Learn Connacht Irish
through native speech.
To learn the dialects of North Connacht you have to memorise words and phrases (abairtí), listen to them spoken properly in the natural flow of conversation and practice yourself with a native speaker. This website will help you with all three.
Find Speakers
Click on the map to listen to recordings of native speakers from all over Mayo. Follow the links to view transcriptions, words and phrases for each speaker.
- Longform transcriptions of recordings of native speakers
- Full text search in Irish and English
- Filter by voice, dialect, tag and location
- Find pubs and other locations where Irish is spoken in public
Every speaker has their own page with all of their contributions listed. Speakers can create wordlists that learners can follow and download for use in learning apps like Anki for example.
Transcriptions
Native speakers can transcribe recordings with ease by uploading audio and slicing tracks into regions which can then be annotated.
- Upload and transcribe audio using simple interface.
- Export subtitles in English or Irish.
- Toggle English and Irish subtitles
- Slow down, isolate and loop playback
- Search, filter, tag full recording or constituent transcriptions
Auto Transcription & Audio Generation
Abairt uses the abair.ie api to automatically transcribe audio recordings and generate high-quality Irish speech synthesis when no audio exists.
- Automatic speech recognition for Irish audio
- High-quality text-to-speech synthesis
- Native Irish pronunciation
Abair.ie is a vital Irish language technology project providing by far the best speech recognition and synthesis models for the Irish language. There is no public API for these models, so we use them as sparingly as possible. Unfortunately, this means that the service is not always available. Please check the status to see if the service is currently operational.
Service Status
57 transcriptions
Interviews, stories, songs.
39 Native speakers
Speakers of all existing Mayo Dialects
5297 words and phrases
Folca, Seanráite, Seanchas, Abairtí.
4417 recordings
Longform, short phrases, single pronunciations.
"An chéad chainteoir eile, 'the next speaker'. The goal of this site is to increase the number of adult speakers in the community."
Frequently asked questions
Language learning is an inate skill everyone possesses, the rate of acquisition varies according to experience, confidence, access, commitment level and time resources. Given some basic school Irish and a medium commitment level (one or two classes per month, on and off) two years is a reasonable timeframe to go from no conversational ability to being able to converse with a native speaker.
People with better starting abilty and self-confidence can certainly managed it in half the time, likewise complete beginners might take an extra year or two.
You may give up multiple times, that's perfectly normal. Life, work intervenes. One thing is certain - if you persevere, you will succeed eventually.
Yes all resources on this site are free. Speakers of course may charge for classes but that's entirely up to them and their students to decide.
Abairt is not operated for any commerical gain, we don't track you or your data, or collect any metrics. If you sign up your email is used for login and app related notifications, that's it.
We make no claim on the material on this site. It's freely shared and the copyright and licensing is the exclusive right of the owners of the original recordings.
You are welcome to fork the code and build your own language community.
We are in the process of developing a learning progression but in the meantime here are some tips on how to structure your learning.
- Find a native speaker to mentor you one on one, whether online or in person. This step is probably the biggest predeterminer of success.
- Use a spaced repetition app like Anki to acquire vocabulary. You should use lists like the ones on this site that offer native context and audio.
- Listen to recordings of native speakers, practice and repeat the phrases you hear, copying the sounds and syntax. Radio na Gaeltachta is a good resource for this, as are the sites linked on this page.
- Unless you are an experienced language learner it's probably better to only learn grammar and syntax after you can speak. An often recommended book for this is Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail. Nualeargais is also an excellent free resource.
- Read news articles to familiarise yourself with contemporary Irish. Currently there are two sites that are updated daily - nos.ie and tuairisc.ie. You can use a browser plugin to translate and save wordlists for import into Anki, Google translate supports this for example.
To sign up click the link and fill out the form. You won't have instant access but an admin will email you and then grant you student login privileges.
Dá mbeadh Gaeilge agat cheana fhéin, inis dúinn agus ceadfaidh muid cumhachtaí níos fónta dhuit.
After you've been granted access, you just need to click on 'login' and enter your email to receive a login link. There are no passwords.
Yes, one of the founders of this site is a non-native speaker, Darren Ó Riagáin, who is said by native speakers from Dún Chaocháin to sound indistinguishable from them. There are a few aspects to achieving native like fluency:
- Use the sounds of Irish, don't use the sounds of English. Many monoglot English speakers will be unaware that the english language has a particular set of pronunciations that clearly distinguish it (as do all languages). If you use these sounds instead of Irish ones, you will always sound like you're speaking English, even if you use Irish words. Abairt helps here by allowing you to hear native pronunciation when learning, in a natural conversation flow.
- Use Irish idioms and syntax. If you translate English into Irish directly it will sound like English to people who know it (almost everyone these days, unfortunately).
- Time. You will be able to speak after a couple of years but achieving native fluency is a matter of time, experience and accumulation.
Some limitations to be aware of:
- Big screen required: This site isn't intended to be used on your phone. Ideally it would, but I don't have time to work on that right now.
- Performance issues / temporary unavailability: Abairt is deployed on a low powered vm to save money. It's possible you might experience laggy performance or even downtime at times.
- Found a bug? Add an issue on github, I'll do my best to fix it.