Forvo is a site I heard about recently which contains recordings of tens of thousands of words, phrases and names in over 70 languages. The site is free to use and anyone can submit recordings, which means that their quality varies quite a bit. It looks like it has potential to become a useful language learning tool.
Category: Language
Name the language
Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Do you know or can you guess which language it is?
Word of the day – šišlat
The word šišlat is Czech and is usually translated as to lisp. However it refers to a form of speech impediment that involves substituting s /s/ sounds with sh /ʃ/ sounds. For example, slimák (slug) is pronounced šlimák. This isn’t quite the same as a lisp in English, which usually involves replacing s /s/ sounds with th /θ/ sounds.
Can you think of a good English version of šišlat?
I’ve come up with “to shish”.
Yn ôl ym Mrighton
Cyrhaeddais i yn ôl i Brighton nos Sadwrn diwethaf ar ôl taith hir iawn ar y trên. Arhosais i ym Mhwllheli nos Wener ar ôl i mi orffen y cwrs yn Nant Gwrtheyrn. Darllenais i y nofel Blas y Cynfyd gan Islwyn Ffowc Elis bron i gyd ar y trên.
Dim ond saith dyn roedd ar y cwrs, a fi roedd yr un ifancaf. Roedd y llaill yn dod o Gymru, neu yn byw neu yn treulio eu gwyliau yno. Cyd-dynnon ni’n dda efo’n gilydd, a siaradon ni Cymraeg bron drwy’r amser. Roedd tua phum awr a hanner o ddosbarthiadau y dydd ac roedden nhw’n ddiddorol ac yn ddefnyddiol. Heblaw cryn dipyn o eiriau, ddysgais i ddim llawer o bethau newydd, ond roedd hi’n wych cael cyfle i ymarfer yr iaith.
Un o’r lleoedd harddaf a thawelaf dw i erioed wedi ymweld arno ydy Nant Gwrtheyrn. Roedd y bwyd sydd wedi darparu yng Nghaffi Meinir yn flasus ac yn doreithiog, ac roedd y tywydd yn braf trwy’r wythnos hefyd, heblaw tipyn bach o law ddydd iau.
Ar ais i mBrighton
D’fhill mé ar ais i mBrighton oíche Shathairn seo caite i ndiaidh turas an-fhada sa trén. D’fhág mé i bPwllheli oíche hAoine agus mé indiaidh an cúrsa i Nant Gwrtheyrn a chroichnaithe. Labhair mé an chuid is mó de úrscéal Breatnaise sa trén.
Níl ach seachtar fear bhí ar an cúrsa agus ba mise an daoine is óige. Ba ón Bhreatain Bheag na daoine eile, nó i bhur gconaí nó ag ceatheadh ár leathanta-saoire ansin. Reitigh muid go maith le cheile agus labhairt muid as Breatnaise beagnach an t-am ar fad.Bhí cúig uaire a chloig go leith ceachtana againn gach lá, agus bhí siad suimúil agus usaideach. Ach oiread cuid mhaith focalaí, ní d’fhoghlaim mé go leor rudaí nua, ach bhí sé go hiontach.
Is áit iontach álainn agus suaimhneach í Nant Gwrtheyrn. Bhí an bía a raibh ar fáil i gCaffi Meinir an bhlasta agus flúirseach, agus bhí sé go bréa an seachtaine ar fad, ach amháin giota beag baisteach ar Déardaoin.
Word of the day – gwyddbwyll
In Modern Welsh, gwyddbwyll means chess, (lit. “wood wisdom”), however it originally referred a different board game which is mentioned in the ancient Welsh tales of the Mabinogion.
According to this site, the original game was often played on a pegged board with a king and four princes (or defenders) against eight opponents (or raiders). The exact rules have been lost in the mists of time.
The Cornish equivalent of gwyddbwyll is goedhboell, while in Breton it’s gwezboell. The Irish word for this game is ficheall, or fidchell in Old Irish, which comes from the same root as the Welsh and means the same thing. There are more details of the Irish game of fidchell here.
