{"id":4627,"date":"2017-03-30T17:02:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T00:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=4627"},"modified":"2017-04-28T09:53:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T16:53:20","slug":"understand-irish-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/understand-irish-person\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Understand an Irish Person"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is from our partners at ABA English<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Hey everyone! How is your English coming along? Do you understand most accents? What about the Irish one? Ireland, like most English-speaking countries, has a variety\u00a0of accents. The most common one is from the Dublin area, though there are slight variations in this area as well. Today we are going to look at how to understand certain expressions and the way Irish people pronounce certain words so that we can better understand and identify an Irish person when we meet one.<\/p>\n

What are common Irish expressions?<\/h2>\n

Ireland has a lot of funny expressions\u00a0that might\u00a0be hard to decipher at first glance. Let\u2019s look at a few:<\/p>\n

The craic – Fun\/good time\/banter
\nGas – Funny
\nGrand – Great\/good
\nThe Garda – The police
\nTo shift someone – To passionately kiss someone
\nTo be bang on – To be absolutely correct
\nTo give out to someone – To be angry at someone\/complain to someone about something<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you go to Dublin and start chatting to the locals, you will likely\u00a0hear these expressions in Irish English. Let\u2019s look at an example sentence of what someone in a bar might say to you in Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, how\u2019re ye? What\u2019s the craic?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or in general English it would mean:<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, how are you? What’s happening?\u201d<\/p>\n

As we can see from the above example and its standard English translation, \u201cwhat\u2019s the craic?\u201d can mean \u201cwhat is happening?\u201d and not only refer to something being good or amusing. Understanding the way words are used in context\u00a0is important.<\/p>\n

How is Irish English pronounced\/spoken?<\/h2>\n

As mentioned previously, there are several varieties\u00a0of Irish English accents. Here, we’re going to look only at\u00a0the primary ways in which Irish accents distinguish themselves from other English accents.<\/p>\n

Generally, a \u201cth\u201d sound at the beginning of a word \u2014 such as \u201cthink\u201d and \u201cthought\u201d \u2014 is pronounced with only a \u201ct\u201d sound. By contrast, when\u00a0a \u201cth\u201d sound comes in\u00a0the middle of a word \u2014 such as \u201cmother\u201d or\u00a0\u201cbrother\u201d \u2014 it changes to a soft\u00a0\u201cd\u201d sound.<\/p>\n

Look at the following couple of examples to see the general pronunciation in Southern Irish English:<\/p>\n

Thick = [tik]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mother = [\u02c8mvd\u0259r]<\/p>\n

Brother = [brvd\u0259r]<\/p>\n

As can be seen from the phonetic pronunciation in Irish English, the \u201cth\u201d of thick changes into a \u201ct\u201d sound, whereas the \u201cth\u201d sound of both brother and mother changed into a soft \u201cd\u201d sound. This is widespread in Irish English and something that should be paid attention to when learning this variation of the English language.<\/p>\n

Other sounds that stand out in Irish English are the vowels, especially the letter \u201cI\u201d, which, in many words, almost joins with an \u201ca\u201d sound to create a new sound.<\/p>\n

Example:<\/p>\n

Time = [taim]<\/strong><\/p>\n

As\u00a0with most accents, this pronunciation is true of\u00a0other words of a similar structure, such as \u201cmime,” \u201cchime,\u201d and \u201ccrime,\u201d to name a few.<\/p>\n

Is it hard to get used to Irish English?<\/h2>\n

In our honest opinion here at ABA, we have to say that the Irish accent is one of the more challenging ones that you will come across when studying the English language. Adjusting to the variation of sounds from standardized British English along with variations in the speed of speech\u00a0will be the most challenging aspects.<\/p>\n

As with\u00a0most accents, it\u2019s easier to adjust your ears\u00a0to the Irish accent if you are constantly surrounded by it. If that\u2019s not an option, there are great Irish TV shows, such as\u00a0Father Ted<\/em>,\u00a0with which to train your ear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is from our partners at ABA English Hey everyone! How is your English coming along? Do you understand most accents? What about the Irish one? Ireland, like most English-speaking countries, has a variety\u00a0of accents. The most common one is from the Dublin area, though there are slight variations in this area as well. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13605],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13650],"class_list":["post-4627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-skills"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Understand an Irish Person - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/understand-irish-person\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Understand an Irish Person\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post is from our partners at ABA English Hey everyone! How is your English coming along? 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