broad and slender - a myth?

nbrome

Will I burn in hell fire for this?
I'm fed up with broad and slender consonants.
What happens if you just ignore them? Is your Irish unintelligable? Is it worth the effort to try to hear them?
I must admit my listening time is severely restricted and my oral practice nil. I'm on lesson 23 of "Learning Irish" and I do use the cd to check the pronunciation of the vocab lists and to listen to the texts.
I'm blowed if I can hear the difference. I understand what they ARE and this helps no end with the spelling. They are consonants which are next to I or E and they have to match on either side.
I decided at about lesson 10 that the whole thing was beyond me. I really can't manage the impossible. I have the sneaking feeling that it is a made-up element to account for changes in pronunciation which come naturally when you know the language. It certainly doesn't help when you're struggling to learn it.
I love Irish and I'm pleased with my reading and writing progress. I just suspect that some 19th century schoolmaster came up with this idea.

Krusader

I think the slender R is the head wrecking one but with a bit of practise you'll get it

nbrome

But that's just it, you see. I haven't even noticed that that's a head wrecking one.
I remember being confused by a broad R that sounded like a D. Never did figure that one out.

Enkidu

I think it depends on the consonant. For some of them the difference is quite subtle, however for others it's quite large.
For instance broad s, is like the s in the English word "so", but slender is like sh in English. Broad "bh" is like English w and slender "bh" is like English v. Slender "d" and broad "d" are also quite different. Broad is almost English d, where as slender isn't like anything in English.

At least that's what I've found.

monkey9

I've tentatively started trying to learn Irish and i'm already being put off by broad and slender consonants and lenitition and eclipse and all that.

I swear, i don't remember any of that stuff in school. Then again, i wasn't really listening.

I'm using the Teach Yourself Irish book and cd. I'll stick with it though.........hopefully. I'd love to be able to speak it.

Krusader

Here's a bit of reading for ye on pronounciation
http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=68572

pog it

nbrome wrote: »

Will I burn in hell fire for this?
I'm fed up with broad and slender consonants.
What happens if you just ignore them? Is your Irish unintelligable? Is it worth the effort to try to hear them?
I must admit my listening time is severely restricted and my oral practice nil. I'm on lesson 23 of "Learning Irish" and I do use the cd to check the pronunciation of the vocab lists and to listen to the texts.
I'm blowed if I can hear the difference. I understand what they ARE and this helps no end with the spelling. They are consonants which are next to I or E and they have to match on either side.
I decided at about lesson 10 that the whole thing was beyond me. I really can't manage the impossible. I have the sneaking feeling that it is a made-up element to account for changes in pronunciation which come naturally when you know the language. It certainly doesn't help when you're struggling to learn it.
I love Irish and I'm pleased with my reading and writing progress. I just suspect that some 19th century schoolmaster came up with this idea.

Can you hear the difference in sound between say "fir" (slender) and "fásach" (broad) for example?

It is definitely something you can learn intuitively nbrome, analysing it at this early stage makes it harder on yourself than need be! If you can find time at all, do more listening to native speakers on RnaG or wherever. It's the most important part of the whole process imo, while simultaneously keeping up the reading you are doing. You will be able to match up the word with the pronunciation after a bit without thinking about it too much.

Also, I'm not sure do you want to do this, but last summer I did a one to one class with a native speaker, went every 2 weeks or so, and they will be able to help you with the specific sounds. I think if you had specific words and sounds you wanted to get right, even 3 or 4 classes would bring you on a lot! Just an idea mind, I know it's not for everyone.

Aard

My advice would be to forget about broad/slender for the time being. Keep learning as you are until you can understand spoken Irish, then you'll start to notice what is meant by broad, slender, lenition, and eclipsis. It's a pattern that you'll learn automatically with study. Don't worry about it, and just focus on declensions, conjugations, and vocabulary.

nbrome

So none of you think this rule was made up by a teacher wanting to torment children then?
I don't think I'm explaining myself very well. I DO know how to pronounce slender S and slender BH etc. but that's 'cos they are standing next to/inbetween an I or an E. In other words, you skip the mental compartment "broad or slender?" and just go to "is that an I or an E there?". I get to the same place but quicker. Ha! that's what I'm telling myself.

