cymraeg (welsh)

Hello, bonjour ! I came across this expression, "Gwyn fy myd" in Welsh and I was wondering what it meant. I don't speak Welsh, and G**gle Translate gives me "my world is white/mon monde est blanc", but I don't really understand it. I saw it in a book in Welsh for learners, it only has a...

The hymn Guide me O thou great redeemer!, even when sung in English, sometimes ends with a Welsh verse, which is O, am aros! Yn Ei gariad ddyddiau f'oes! Google translates this as Oh, what a wait! In His love the days of my life!, but I'm not sure that that is a true translation. It seems a...

Cerdd "Arfordir" (starts at about 47:54) Eisteddfod Genedlaethol 2022 - Uchafbwyntiau Eisteddfod Genedlaethol 2022 - BBC Sounds (only 13 days of availability of the audio left "Eisteddfod Genedlaethol 2022" Tregaron) seems like the only poem that I can somewhat understand. I hear it's about...

Hello, how would you order a Coke in a bar in Welsh? I mean how do you say "A coke, please." in Welsh? The pronunciation in IPA, please, too. Thanks, Encolpius.

Welsh has vowels that join together when two vowels come together: Dw i'n mynd i weld y ci. => Dw i'n mynd i'w weld o. Galla i fwytho'r ci. => Galla i'i fwytho fo. (Interestingly this time not "i'w" even though it's the same vowels "i + ei" that meet but "i" has a different meaning.) Dw i'n...

Is anybody aware of any practice material or exercise collections for learners to practice all aspects of a noun that have to do with gender including object pronouns? These things need drilling in order to become automatically used, and other than a brief exercise in class there seems to be...

Hi all, What does the bold phrase mean? :confused: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker; happy new year to you, and, if I may, blwyddyn newydd dda i chi i gyd—happy new year to all. Thanks in advance...

Hello, I would like to know if there is/are an/any equivalent term/s in Welsh for the English term threshing floor. These were generally circular areas with a stone floor over which oxen treaded on cereals in order to separate the chaff from the grain. Thank you very much.

Perhaps the most salient aspect of Welsh grammar to an English learner is mutation. The rules defining when mutation should take place seem very complicated when written down in a grammar. However, I am beginning to wonder if they seem all that important to a native Welsh speaker. Take, for...

@Welsh_Sion, @Tegs When a sentence in Welsh begins with an adjective referring to a feminine subject, am I right that the adjective does not suffer mutation? I ask because I came across the sentence "Glas oedd y ffrog", which I had expected would be "Las oedd y ffrog" because "ffrog" is...

Sorry to come up with another query so soon after the other two, but in the Hugo “Welsh in Three Months” on page 168 I found the sentence “Allun i byth fod wedi ennill”. I'm not clear why “bod” has been mutated. Having looked in Thorne's “A Comprehensive Welsh Grammar” I found this (paragraph...

In David Thorne's "A Comprehensive Welsh Grammar" (1993) on page 144 (dealing with comparison of adjectives) there appears the sentence "Hi yw'r talaf o'r ddwy". I can't understand why "talaf" isn't "dalaf" since both the pronoun and numeral are feminine and two female individuals are being...

In Christine Jones's "Welsh Grammar You Really Need to Know" (2013) on page 207 (dealing with imperatives) there appears the sentence "Gwna fel y mynnoch". This seems to me to be combining the "ti" form of the verb with the "chi" form, and I'm wondering if this is usual.

Can anyone help me (a beginner) with these two queries about negative relative clauses in Welsh, please? 1) The sentence “Those are the men who were not working” can be translated into Welsh as “Dyna’r dynion nad oeddynt yn gweithio”, using the literary form of the auxiliary verb. A more...

I am a beginner in Welsh. I have several books for learners and they all state that 'ae' is pronounced to rhyme with English 'I'. However, I discovered this is not the case and that this rule only applies if 'ae' appears in the last (or only) syllable of a word; otherwise it rhymes with English...

Hi all, I would like to know what is the correct pronunciation of Gwynllyw, the name of a saint, who was a Welsh king and religious figure. I can guess ['gwɨnɬɨu] from orthography (I don't know which syllable is stressed, but I think it's the first). Thanks in advance and happy Easter.