The Welsh names of the chess pieces are:
Teyrn / Brenin = King
Brenhines = Queen
Castell (castle) = Rook
Esgob = Bishop
Marchog = Knight
Gwerinwr (peasant/pawn) = Pawn
My Language Notebook
My Language Notebook is a free program I heard about the other day that helps you to keep and organise notes on the languages you’re studying.
You can use the program to make notes of sentences and longer texts, add translations and notes, and also record audio. You can also upload your notes to the site to share with other learners, and download notes made by others.
This has potential to be a useful tool, and the author has plans to add more features, such as a spaced repetition system.
Return to Brighton
I arrived back in Brighton last night after an enjoyable week of studying and using Welsh in Nant Gwrtheyrn. There were only six others on the courses – all men – and I was the youngest. Most of the others were Welsh, or had Welsh connections, or at least make regular visits to Wales. Most of us were roughly at the same level, but there was one bloke from the Rhondda who spoke Welsh almost like a native speaker, and another who could read and write Welsh very well and had a huge vocabulary, but who couldn’t speak Welsh all that well.
We had about five hours of classes a day, which were interesting and useful. There were also a couple of organised evening activities, and an afternoon trip to Caer Gors, former home of one of Wales’ best known Welsh language authors, Kate Roberts (1891-1985), after which we had a look round Caernarfon. The rest of the time we spent chatting (mainly in Welsh), stuffing ourselves with the delicious food provided in the on-site restaurant, Caffi Meinir, and admiring the spectacular views.
Nant Gwrtheyrn is in a very isolated, beautiful and peaceful spot on the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales. It’s surrounded on three sides by mountains with the sea on the fourth side. The nearest village, Llithfaen, is three miles away up a narrow, winding and very steep road. On a clear day you can sea Anglesea, and on a very clear day you can apparently see Ireland.
Apart from a bit of rain on Thursday, the weather was fine and fairly warm, and the sun made quite frequent appearances. I was expecting a lot more of the wet stuff to be falling from the sky, so was pleasantly surprised.
There are a few more of my photos of Nant Gwrtheyrn on Flickr.
Nant Gwrtheyrn
Tomorrow I’m off to Nant Gwrtheyrn, the Welsh Language and Heritage Centre in North Wales, where I’m going to learn some more Welsh. I’ll be there for a week and probably won’t have internet access, so won’t be able to answer your emails. I’m also going to turn off comments to prevent the usual flood of spam that inundates this blog.
In the meantime, here’s a recording of a poem in a mystery language. Can you work out which language it is? I’ll give you the answer when I return from Wales.
Polyglot Scrabble
Today I received an email from someone at Mattel, the owners of Scrabble, about their plans to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Scrabble this year.
One idea they’re working on is to run a polyglot Scrabble game where you can play Scrabble in a number of languages at the same time. It’s likely to be staged in Spain and there will be a monetary prize for the winner.
They’d like to tap into a network of people who speak a number of languages who might represent their countries. Do you belong to or know of any Scrabble clubs or organisations that might be interested in this? Or might you be interested in it yourself?
If you can help, please contact Philip Nelkon at Mattel Games.
Foreign Language Expertise
On a website I came across today, there’s some useful and interesting advice about studying languages. The author of the site, Alexander Arguelles, is a professor of linguistics and has studied many many languages – you can find out which ones on the how to learn any language forum.
There’s also some discussion of polyglottery, which is described as “a quest to develop an encyclopedic mind and to philosophically understand the nature of your own consciousness through the passionate, in-depth, and respectful study of as many different languages as possible, focusing both upon their diachronic evolution of as actual entities and upon the intellectual heritage they have left in the form of great texts”.
Prof. Arguelles has plans to set up a foreign language academy where he will teach people how to teach themselves languages. His methods include shadowing, which involves listening to a foreign language and repeating what you hear in a loud, clear voice while walking outdoors as swiftly as possible and maintaining a perfectly upright posture. There are videos explaining this and other methods on the language study section of the site.