Category: Welsh (Cymraeg)

Word of the day – treiglad

By Simon

Today’s word, treiglad (pl. treigladau) is the Welsh word for mutation, the process of changing the initial consonants of words – something we were practising in class today. This is a characteristic of all the Celtic languages and takes quite a bit of getting used to.

The most common mutation in Welsh is the soft mutation or treiglad meddal, which changes t to d, p to b, c to g, and so on. It’s quite hard to keep track of all the occasions when this mutation is needed, but I think I’m getting better at it. I haven’t tried to memorise all the rules because there are so many of them. Instead I notice where mutations are used in the Welsh texts I read and when I hear Welsh spoken. This gives me a good feel for when to use them.

If you practise reading and listening to a language as much as possible, you get a lot of exposure to grammatical patterns like mutations. This helps you to develop instincts for the grammar and seems to me to be the best way to learn it. I think this method works better than trying to memorise all the grammatical rules first. Once you have developed a feel for how a language works, then learning the rules might be helpful and certainly will be easier.

Glaw

By Simon

We were practising questions and answers in class today. There are no exact equivalents of yes and no in Welsh. Instead when answering a question, you repeat the verb in the appropriate form, or in some cases you use other words. For example, responses to the question Wyt ti’n mywnhau’r cwrs ma? (Are you enjoying this course?), could be Ydw (I am) or Nag ydw (I’m not).  It often takes me a few moments to work out the correct answer.

O’n ni’n ymarfer cwestiynau ac atebion yn y dosbarth heddiw, ac ddoe hefyd. Yn aml mae rhaid i mi feddwl am ychydig eiliadau i ddewis yr ateb cywir. 

This morning we also attended a local cyd – an informal get together of local Welsh speakers and Welsh learners. It took place in the one of the pubs in town, and we heard and spoke quite a lot of Welsh, so it was very useful.

Y bore ma, aethon ni i’r tafarn yn y dre i gymryd rhan mewn cyd – cyfarfod anffurfiol bobl leol sy’n siarad neu sy’n dysgu Cymraeg. O’n ni’n siarad llawer o Gymraeg gyda nhw, felly oedd hi’n defnyddiol iawn.

It started absolutely tipping it down after dinner and I thought there might be floods like there were here last week. Fortunately the rain didn’t last more than about half an hour.

Ar ôl cinio, cychwnodd hi’n bwrw glaw trwm iawn. Ond oedd hi’n gorffen cyn hanner awr ac nag oedd llifogydd fel yr wythnos diwethaf.

I have some more homework to do for tomorrow, so I’d better go now.

Rhaid i mi mynd nawr, achos mae gen i mwy o waith cartref i wneud cyn yfory.

Lampeter

By Simon

I arrived in Lampeter yesterday evening after a long train and bus journey. After dumping my bags in my room – I’m staying in one of the university residences – I had wander around the town. There wasn’t many people about and only a few of the pubs and restaurants were open. I eventually found a fish and chip place that was open and had dinner there.

Photo of the hall of residence where I'm staying during the course

Cyraeddais i yn Lambed neithiwr ar ôl taith hir ar y trên ac ar y bws. Rhoddais magiau yn fy ystafell – dw i’n aros yn lety y brifysgol – ac yna es i am dro o gwmpas y dre. Doedd dim llawer o bobl ar y strydoedd ac oedd mwyafrif y siopau a bwyty ar gau. Or diwedd o’n i dod âr hyd o fwyty pysgod a sglods a ches fy swper yno.

This morning I meet the other people on the course – there’s about 25 of us, I think – and registered, which invovled filling in loads of forms. I was initially put in the intermediate class, but moved up to the advanced class in the afternoon.

Photo of the oldest part of the university - our classroom in in the corner of this building

Y bore ma, cwrddais i’r pobl eraill ar y gwrs – mae tua 25 ohonon ni i gyd, dw i’n meddwl – ac gofrhestriais i – oedd llawer o ffurflenau i lenwi. Yn gynta, o’n i yn y lefel canolbarth, ond yn y prynhawn, symudais i i’r lefel uwch.

Language in the workplace

By Simon

According to an article on Eurolang, the travel company Thomas Cook has requested that staff in it’s branch in Bangor “speak English when discussing work-related matters in the workplace”. This has been interpreted as a ban on staff speaking Welsh in what is one of the strongest Welsh-speaking areas. As a result, there have been a number of protests and talk of legal action.

An article on this story on the BBC News site mentions that Thomas Cook “told staff they must conduct business conversations in English, as it is the UK’s common language.” This policy apparently applies to all non-English languages and to offices throughout the UK. This is intended to ensure clear communication, the company claims.

There’s some discussion of this story here and there’s an article about it in Welsh here.

In a polyglot office like the one I work in, the language we all have in common is English, which is the main language we use. Some of us also speak to each other in other languages such as Spanish, Italian or Mandarin.

Does your company tell you which language you should speak at work? Do you think they have any right to do so?

