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This may sound like a silly question, but I’m more experienced in writing than speaking at the moment, and I’ve just begun covering some sound bites of future tense verbs. Is the “f” pronounced in the last syllable of the future tense verbs? Or is it silent? I don’t really trust my ear at the moment with what I’m hearing from Rosetta Stone. They say it very fast sometimes and I have yet to be able to tell if maybe they just say the “f” really low or not at all.
Go raibh maith agaibh! Even thought it’s a small question it will really help me out! 🙂
This may sound like a silly question, but I’m more experienced in writing than speaking at the moment, and I’ve just begun covering some sound bites of future tense verbs. Is the “f” pronounced in the last syllable of the future tense verbs? Or is it silent? I don’t really trust my ear at the moment with what I’m hearing from Rosetta Stone. They say it very fast sometimes and I have yet to be able to tell if maybe they just say the “f” really low or not at all.
in almost all dialects, the -f- or the future and conditional endings is pronounced as an h sound. After certain consonants you don’t even hear it, sometimes.
Lughaidh is right but he forgot to mention that the “f” is pronounced as an “f” in the 2nd person singular of the conditional.
For example: Conas a déarfá …? (How would you say …?) In this case, the “f” is pronounced as an “f” not “h”.
Also, the “f” is pronounced as an “f” in the passive impersonal forms of the future and the conditional.
You can hear the sounds very clearly on this full conjugation of deirim:
I may have always pronounced it wrong, but I say “Conas a déarfá (jayrhuh)?” I think that’s how I was taught to say it in Ulster Irish. I’ll be interested to see Lughaidh’s comments. I also say “Jayrheen” for “Déarfainn” These are quiite different than the corkirish recordings here.
Lughaidh is right but he forgot to mention that the “f” is pronounced as an “f” in the 2nd person singular of the conditional.
but only in certain places.
For example: Conas a déarfá …? (How would you say …?) In this case, the “f” is pronounced as an “f” not “h”.
depends where 🙂
I may have always pronounced it wrong, but I say “Conas a déarfá (jayrhuh)?” I think that’s how I was taught to say it in Ulster Irish.
Hem, looks like it was taught by someone who doesn’t speak Ulster Irish, because in Ulster people say “Dé mar a déarfá?” jeh mar uh jayr-hah. ie. /d’e mar É™ dˈeËrhaË/. The á is a short ah-sound (not an uh-sound, in Irish “á” is never pronounced like an uh-sound).
“Conas” is a Munster word…“jayrhuh” is rather the way you’d pronounce “déarfaidh”, as in “déarfaidh sé”, “déarfaidh mé” etc (future tense)
You’re right. They don’t say “conas”. That was my addition. I was really trying to focus on the fact I never heard an “F” sound in it. It was jayrhah or jayrhuh….I guess depends on how you would say those. Definitely more an “a” sound than a “u”.
they pronounce /dˈeËrÉ™/? It surprised me that they don’t pronounce /-a:/ at the end (but you may be right, I don’t know)
Sorry, my earlier post contained some mistakes. Here goes again… 🙂
According to “An Teanga Bheo. Gaeilge Chonamara”, these are the rules for Connemara Irish:
In the future tense, the letter “f” is pronounced as:
– /h/ in between vowels, e.g. suífidh /si:h@/
– /h/ after the following consonants: l, m, n, r, e.g. ólfaidh /o:lh@/
– is not pronounced after other consonants, including ch and th, e.g. caithfidh /kah@/Besides, certain consonants (b, d, g, bh, mh) become “devoiced” under the influence of the silent “f”:
/b/ -> /p/ scuabadh – scuabfaidh /sku:@p@/
/g/ -> /k/ pógadh – pógfaidh /po:k@/
bh -> /f/ scríobh – scríobhfaidh /s’k’ri:f@/In Cois Fhairrge (the eastern part of Connemara), the “f” is silent after all consonants and even between vowels, e.g. suífidh /si:@/ and ólfaidh /o:l@/.
Lughaidh, thanks for spotting the mistake in “déarfá”. Of course, that would usually be pronounced as /d’e:ra:/.
In the future tense, the letter “f” is pronounced as:
– /h/ in between vowels, e.g. suífidh /si:h@/
– /h/ after the following consonants: l, m, n, r, e.g. ólfaidh /o:lh@/
– is not pronounced after other consonants, including ch and th, e.g. caithfidh /kah@/Besides, certain consonants (b, d, g, bh, mh) become “devoiced” under the influence of the silent “f”:
/b/ -> /p/ scuabadh – scuabfaidh /sku:@p@/
/g/ -> /k/ pógadh – pógfaidh /po:k@/
bh -> /f/ scríobh – scríobhfaidh /s’k’ri:f@/In Donegal, the rules are the same, except that when the verb root has 1 syllable and ends with -igh (suigh, etc), normally -ighf- is a slender ch sound (suífidh mé is suighfidh mé and pronounced as suíche mé). And I think “scríobhfaidh” is pronounced “scríobhaí”.
So basically it’s good to err on the side of having the “f” pronounced like an “h” or silent…
I know it will take some getting used to, but thank you very much for all your replies and information on this! 😀
Is the f in the future tense (1st person singular, for example) pronounced like an f in any dialect?
The -f- pronunciation does (did?) exist in some places of Munster, according to the Linguistic Atlas. But I’m not even sure these dialects are still alive nowadays.
However, pronouncing the -f- as an -f- is common in some forms in Munster: -far (future impersonal), -fà (conditional 2sg), -faì (conditional impersonal)…
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