A few days ago we enjoyed an all-too-rare meal together (“Thank-you, Covid!”, NOT!) with some good friends here at home, over my homemade Irish Beef stew (“Oui, Chef!”).
It so happens our friends are Dutch and moved here to Donegal almost two years ago now.
Their grasp of English is, unsurprisingly, excellent! Really: isn’t it more often the case that much of the English-speaking world only speaks English, while many other cultures and have their native tongue and learn English (perhaps even other languages in addition).
From time to time, English pronunciation is a stumbling-block. And so, on this memorable evening together, the word “iron” came up in conversation.
Frankly, I had never given any thought to this word being pronounced in any other way than: “i-urn”.
But, our friends had only recently discovered this pronunciation. Until then, they had been saying, “i-ron”.
And so, I give you some painfully inconsistent examples of this word-sound.
Take the word “iron”. It is pronounced “i-urn”, not “i-ron”.
Hmm, but what about “ironic”? Oh yes, well, that IS pronounced “i-ron-ick”. Yeah, I forgot about that one.
OK. But, we’re not done!
What about “irony”?
Oh dear.
Yes, at least for me: I pronounce this word TWO different ways, depending on my mood.
It’s BOTH “i-urn-y” and “i-ron-y” (well, the official syllables would likely be “i-ur-ny” and “i-ro-ny” – but, just for tying-in with the above text, I thought I’d try to keep the “urn” and “ron” consistent here).
Poor souls, trying to learn English … and, in Donegal on top of that! 🙂
Our friends are definitely adopting the Irish vocabulary; saying “aye”, and “wile”, and “mind” (the latter, for “remember”).
I’m afraid, after fifteen years here, Linda and I have only picked-up a handful of local words that we now use regularly (such as, “boot”, “petrol”, “windscreen”, and many others, I guess). And, we’re still learning new expressions every day. We just don’t use them. I still cannot say “aye” when I mean “yes”, or “mind” when I mean “remember”.
Seriously, the locals could talk circles around us and we’d just smile and nod and assume what they said was complimentary – and we’d have no idea.
Thanks goodness: the Irish are nothing but gracious and kind.
I think!