Dia dhuit agus fáilte ar ais, hello and welcome back
Some of you have asked me in the comments section to make a video on
a pronunciation guide, so that's what I'm going to do today and next week as well
today we're going to look at the fada's
that's a little line or a little stroke over the vowels in Irish
the vowels being a, e, i, o, and u
I'm going to show you how to pronounce the fada's, give you some new words and
some sample sentences as well, so let's get started with the letter A
on its own this would be pronounced like ah
so it would be a short sharp ah
but when you put the á there you will see that it becomes "awe"
a good example is to show you this word here which is spelt
a i t
this is pronounced ait
which means strange or unusual in Irish, ait
but if you put a fada over the a it becomes áit
áit, which means a place
so without the fada, it's ait and with the fada it's áit
another good word to
show you the difference between a fada and a lack of a fada is the Irish word for bread which is arán
so the start of that word is ah
then at the end you will hear the stress and focus on the fada, arán
and arán bán is
white bread, arán bán, the á is being stressed and
you hear that more so in the word with the á, so arán
arán bán
Our next vowel then
is e
On its own it's an eh sound
again short and quick, eh
but when you put a fada over it becomes é
So for example eolas
would be information so there's no great emphasis on the first part of that word - eolas
easpag is bishop, easpag
again, not a great stress on the first part, but if you think of this word here
which is the Irish word for bird and that is éan
You can see the difference that a fada makes
and also the Irish word for uniform is éide
and again you can see how the é
pretty much dominates the word éide
mar shampla
Bhí siad faoi lánéide = They were in full uniform
our next vowel then is i, on its own
this is an i sound
but when you put a fada over the i it makes an e sound
í
for example the irish word for whole or complete is iomlán
so that has a short
i sound at the start with more emphasis on the á at the end
as in iomlán, just like we discussed at the start of the video when we talked about á
but if you think of the irish word to pay which is íoc
you'll see the í kicking in there with the e sound
íoc
díoc sí = she paid
an example of a sentence where you'll see the i with the fada and without it is here -
ith do chuid glasraí = eat your vegetables a
ith being the Irish word to eat
and glasraí being the Irish word for vegetables, so you can see the difference there between the i without the fada in ith
and glasraí which has the í
Our next vowel then is the letter o
on its own this is just an uh sound
but when you add the fada on top it becomes a longer O
sound, so there's more stress and emphasis, and you usually say that a little bit longer - Oh
ó
for example the Irish word for ambulance is otharcharr
so the o at the start there was quick
and relatively sharp - otharcharr
but if you think it's the Irish word then for olive oil
ola olóige, you see more emphasis on the ó towards the end
ola being
oil and olóige being olive, so the ó kind of takes over a little bit there
ola olóige
next we have the Irish vowel u, on its own this is an uh sound, uh
but when you put a fada over the u, it becomes an Ooo sound ooo
is the dominant sound there (ooo), for example the Irish word for an author is
údar
and the Irish word for apple is úll
so the ú - you can hear it there, úll
the word or verb to prepare is ullmhú
so you can see the difference there and at the start where there's no fada
and then at the end
where there is a fada, ullmhú is to prepare.
If you've any more questions about the Irish language
or you would like me to do
a particular
type of video or set of videos, please let me know in the
comments section below
thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you soon. Go raibh maith agat agus slán go fóill.