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.
Homonyms are words that come from different origins and have different meanings, but are spelt and / or pronounced the same way. I find them relatively rare in Welsh compared to English, but chwim is a good example of one. Chwim is a loan word, related to the English word whim. It’s masculine and the …
Do you ever feel you have gormod ar eich plât (too much on your plate), or even gormod o heyrn yn y tân (too many irons in the fire)? I think everyone does sometimes, no matter how much you enjoy and value the things and people that take up your amser (time). Give this article …
Our Welsh word of the day today is the verb hercian. This word is heard throughout Wales, although often with different meanings. Depending on the dialect and the individual speaker, it can mean to hop, to limp, or even to speak poorly / clumsily. hercian to hop / to limp So from where does this …
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 …
