General Chat

Jax, Pronunciation is much easier than you think. There are 28 letters in Welsh alphabet and sounds are usually the same in every word.

a - a as in bat
b - b as in bat
c - c as in cat
ch - ch as in Johann Sebastian Bach
d - d as in ford
dd - "the" as in brea"the"
e - "ay" as in May
f - "v" as in vulture
ff "f" as in fox
g - g as in golf
h - h as in hand
i - "ee" as in cheese
j as in jam
l - l as in land
ll - "elth" as in "twelfth" without the "f" in it
m - m as in mom
n - n as is neice
ng - ng as in long
o - o as in pot
p - p as in pot
r - r as in run
rh - same as r followed quickly by an h. Thus Rhyl is not Rill but R-hill
s - s as in sand
t - t as in tooth
th - th as in thread
u - ee as in tree, but a bit more back in throat than the Welsh letter "i"
w = oo as in look
y - uh as in duh!!

So if you take any Welsh word - Llandudno, for example, you simply look at the number of letters. Ll, a, n, d, u, d, n, o (8 in Welsh) - then it should come out something like Thl -a-n-d-ee-d-n-o. And the o at the end is short as explained above, not the oh that you often hear people say.

I am not brilliant with Welsh, so issue a health warning with the above. :-) The only letter that does cause real problems (apart from double ell) is the "y" which can be pronounced differently in certain situations

Edit. Eglwyswrw is E-g-l-w-y-s-w-r-w (same 9 letters as in English). We always stress penultimate syllable - therefore the second w (or oo) sound would be stressed.

you would be very unlucky to come across the likes of the pillock of an Archdruid or JohnlovesCocoa - believe me, they are a very small minority

John - you're back! Thought for a minute that you'd been off having a couple of glasses of that whisky your daughter gave you for Christmas :-D

Ann do you and Suecrutch live close by..you could be my body guards ;-) :-D :-D :-D :-D

Small being the word ... insignificant ..an English man desperate to be Welsh ...

I haven't got a Welsh bone in my body and don't speak a word of Welsh - except for being able to count from 1 to 5 (taught to me by me elder sister who, when, as an English person starting school in St David's in 1957. was taught in Welsh)

Apart from that - I'm bloody proud to be an English person - no Welsh, Irish or Scottish ancestry.

.... my dad was 100% Cornish :-D

My mum's side - a bit mixed - Herefordshire, Buckinghamshire and Suffolk one side. Hampshire the other - going back to the original New Forest dwellers.
Even found out one side of my children's father's ancestors were also original New Forest dwellers.

You don't have to have a vague Welsh origin to be proud :-D

...still confused about the racial taunts I received as a child (3 shades darker than I am now, with jet black hair) from people who were less 'native' than I am!! :-S

Yes I know John is not Welsh

Enter Island stage left - come away Wend, come away - leave it now :-D

It's open invitations to our house (in it's current state or finished) for friends Muffy being one. I'd hate for any of my friends not to come and stay because they feel the welcome at the tourist attractions and shops would not be the one expected.

What an opportunity missed to visit stunning beaches and countryside all because a few posts have really tarred the whole country.

I hold my hands up to Lampeter and parts of Ceredigion being unwelcoming but I do know where to go where the English pound will be very welcome and so will the tourists spending it.

Edit: you will be safe with Ann, Sandie and me, all live fairly close



:-D

I don't think it is only in Wales that you get extremists, just stay away from the druid man. :-D
Wales is a beautiful place and i'm sure the majority of the people are lovely.

This is just a thread that has at times got out of hand and people have taken umbrage with each other.It has been very funny at times and there have been some laughs.

What a load of ......

B - as in boring

O- as in outrageous

L- as in ludicrous

L- as in lush

O -as in outlandish


Best not go on, but blimey this thread has gone on and on a bit, no wonder my 3x Great Grandmother moved to England ;-)

It's funny isn't it that what was the 5 nations rugby matches never caused any arguments or consternation..apart from the one or two bad calls from certain refs, that this thread thread has cast a bad light on the Welsh .

It was not what the OP intended.

OH has rellies in Swansea (i'm saying nowt about dualling banjo's pmsl but in THIS instance it's not unrealistic lol) I always had a really dreamy relationship with the Welsh..soft and lovely where the Scottish seemed a bit brisk and harsh (sorry i know it's a generalisation)...this is all new to me...but i'm happy for anyone who doesn't feel they should be part of the UK to sod off tbh...kick out their MPs and leave England to it.......you all scream about being dictated to by Westminster.......fine........so takeYOUR MPs give ENGLAND their own parliament and get on with it......I'm a fan of the union but not in it's current form...*waits to be pelted with wet lettuces*

John - your reference to Shaun's "Do You Live In Wales?" thread.

Quote - "Masses of untranslated Welsh right through that thread"

That is simply not true.

As has been pointed out, the only Welsh words used with any regularity are terms of greeting - understood by most posters on that thread.

In the early days of the thread, I was asked by Shaun to help him and others, to understand some Welsh terms.
I posted some very basic words in Welsh,

Days of the week,
Months of the year,
Numeric terms,
Greetings,
Weather etc etc.

Every single word was directly translated in order to help those wishing to learn some Welsh words.

I speak, read, and write Welsh.
I would never write a sentence or paragraph on this site in Welsh without a direct translation. To do so would be discourteous to the vast majority on here who do not understand the Welsh language,

Tec.

Nice one ~ Lynda~ ;-) :-D

you can stay with me any time Muffy - Sandie, Sue, me, Jude, Mr Daff's lovely Daff [Ann] Auntie Jean, and plenty of others have met on a number of occasions - we all get on fine - I live a short walk from Jct 32 of the M4

awww thanks Ann mwah <3

the best way for a non Welsh speaker to prounce Llandudno is

LANDIDNO

The double L is done with the back of the throat - try to avoid spitting!!!!!

Ginnie, that's the appeal of the debate for me, not the blood letting but people being challenged which I am about to do :-)

I took, Latin, French and German as compulsory subjects at school. Learnt Spanish in school when I lived in Spain, Used German when I lived in Germany. Can by get in Italian.

Even with the gender changes and differences in sentence construction in those languages it's the mutations in Welsh that are the most difficult aspect to grasp.
Please don't make it sound like it's easy to learn it isn't, certainly as an adult.

I just HAD to Sandie, I had an urge ;-)