg" in all cases, while it has 4 pronounciations according to the preceding and following sound (eg: tá mé 'déanamh, tá mé 'g ól, tá siad a' déanamh, tá siad ag ól).
They say "taw may egg doll" for instance (for "I am going"), while Ulster and Connachta have "tá mé 'gabháil", and Munster has "táim a' dul".

It kinda annoys me too when learners (and even some native speakers) write that "dul" verbal noun even though they say "gabháil". As if "gabháil" didn't exist or weren't right, while most native speakers use it instead of Standard/Munster "dul". Or maybe they believe "gabháil" is a distortion of "dul", which it isn't...

Another mistake: using initial mutations in the wrong place. For instance "lá breithe shona" (or worse: breithlá shona). Lá isn't feminine... (and even if it were the birth that was happy, "breithe" is genitive feminine so it doesn't lenite )

Another common mistake: using standard Irish

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