Irish pronunciation makes some sense once you understand a few rules. It’s less freestyle than English anyway. I'm no expert but some notes......
S at the start of a word is generally pronounced SH, so Sean, Sinead and Seamus start with SH… sounds. But not always. (I'm wondering if this is when followed by a narrow vowel, I'm not sure.)
In a two-consonant digraph the following H softens the other consonant, so BH is pronounced V (in Siobhan), MH is a W sound, SH is a H sound, DH is close to a G sound, etc
Now, there are some constructs where vowel-consonant combinations make vowel sounds (a bit like OUGH is English, I guess.) ADH is pronounced like the English word EYE, so Tadhg sound like the first syllable of Tiger (and inevitably leads to young Tadhg earning the nickname Tiger). SADHBH combines the ADH "eye" sound with the BH V sound, but in this case the initial S is not pronounced SH, leaving you with SADHBH pronounced Sive.... and not SAD HUBUHUH as a friend was called in America. GH is basically not pronounced so Clodagh is Cloda and EOGHAN is effectively one syllable OWN, i.e. Owen. (Also commonly spelled Eoin).
Some confusion comes from fadas not being used in English versions of names. Technically I suppose Sean would be pronounced Shan, but Seán would be Shawn. Seamus Coleman needs the fada on his E, to make it Séamus, ie. Shay-muss. Grainne needs the fada on her A for Gráinne, i.e. Graw-nyeh. Gráinne, incidentally is very close to the Irish for ugly- gránna (grawnah), specially if you pronounce Gráinne, as Graw-nyah rather than Graw-nye
Broad vowels generally take precedence over narrow vowel, I think, anyway! Oisín takes the UH or OH sound of the OI part, and the fada on the i in the second syllable makes it an EE sound so it's Usheen or Ohsheen, rather than rhyming with Hoisin sauce.
There's some additional confusion to be caused by a rule I can barely remember which states that a mid-word consonant should be surrounded with either board or narrow vowels, not both, which leads to the insertion of additional vowels into words. See here http://phouka.com/irish/ir_broadSlender.html
S at the start of a word is generally pronounced SH, so Sean, Sinead and Seamus start with SH… sounds. But not always. (I'm wondering if this is when followed by a narrow vowel, I'm not sure.)
In a two-consonant digraph the following H softens the other consonant, so BH is pronounced V (in Siobhan), MH is a W sound, SH is a H sound, DH is close to a G sound, etc
Now, there are some constructs where vowel-consonant combinations make vowel sounds (a bit like OUGH is English, I guess.) ADH is pronounced like the English word EYE, so Tadhg sound like the first syllable of Tiger (and inevitably leads to young Tadhg earning the nickname Tiger). SADHBH combines the ADH "eye" sound with the BH V sound, but in this case the initial S is not pronounced SH, leaving you with SADHBH pronounced Sive.... and not SAD HUBUHUH as a friend was called in America. GH is basically not pronounced so Clodagh is Cloda and EOGHAN is effectively one syllable OWN, i.e. Owen. (Also commonly spelled Eoin).
Some confusion comes from fadas not being used in English versions of names. Technically I suppose Sean would be pronounced Shan, but Seán would be Shawn. Seamus Coleman needs the fada on his E, to make it Séamus, ie. Shay-muss. Grainne needs the fada on her A for Gráinne, i.e. Graw-nyeh. Gráinne, incidentally is very close to the Irish for ugly- gránna (grawnah), specially if you pronounce Gráinne, as Graw-nyah rather than Graw-nye
Broad vowels generally take precedence over narrow vowel, I think, anyway! Oisín takes the UH or OH sound of the OI part, and the fada on the i in the second syllable makes it an EE sound so it's Usheen or Ohsheen, rather than rhyming with Hoisin sauce.
There's some additional confusion to be caused by a rule I can barely remember which states that a mid-word consonant should be surrounded with either board or narrow vowels, not both, which leads to the insertion of additional vowels into words. See here http://phouka.com/irish/ir_broadSlender.html
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