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.
What would you say is the most distinctive feature of the Welsh language? I suspect everyone has their own answer, but one that I think comes up often is treiglo (mutation, as a phenomenon). Treiglo is not completely unique to Welsh – but it’s pretty close. This morphological phenomenon, by which the first letter of …
Personally, I’m someone who always wears trwsus (trousers) and could never be caught in a sgert (skirt). In general, I’m not the most benywaidd (feminine). So one of the most reliable ways I can make my friends laugh is to pull out an old picture of me in a girly ffrog! If you haven’t guessed, …
In any language, the most important words are often the most basic. One key example of this is the word big – short and simple, but used in almost every conversation you’ll ever have. The Welsh word for big is mawr. mawr big It’s sometimes pronounced like this in South Wales, colloquially: But this is …
People often joke that modern life is full of biwrocratiaeth (bureaucracy). Whether it’s paying your trethi (taxes) or getting your trwydded yrru (driver’s license), everything seems to take a lot of gwaith papur (paperwork)! At an Eisteddfod when I was about ten, I remember the cerdd (poem) picked for the recitation competition was all about …
Today’s Welsh word of the day is llyffant, pluralised as either llyffaint or llyffantod. It can mean toad or frog depending on whether you’re in South or North Wales, and its etymology is unclear. You can also use it as an insult – like how we call someone a toad in English if we think …
Do you know your body parts in Welsh? If not, today’s post will be a step in the right direction, because we’re talking about clustiau (ears). The singular, and our word of the day, is clust (an ear). clust ear clustiau ears Clust is a feminine noun which originates from the proto-Celtic *klousta, also referring …
The Welsh word anwes is a noun that can’t be translated directly into English. It can refer to a physical caress, but is also more abstract and could mean an indulgence or an excessive fondness. It’s masculine, and pluralises to anwesau. But it’s quite likely that if you’ve encountered this word before as a learner, …
Do you prefer the quiet of the cefn gwlad (countryside) or the hustle and bustle of trefol (urban) life? Cymru (Wales) is of course very gwledig (rural), so if you’re a lover of the country, maybe you fall into the former camp. But that doesn’t mean we can escape learning about the word dinas (city). …
One thing many learners struggle with in Welsh is the variation in vocabulary between different regions of the country. Today’s word of the day is definitely guilty of this – we’re talking about cwympo (to fall), which becomes disgyn (to fall) in most of North Wales. cwympo to fall Cwympo comes directly from the noun …
One of most confusing things about learning a new language is that words don’t always map directly onto each other. This is particularly the case with Welsh prepositions, the meanings of which tend not to correspond exactly to English prepositions. And this is very true for the useful little word tua, which can mean either …
