dia daoibh aríst, just a small question concerning pronunciation, as far as verbs ending in -igh go, am I right in saying in the connacht they pronounce the second part of the word with a kind of "uh" sound ? ceannaigh - "ceann-uh" while in munster its more of a "ig" sound? anyone know what they use in ulster? Id like to pick one for the sake of consistency.

'maith agaibh

concerning the -(a)igh or -(a)idh endings, you have to distinguish:

- when they are followed by a subject pronoun (mé, tú, sé, sí, muid/sinn, sibh, siad), the endings are normally pronounced "uh" everywhere.

- when they are followed by something else (nouns etc), the endings are normally pronounced:
-ig in Munster
-uh in Connachta
-ee (short) in Ulster.

So:

cheannaigh mé -> hyah-nuh may (everywhere)

cheannaigh Dónall -> hyah-nig Doh-nuhll (M), hyah-nuh Doh-nuhll (C), hyah-nee Doh-nuhll (U)

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

, In Munster, the "ch" isn't pronounced like a "h" it retains the "ch"'s light to heavy guttural sound.

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

I know... the slender ch is used in this word in all dialects, but how else could I transcribe it? it doesn't exist in English, except in some dialects in words like "huge" or "Hugh"... I used "hy-" for that but it looks like it's not self-evident for all English speakers. But I don't know how I could transcribe the slender ch sound otherwise...........

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

I think your phonic of "hy" for the slender ch is spot on, a Lughaidh.

We were taught that the slender ch in German (identical to the Irish one) is like the h in "human", when clearly pronounced (which is of course the same as the h's in "huge" or "Hugh".)

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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).

In Donegal, it's more like "hyah-nuh muh" (IPA: [ˈçan̪ˠə mʲə]); the vowel of mé also gets reduced to schwa.

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In GD etc, people rather say [ˈçan ̪ˠə mʲa]. But I wrote "may" because it exists everywhere and I didn't want to give 1500 pronunciations -- what I wanted to say there, is that the ending -(a)igh is an "uh" sound in all dialects when followed by a subject pronoun.

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

iontach! go raibh maith agaibh a chairde