Why does Hywel Dda have soft mutation? He was king, a male, not a usual target for SM in the modern language. Then I looked at other kings: Idwal Foel (I didn't know the word moel "bald"), and then we have Rhodri Mawr and Llywelyn Fawr or Mawr. Is that a genuine fluctuation in the old language...

Hello all, I've read that the Breton form of Cinderella is Luduennig (from ludu, ash + -enn, singulative suffix + -ig, diminutive suffix). I wonder what the corresponding Welsh form would be. Could something like lludwenig (lludw + -en + -ig) work?

Hello, I know that the "soft" consonantal mutation occurs after certain prepositions and in many other cases when a word is preceded by something. I was surprised to see it at the beginning of phrases, such as photo captions on the Welsh Wikipedia page about twins = gefeilliaid. "Efeilliaid...

Hello, I remember I read somewhere that the proto-Celtic suffixes -edo and -eda would be respectively masculine and feminine, that is, the one terminated in o would be masculine and the one in a, feminine. I wonder if anybody can confirm this information and guide me to sources of it. Any help...

Hello, could anybody point me the meaning of the word 'aber' in Welsh? Aberpergwum Aber Mynwy Abergeuenny Aber Hodni Aber Corran Abergavenny any advice is welcome rgs MG

My daughter has been given a birthday card with "Penblwydd Priodas" written on the front. I have tried to find what this means, but apart from finding that it might not translate as "Happy Birthday", I haven't succeeded. I'm sure there are enough experts here to help. Thank you.

[Moderator note: Thread split from here] I’ve also noticed that the first word for ‘friend’ that I learned (cyfaill) isn’t used in everyday speech (instead it’s ‘ffrind’), but I have heard and read ‘cyfeillgar’ (friendly).

One of the first things I learned as a Welsh learner was the Welsh for ‘please’, which is ‘os gwelwch yn dda’, or the familiar ‘os gweli di’n dda’. However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that being said in real life or on S4C programmes: it always seems to be ‘plis’. Do any native speakers...

Hello, In the name of the Welsh group 9Bach, 9 is a pun on "nain", meaning "grandmother", while apparently the adjective "bach" (little) is also used as an endearment term. Shouldn't it be "fach" after a feminine noun? Or does the mutation only apply when an adjective is used descriptively, not...

I'd like to say. "I don't have an alarm clock. I don't need one because my children get up every day at 6.00" How do you say the underlined part? This is my try: "Does dim cloc larwm 'da fi. Does dim rhaid i fi gael un achos mae fy mhlant i yn codi am chwech o'r gloch bob dydd" I'm sure...

Helo pawb, I've been studying Welsh for a little while now. I met this guy in a chat room who says he's a native Welsh speaker from the Valleys near Cardiff. He refuses to use ti in his speech with most people, citing the fact that people should be treated with respect and that chi is neutral...

Hello everyone! I am an author, writing a book at the moment, which is set in Britain during WW2. I have no Welsh, and don't want to depend on an on-line translator. Could some kind Welsh person please let me know if what I have written (in red) is colloquial and correct? I had been on the...

Is the Welsh vocative (generally formed by using soft mutation) still in use in modern (spoken) Welsh? The impression I get is that it seems to be a little inconsistent, sometimes I hear it, others I don't. Does it depend on speaker and/or who is being addressed?

I would like to say the following in Welsh: "My 2 young sons get up at 6 o clock so I have get up at 6 o clock too" How do you say the "so in that sentence? My try for the rest of the sentence is: "mae fy dau fab ifanc I yn codi am chwech o'r gloch (so) mae rhaid i mi codi am chwech o'r gloch...

Hi everyone! I'm doing some research in languages. Could you help me translate this sentence: "I love my nurse" [...]? Thanks a bunch!

Hi everyone! I'm doing some research in languages. Could you help me translate this sentence: [...] "You are my valentine"? Thanks a bunch!

Would anyone be kind enough to translate a sentence into Welsh for me? It's a translation for my brother, who's done his best to translate it himself, but found it too complicated a language! Our grandfather was Welsh, but unfortunately he didn't speak much of it to us, and we only know obvious...

As a learner of Welsh, I've been taught about the three different initial consonant mutations in the language. The most common is soft mutution, which I hear all the time in the spoken language as well as in formal written language. Then there's nasal mutation, which occurs after the words...

