Editing Openai/69186d20-2d14-8013-b9c6-c09000f173f6 (section)

==== - For native vocabulary and standard dialects, the above will get you most of the way: - Identify real vowel nuclei per syllable. - Treat leftover e/i as quality markers when they would otherwise create too many vowel sounds. - Respect the broad/slender harmony constraint. ====
* Where it breaks: - Loanwords (caife, traein, stáisiún…) can be a bit orthographically baroque. - Dialect differences (e.g. raibh /rʲɛvʲ/ vs /rʲəvʲ/) shift what you actually hear. - Some morphologically complex forms have historically motivated but opaque vowels.

but if you apply the algorithm:

: 

you’re basically using the same mental model native readers do.

if you want, we can take a random Duolingo batch and I’ll have you try to classify each vowel by role and then we check against IPA.