Enkidu

nbrome wrote: »

So none of you think this rule was made up by a teacher wanting to torment children then?
I don't think I'm explaining myself very well. I DO know how to pronounce slender S and slender BH etc. but that's 'cos they are standing next to/inbetween an I or an E. In other words, you skip the mental compartment "broad or slender?" and just go to "is that an I or an E there?". I get to the same place but quicker. Ha! that's what I'm telling myself.

Oh!, if that's what you mean, then I do that as well. I just take in the consanant and the nearest vowel at once. In fact there's no other way to tell if a consanant is broad or slender.

Maybe I'm missing what you mean. The way I understand it, Irish has two spoken versions (broad and slender) of every consanant, however it has only one written version. The only way to tell which version the written letter represents is to look at the nearest vowel.

For instance the word for yellow and the word for be are really both:
b í - yellow and b' í - be, b' being slender b.

However the written language has no way of representing this, which would lead to bí being the spelling for both. So to avoid this we stick in "u" at the beginning of the word for yellow, not really because there is a "u" sound in the word, but so as to indicate yellow uses broad b. Hence we get:

buí - yellow
bí - be

If I have something arseways, please correct me.

Enkidu

Hey, a short tip for anybody trying to pronounce the slender form of a consanant, if anybody is interested. If you can already pronounce the broad form then,
to pronounce the slender form, just try pronouncing it as before but try pronouncing a y after word. Specifically I mean y in the sense of the English word yacht.

So for instance try saying:
c-yacht
d-yacht
e.t.c.
as one word.

It kind of forces your mouth to "slenderize" the consanant.

Really helped me with slender r.

It's not my tip, comes from "Sengoídelc: Old Irish for Beginners" by David Stifter.

Aard

Yeah, just try saying the consonant and a <y> at the same time. And for a broad consonant, try saying it with a <w> at the same time. Not perfect, but pretty close.

nbrome

Enkidu, I see what you mean. The spoken language came first and had these different sounds that had to be accommodated later by the written.
Part of my problem is I don't get any practice speaking it.
I'm going to try the Y and w thing.
I am, however, very fond of slender s and slender bh. Whoopee! They sound different without any effort!

Enkidu

nbrome wrote: »

Enkidu, I see what you mean. The spoken language came first and had these different sounds that had to be accommodated later by the written.

Yeah, Irish is particularly bad in this regard. Here's an example of a few languages:

English:
Written Consonants: 21
Spoken Consonants: 24

German:
Written Consonants: 21
Spoken Consonants: 22

Latin:
Written Consonants: 19
Spoken Consonants: 17

Irish:
Written Consonants: 13
Spoken Consonants: 37

Just to put things in perspective, it's an actual object fault of the writing system.

nbrome wrote: »

Part of my problem is I don't get any practice speaking it.
I'm going to try the Y and w thing.
I am, however, very fond of slender s and slender bh. Whoopee! They sound different without any effort!

Yeah, s and bh are the saving grace, just to say they are also the only two sounds the above trick won't work on, but of course it doesn't matter because they are easy.
I'm in the practice trap myself.

Here's a web page which goes through the pronounciation of every sound in the language, in each dialect, if it's any help.
http://www.phouka.com/gaelic/sounds/sounds.htm

Krusader

broad and slender consonants aren't that hard to get your head around, with a bit of practise they should come to you handy

the slender R can be a bit tricky though

conor.hogan.2

I think this is one of those situations where you ignore the technical side of grammar and just go with it - it makes sense, it makes sense but is harder when you look at the reasons etc...

nbrome

Yes, that's what I'm doing. I'm ignoring it except for my favourites which are slender s and bh.
I will get sorted out in time when I actually speak the language. (and I do mean I and not "it"). So far my short-term aim is to read fluently. I would have to explain my personal life in detail to explain why I can't get audio/oral time to myself. It's all just in my head right now.