Comments on: How to speak English like the Irish

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:39:00 +0000

I know – I always try to force a non-Irish Th on some words that don’t have it to begin with…

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:36:00 +0000

Crepi!!

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:35:00 +0000

They do, but they call it the “naughty” corner. I get called bold all the time now, and I keep having to remind myself that it’s a compliment I always think of Star Trek “To boldly go…” to remind me

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:19:00 +0000

The letter “h” is pronounced weird in other countries too, they seem to say “ey-ch” as oposed to our “hay-ch” and I am living with an american roomate and it drives me spare the way they leave off the ‘h’ in herbs, and the pronunciation of vitamin as “vite-amin”.

By: Sean Enda Power

Sean Enda Power — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:23:00 +0000

Great article — thanks! After living in England and Holland, which isn’t that many countries, but with people who speak English quite well (which the dutch do, though it’s not the first language) I’ve become very aware of my use of ‘film’, and also, for some reason, ‘dearer’ (I’ve been told that there is no English word ‘dearer’; it’s ‘more dear’. Meh). I find that this sentence (got from my brother) seems to throw non-Irish English speakers off the most:

‘I’m after putting the messages in the press’.

(Mainly, I just argue with English people about how to pronounce ‘yoghurt’ and Americans about how to pronounce ‘process’.)

(Also, on our inability to put consonants together: Steven Pinker, in his book ‘The Language Instinct’, writes that Japanese doesn’t cluster consonants. I haven’t got the book in front of me but the example he uses is something like ‘Strawberry ice-cream’ becomes something like ‘Sotorawebereri icecareamo’.)

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:50:00 +0000

I haven’t heard the words you say are Cavan particular myself. Perhaps I’m a generation off?

By: Melissa Hogan

Melissa Hogan — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:31:00 +0000

You really should visit Newfoundland, Canada some day. I bet you’d feel like you found a little bit of home across the Atlantic. We have to explain to mainlanders what we mean when we say something like “What’s after happening now?” or “What’re y’at?” (literally What are you at?). When my Dad and I visited recently some people thought his accent was maybe a distorted Wexford one. Too funny.

One thing I noticed that the Irish say a lot instead of just “thanks” is “thanks a million”.

By: Megan Eileen McDonough

Megan Eileen McDonough — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:04:00 +0000

Love this! I’m both a US and Irish citizen so this gives me more motivation to speak like a real Irish local

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:38:00 +0000

Glad to hear it!

By: Gord

Gord — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:43:00 +0000

Cmos1981, Irish was, at one time in Newfoundland’s history, the predominate language in parts of the Avalon Peninsula. Some say the language was still spoken up until the mid 1900s although by a very few older folks. Many folks from Wexford and Waterford made their homes here rather than travel back to Ireland every fall from Talamh an Eisc.

And yes, many of the phrases, words, pronunciations etc, in Benny’s original post are still very common here in Newfoundland. You’ll still find very strong Irish accents depending on where you travel.

By: M Eve

M Eve — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:36:00 +0000

Hi, Benny! I simply love your blog. I teach English in Argentina and have Irish ancestry, so this info has been so interesting to me. Tks for sharing it. Warm regards

By: Tarasheridan

Tarasheridan — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Brilliant. I actually did ‘Laugh Out Loud’. Will definitely share on Facebuke. Have you seen de buke ‘Stuff Irish People Love’? I’d be after buying it if I was you. I tink you’d enjoy it. After livin in Oz for a couple of years, I was made aware of how many Irish-isms I had. Gas!!!

By: Ricki

Ricki — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:01:00 +0000

If your looking for english speakers who don’t drive you mad, maybe you should check out Newfoundland. This article is a guide to speaking like the Irish, but you may as well just tack Newfoundland on after that. It seems that so many of you(yee) moved here that the accent stuck. I was laughing through the whole article at how much you must sound like my family

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:07:00 +0000

In English there are two ‘th’ sounds, and the way we pronounce it in Irish depends entirely on which one is used.
There is a VOICED ‘th’, like in “the, these, there”. We pronounce these ‘d’. There are not SO many of these in English.
There is also an UNVOICED ‘th’, like in ‘three’, ‘thank you’ etc., which is the majority of cases and we pronounce these as ‘t’.

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:07:00 +0000

By: Cynthia Conlin

Cynthia Conlin — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 02:09:00 +0000

Love this! Read it to my fiancé (in Dublin) over Skype. He always says “your one…” and I’m like, “who??” … And, for instance, when he took his driving test, he told me about a Teary (theory) test, and I was like, “What? The test is that sad??” Ha ha but yes (and I say yes) it’s a gas. Can’t count how many times we’ve argued over how to pronounce a Th- word! Lol!

By: Maggie Ogier Luke

Maggie Ogier Luke — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:33:00 +0000

I just found out that I’m almost a third Irish in heritage sharing with UK and Germany. Love your article!

Maggie
Fleming Island,, FL
Interestingly enough called Hibernia during the American Civil War as the Fleming’s were from there. No wonder I love everything about here and there!

By: Hassan Albrahime

Hassan Albrahime — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:22:00 +0000

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By: Hassan Albrahime

Hassan Albrahime — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:42:00 +0000

good morning i am hassan ibrahim from sudan i need speak english and i need friend speak me englsh and send me a messsage

By: Hassan Albrahime

Hassan Albrahime — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:37:00 +0000

good morning i am hassan ibrahim