Word of the day – 衛星

By Simon

weixing/eisei - satellite in Chinese and Japanese

The Chinese word for satellite, 衛星 [卫星] (wèixīng) means literally ‘guard(ing)/defend(ing) star’. When I came across this word the other day while working on a Chinese version of a website, it took me a few moments to work out what it meant. Eventually I deciphered it from the context and the second character, which I knew meant star. The same characters, 衛星, are used in Japanese, but they’re pronounced eisei.

One of the things I like about Chinese is that when you encounter an unfamiliar word, you can often guess its meaning from the meanings of the individual characters.

According to this Online Etymology Dictionary, the English word satellite first appeared in writing in 1548, when it meant “follower or attendant of a superior person”. It comes from, via French, from the Latin satellitem (nom. satelles) “attendant”. It was first used to mean “man-made machinery orbiting the Earth” in 1936, when such things were theoretical. The first artificial satellite, a name used to distinguish them from natural satellites like the moon, was Sputnik 1, which was launched in 1957.

The Welsh word for satellite is lloeren, which comes from lloer, moon. In most of the other languages I’ve checked, the word is satellite or something similar.

Word of the day – moron

By Simon

The Welsh word moron, which means carrots, is an example of a false friend (cyfaill anwir?). The word for carrot is moronen, one of a small group of Welsh words that become shorter in the plural. Confusingly, the English word moron, which comes from the Greek for ‘foolish, dull’, has been borrowed into Welsh and has the same meaning.

Here are a few more Welsh/English false friends that I’ve noticed recently. Some look the same as English words, but are pronounced differently, so are only false friends in writing.

pan = when (pan is padell)
pant = hollow (to pant is dyhefod)
dim = nothing (dim is pŵl or aneglur)
mud = mute (mud is mwd)
hurt = silly (hurt is dolur (n) or dolurio (vb))
hen = old (hen is iâr)
brain = crows (brain is ymennydd)
nod = aim (nod is amnaid (n) or amneidio (vb))

Dyslecsia / Dyslexia

By Simon

According to an article I came across today, dyslexic children tend to it easier to read and write Welsh, with its regular and consistent spelling system, then English, with its somewhat eccentric orthography. Similarly, few children have problems spelling other regular languages like Italian and Spanish.

However dyslexic children who start by learning Welsh, then later learn English tend to find English spelling very challenging and often use Welsh-style spelling when writing English.

Here are some examples of English spelled with Welsh phonetics:

Ddy cwic brawn ffocs jymps owfer ddy leisi dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Tw bi o not tw bi: ddat is ddy cwestiyn.
To be or not to be: that is the question.

The article also mentions that dyslexic children tend to have more trouble getting to grips with Welsh grammar than with English grammar.

Canu caneon yn y Gymraeg

By Simon

Heddiw fe ddes i o hyd i ddau wefanau diddorol iawn:

CanuDrosGymru.com
Pwrpas y wefan hon ydy dod â chaneuon Cymraeg at sylw y Cymry di-Gymraeg – ond os bydd yn atgoffa ambell Gymro neu Gymraes am ein hetifeddiaeth gerddorol, gorau’n y byd!

Codi Canu – Ystafell Ymarfer
Eich siop-un-stop i ddysgu caneuon newydd gyda’r corau, neu ail-ddysgu hen ganeuon i berfformio ar eich teithiau i gemau’r 6 gwlad! Mae darnau’r Soprano, Alto, Tenor a bas yma i chi, felly peidiwch oedi.

Today I came across a couple of interesting websites:

Sing4Wales.com
A website that includes the a number of well-known Welsh songs with their lyrics and videos of people singing them. It’s designed to encourage those unfamiliar with these songs, or who have forgotten them, to (re)learn them. Quite a few of the videos seem to be Siân James singing the songs and accompanying herself on the harp – hyfryd!

Codi Canu – Rehearsal Room
Includes a small selection of Welsh songs with recordings of their tunes, Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass parts with an online practice tool, and recordings of the words being spoken so that you can get to grips with the pronunciation.

Language maintenance

By Simon

This week I’ve been trying out yet another language learning and maintenance strategy. Instead of spending most of the day listening to online radio in one language or other, as I’ve been doing up to now, I’ve started listening to lots of lessons in the languages I’m focusing on at the moment (Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx and Spanish). At the same time I’m converting the lessons I have on tape to mp3 format. Once I’ve done that, I copy them to my mp3 player.

I bought myself a new mp3 player for my birthday and am filling it with language lessons, podcasts and audiobooks. It can also display images, so I might try to make some virtual flash cards for it. Usually I don’t bother with flashcards as they’re quite cumbersome to carry around. This is no longer an issue.

Language learning challenge

By Simon

A number of the denizens of the forum at How to learn any language are conducting an experiment to see how much of a language they can learn in 6 weeks. They’ve chosen languages they haven’t studied before and there has been quite a lot of discussion about learning techniques and how to measure the results.

Are any of you taking part in this challenge, or have you done anything similar before?

I did something similar with Italian a few years ago when I tried to learn as much of the language as possible in 2 months before going on holiday to Italy. When I got to Italy, I was able to have basic conversations and to generally get by, but I was a long way from fluency. Unfortunately I didn’t continue studying Italian after the holiday and have since forgotten much that I learnt.

By the way, it’s my birthday today – dau dwy ar bymtheg ar hugain ydw i.