the experience of many Welsh learners. mg On Wed, 02 Mar 1994 19:09 -0500 (EST) you said: >Wow! D'oscail me/ "canna phe/isti/" leis an cheist seo! This whole >dialectiquest > ion has been a source of frustration for myself and my fellow learners >here in Dallas; I have been teaching Connemara Irish here for three years, >but now we are learning Donegal Irish, which seems to have a completely >different pronunciation and vocabulary. The question is, which dialect is >most easily understood by the people of Ireland? I prefer Donegal,but >an argument can be made for the other dialects as well. The most >commonly asked question here is "Why should I learn this dialect if I >am only going to be understood in one part of the country? It seems that >this question is more complicated with regard to Irish than any other >language. Don't worry about it too much, Michael. I am attending Breton classes at the moment, where the teacher gives us three main dialect pronunciations of most words, & also the pronunciation used in 2-3 small dialect areas. I do not find this at all confusing. It increases everyone's chances of actually recognising words said to us in real-life situations, instead of, as happens to so many learners (something which stultified my learning of French) arriving in a country fully conversant with the written language and finding it difficult to negotiate purchase of a bar of chocolate in a shop! Each of us in the class is free to choose a Breton dialect--I did the easy thing, and settled for that of the teacher. Easier still is the method by which I chose to learn Welsh--I spent a fortnight at a Welsh school in North Wales, and am reasonably happy with my progress since then. My spelling is atrocious, but I figure I can easily fix that later on, once I have a good grasp of the dialect of North Wales, and I enjoy being able to detect contrasts between north and south, even though I still find it best to use a spelling supporting northern sounds. Enjoy your lessons in Donegal Irish--I hope your next teacher will be from Munster, so you will get a taste of the full spectrum! Do make sure to ask every teacher (we all _know_ about this problem, which means it should not be a problem) to recommend to you tapes and books to help reinforce your knowledge of your chosen dialect. Whichever choice you make, you will be understood everywhere. A/dh mo/r ort, Marion Gunn MGUNN@IRLEARN.UCD.IE