Gower Ranger
VIP Member
I've been learning Welsh for a couple of years as it's quite widely spoken around here. Three of my immediate team are fluent and for some of my patients it's their first language.
Plenty of Welsh language TV and radio for me to practice with, too. The main barrier to speaking it is not knowing who speaks it. The health board has "I'm a Welsh speaker" or "learner" lanyards for holding hospital IDs, so patients know they can use Welsh, which helps.
It's a fascinating language and fun to learn, though the difference between North and South variants is quite marked for a learner.
The pronunciation of the written language can seem perplexing at first but soon becomes clear. Much harder for me are the mutations (essentially, multiple spellings for words, determined by surrounding words/context) and the numerous words for "yes" and "no".
Overview of mutations:
So Caerdydd (Cardiff) can also be:
Gaerdydd (soft mutation)
Nghaerdydd (nasal mutation)
Chaerdydd (aspirate mutation)
Yes/no: In Welsh, there isn’t a single pair of words that corresponds to ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Your answer depends on who you're referring to, which tense the question is in and how emphatic you want to be. It's a "call and response" structure, so the "yes" or "no" uses the verb that was in the question, including tense and person. Essentially, you are echoing the question in your response.
An example of how this might look in English:
Q: Do you have a tent?
Would be answered "I do" instead "yes".
Q: Did they arrive late?
Would be answered: "they did"
There are variations to complicate things and keep it interesting (Oes, ie/nage), naturally.
Welsh is not the only language like this.
Difficult though the spelling and syntax may seem to an English speaker, it can't be changed; you might as well start from scratch and call it Esperanto.
Plenty of Welsh language TV and radio for me to practice with, too. The main barrier to speaking it is not knowing who speaks it. The health board has "I'm a Welsh speaker" or "learner" lanyards for holding hospital IDs, so patients know they can use Welsh, which helps.
It's a fascinating language and fun to learn, though the difference between North and South variants is quite marked for a learner.
The pronunciation of the written language can seem perplexing at first but soon becomes clear. Much harder for me are the mutations (essentially, multiple spellings for words, determined by surrounding words/context) and the numerous words for "yes" and "no".
Overview of mutations:
So Caerdydd (Cardiff) can also be:
Gaerdydd (soft mutation)
Nghaerdydd (nasal mutation)
Chaerdydd (aspirate mutation)
Yes/no: In Welsh, there isn’t a single pair of words that corresponds to ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Your answer depends on who you're referring to, which tense the question is in and how emphatic you want to be. It's a "call and response" structure, so the "yes" or "no" uses the verb that was in the question, including tense and person. Essentially, you are echoing the question in your response.
An example of how this might look in English:
Q: Do you have a tent?
Would be answered "I do" instead "yes".
Q: Did they arrive late?
Would be answered: "they did"
There are variations to complicate things and keep it interesting (Oes, ie/nage), naturally.
Welsh is not the only language like this.
Difficult though the spelling and syntax may seem to an English speaker, it can't be changed; you might as well start from scratch and call it Esperanto.
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