Category "pronunciation"

I’ve decided to start this thread for those seeking help with pronunciation. Simply type in the Irish word you need a pronunciation for and other volunteers to the site will add a phonetic rendering of that word in a dialect of Irish that they are comfortable with.

Long Vowels

These are always pronounced this way, whatever their position in a word. Often, the vowels marked with the sineadh fada (áéíú) will be written with another short vowel before or after it. This generally does not affect the pronunciation, but it written to obey the rule of broad vowels with broad consonants, and slender vowels with slender consonants.

The pronunciation of Irish varies widely throughout Ireland, but there are three principal dialects (Munster, Connaught, and Ulster) and each of them have more things in common with each other than differences. What follows is a general layout of how the letter combinations in Irish are pronounced, with a bias toward the Connaught dialect.