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.
Whenever I’m speaking to a Welsh learner and they want to express a verb for which they don’t know the word in Welsh, they invariably resort to trying out the English version in a Welsh accent with –io added to the end. Rudimentary as this strategy might be, sometimes, it actually works! One example of …
There are three main words you’ll hear used in Welsh to describe the devil, or, more generally, a demon: diafol, diawl, and cythraul. Of these, diawl, is our main word of the day today. The plural of diawl is normally diawliaid, although some people say diefyl. The word is pronounced very quickly, all in one …
Pys (peas) are the definition of small but mighty when it comes to eating, full of haearn (iron), fitaminau (vitamins), and even protein (protein). No wonder they’re so popular in the UK – from pys stwnsh (mushy peas) with ‘sgod a sglod (fish and chips) to the classic cawl pys (pea soup), they’re a staple …
I always finds words in new languages easier to learn when they begin with the same letter as their equivalent does in a language I already speak – it just makes forming that connection in the brain a little simpler. Tenau in Welsh means thin, so it looks pretty similar to the English word. This …
Today, our Welsh word of the day is uchel. This is an adjective which means both high and loud. Its antonyms are isel (low) and tawel (quiet), respectively. Uchel means high in a physical sense, like a mynydd (mountain), and high in the sense of status and rank, like a brenin (king), but it also …
There’s a popular theory that any medr (skill) can be learnt to the level of an arbenigwr (expert) if you put in 10,000 hours of ymarfer (practice). When I first heard the rhif (number) I thought great, that doesn’t sound like that long – but actually if you ymarfer (practise) something for dwy awr (every …
Our Welsh word of the day today may not be particularly pleasant, but it’s useful to know as it’s often found in the newyddion (news), in llyfrau (books), and on teledu (television). Llofrudd means murderer or sometimes assassin. The plural of llofrudd is usually llofruddion. Occasionally in older literature you may see llofruddwyr or llofruddiaid …
One wonderful thing about learning a new language is all the words you can encounter that can’t necessarily be said in quite the same way in your first. One word I like in Welsh that English can’t capture is adflas, which means an unpleasant aftertaste. It’s a masculine noun with the plural form adflasau. adflas …
Did you know that around 84% of the British population drink at least one paned (cuppa, usually of tea) a day? All that te (tea) going down is often paired with a sweet treat – Brits eat by far more bisgedi (biscuits) than the population of any other country in the world. Like a lot …
Language is more than just a way of communicating about the world – it is a way of understanding it. Often words don’t map neatly onto each other from one language to another. I find that this is particularly the case for adjectives. Parhaol is a great example of this, as it can mean lasting, …
