Greann Podcast 001

Hi, I'm your host Lou Miranda. I run the Greann.com web site, where students can come together in a friendly, non-threatening environment to learn the Irish language.

We're going to start off the first podcast with a blog entry that pretty much duplicates the podcast exactly. (You can go to http://blog.greann.com to see the blog entry.)

Why have a blog and podcast that are exactlly the same thing? Well the blog allows you to see things about what I'm saying that you can't see through your MP3 player (since it's just audio), like what a "fada" looks like; and the podcast allows you to hear things that you can't hear on my blog (since it's just text), like what "á" sounds like.

OK, let's get started.

Modern Irish has the following letters:

A B C D E F G H I L M N O P R S T U

Note that J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y, and Z do not exist, except in borrowed words.

Consonants

The consonants are--more or less--pronounced as they are in English. Not exactly, of course, and there are other mitigating factors: an effect called "lenition" changes the sound of many Irish consonants, and the concept of slender and broad consonants/vowels can change how consonants are pronounced.

But for your 2 minute first lesson in Irish, making them sound like English consonants is good enough.

(Oh, and the Irish 'C' is always like an English "hard C"--you never pronounce "Celtic" like "Seltic", it's always pronounced like "Keltic", so don't let the basketball team fool you with their idiotic pronunciation.)

Vowels

Vowels can appear two ways in Irish: unadorned (like in English: a, e, i, o, u) or with "accents" on them, called "fada"s in Irish: á, é, í, ó, ú. Pronuncation is as follows (listen to the podcast to hear them spoken):

a: ahhh
á: awww (rhymes with saw)
e: eh
é: ayyyy (rhymes with day)
i: ih
í: eee (rhymes with tree)
o: oh (with a short 'o')
ó: oh (with a long 'o'; rhymes with sew)
u: uh
ú: ooo (rhymes with Sue)

Conclusion
OK, so this is a vast oversimplification of Irish pronunciation, but it's a good start for the few minutes we've spent on it so far. If you have an opportunity to meet with other Irish speakers or students in your area, I'd highly recommend it. There are many locations around the USA (and around the world) that have groups of people who come together to teach each other Irish. Do a web search or leave a message on our forum (at http://forums.greann.com) to try to find a group near you.

That's it for now. See you next week!