Nia is an aspiring writer from Powys, Wales. She attended Welsh-medium primary and secondary school, and is passionate about preserving the beautiful Welsh language and culture. She speaks some French, and is currently learning Arabic.
Today’s word of the day is the adjective rhyfeddol, which means wonderful or extraordinary. rhyfeddol wonderful / extraordinary This word comes from rhyfedd, which is also an adjective, meaning strange. The –ol doesn’t mean much; it’s just a common suffix for adjectives in Welsh. Examples of it in action could include dynol (human) from dyn …
A really useful word to add to your Welsh vocabulary that you might not even have thought to learn is morthwyl (hammer). Linguistically as well as practically, it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t come to mind until you really need it! Morthwyl is a masculine noun with the plural morthwylion (hammers). morthwyl hammer morthwylion …
Tongue is one of many, many English words that are spelt in a way that’s completely unintuitive. Luckily, Welsh is a near-totally phonetic language, and its word for tongue is tafod, which is lovely and simple to spell and pronounce. The plural for tongue is equally simple; it’s just tafodau (tongues). tafod tongue tafodau tongues …
Out of all the myriad good reasons that there are to learn a new language, the one that’s perhaps most important is simply that you find it diddorol (interesting). Without that, no matter how disciplined you are, you’ll seriously struggle to keep up the motivation to go on learning! diddorol interesting I chose this adjective …
Our Welsh word of the day today is a verb – dianc. This is the standard way of saying to escape or escaping in Welsh, though ffoi (to flee) is a common alternative, and sometimes cilio (to retreat) is used in this way. dianc to escape Here is how dianc mutates: Soft mutationddianc Nasal mutationnianc …
Arian (money) isn’t everything, but it certainly does make life a lot easier, so it’s no surprise that becoming cyfoethog is a primary goal for many people. In English, there are two separate words for cyfoethog: wealthy and rich. Many people see the former as signifying a higher level of moeth (luxury / ease), eiddo …
At Nadolig (Christmas) and Pasg (Easter), many people take the time to meticulously addurno (decorate) their cartrefi (homes), gerddi (gardens), and even places of gwaith (work) in accordance with the tymor (season). addurno to decorate You may notice that addurno looks and sounds a little bit like the English word adorn. They are indeed cognates …
You wouldn’t be darllen (reading) this article without your ymennydd (brain), and I wouldn’t be ysgrifennu (writing) it either. And we certainly wouldn’t be able to engage in dysgu (learning) new languages without our ymenyddiau (brains)! ymennydd brain ymenyddiau brains Ymennydd is a masculine noun used in all dialects and registers of Welsh. It comes …
Symbolising simultaneously cariad (love) and dicter (anger), lwc (luck) and perygl (danger), the colour coch (red) contains multitudes. And it’s particularly important to Cymru (Wales) because it’s the lliw (colour) of our iconic emblem, y ddraig goch (the red dragon). coch red As is the case with many lliwiau (colours), coch is a very old …
Our word of the day today is the masculine noun ffôn, the most common word you’ll hear in Welsh for a phone or telephone. The plural version is ffonau (phones). The word can also apply to a phone in linguistics, as in a sain (sound). However, in this article, we’ll be focussing on the physical …