Hello guys, I received the following message and would like to know exactly what it means. So far I've deduced something about 'visual and physical pollution'. 'ydych chi yn cynnig gwasanaeth cyfrwng cymraeg yn ogystal a chreu llygredd gweledol a chorfforol fan hyn?' Any help would be greatly...

Hello everybody, in Wales, there are two dioceses with very similar names: the (Anglican) Diocese of Monmouth (Esgobaeth Mynwy) and the (Catholic) Diocese of Menevia (Esgobaeth Mynyw). I wonder what is the pronunciation of both, and if anybody could explain their etimologies? Are the two names...

Hello, When do you normally use a "zero-copula" construction in Welsh, i.e. a phrase in which there is no explicit word meaning "to be"? For example: Hyfryd y tywydd yma "The weather here is lovely" Cymry y dynion yno "The people over there are Welsh" Compare these to Hyfryd yw'r tywydd yma...

Hello, Since blwyddyn "year" is feminine, a number modifying this noun will generally be feminine also (when applicable): thus dwy flynedd "two years" (not *dau flynedd), pedair blynedd "4 years" (not *pedwar blynedd), etc. But what about the names of years? E.g., if you say "I was born in...

Hello, I remember being taught that dwylo (originally meaning "two hands") is the default plural of llaw "hand". Some Welsh dictionaries, such as Geiriadur yr Academi, agree that dwylo is the plural of llaw, but Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru lists llaw(i)au or llawoedd as the first options for...

I'm learning Welsh from the Teach Yourself series (I hope this isn't advertisement), and I'm aware that this book mostly uses Welsh that's mainly spoken in Southern Wales. The problem is that I have no idea how to pronounce the words without using pronunciation websites as I have no CD, the...

Hello, In the context of the recent publication "Lost in Translation", by Ella Frances Sanders Hiraeth a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were... She specifically says there isn't a word in English...

Hello, What is the semantic difference between the following pairs of sentences? Can they be synonymous in some cases? 1) Cymraes yw fy mamgu ("My grandmother is a Welsh woman") Serth yw'r mynydd ("The mountain is steep") 2) Mae fy mamgu yn Gymraes Mae'r mynydd yn serth Thanks

Cael vs. bwyta/yfed. I'm struggling with the text book Cwrs mynediad. For examples on eating and drinking, it most of the time uses 'have smth'. Beth gest ti i fwyta? 'What did you have to eat?'. Far less common is 'eat' and 'drink': Bwytais i swper 'I ate supper'. Is choosing between 'had to...

I want to say "She is my beautiful best friend and I love her to bits." What I've come up with is: Hi yw fy prydferth frind gorau, a rwyf wrth fy modd hi (to bits). How do you say 'love someone to bits' in Welsh?

Hello, Welsh llysieuyn "vegetable" seems to be composed of the singulative suffix -yn added onto the plural form llysiau (from a now-obscure stem *llys). Is llysieuyn the only case (that we know of) where a singulative has been formed using a stem that already ends in the productive plural...

Prynhawn da, What does the construction bod i'w + [verb] mean in Welsh? E.g., if I said, 'Rydw i i'm cael heddiw. Mae'r syniad i'w profi. Mae hi i'w darganfod. What would these mean? Thanks

Hello, I need a translation into Welsh of the name of a Swiss political party, Grünliberale Partei, which is 'Green Liberal Party' in English. Google gives it as 'Blaid Ryddfrydol Werdd' but I have no idea how accurate that is. Thanks

Hello, Is the preposition o "of" still used in any Welsh dialects with the meaning "some (of)"? In Middle Welsh texts, one sometimes sees constructions like y mae o ddwr yn y ffynnon "there is (some) water in the well", but I don't think I was taught this construction when I studied Modern...

Hello everyone! I was wondering how to say How old are you? and I am .... years old. in Welsh? From what I remember it should be something like Faint yw eich oed? and the response would be: Dwi'n ... mlwydd oed. But I am really not sure if this is correct. Now I'm looking for a more...

I was trying to translate "Just when the caterpillar thought life was over, it became a butterfly" From English to Welsh...having issues getting it to translate right. Can anyone help with getting a more accurate translation? Please and Thank you! ~Vendrayil~ Mdoerator's note: In case you...