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.
No matter how talented someone may be, we all have our weaknesses and moments when things don’t go as planned. A particularly useful Welsh word to describe these situations is methu, which means to fail or to be unable. methu to fail / to be unable Sometimes Southerners pronounce it a bit more like this: …
There’s nothing better than curling up on the sofa with a nice hot paned (cuppa) and a good llyfr (book). In fact, llyfr (plural: llyfrau) is today’s Welsh word of the day. llyfr book Llyfr originated as the proto-Brythonic *llɨβr, also meaning book. This is a borrowing from the Latin root liber, which we see …
When I was a child, I couldn’t understand the difference between edrych (looking) and gweld (seeing), in either Welsh or English. Though I’d say I have a handle on it now, I still wonder if there are any languages where the same word is used for both. Let me know if you know of any! …
Today’s Welsh word of the day is llygad, which means eye. Of course, you’ll just as often hear and use the plural form, llygaid (eyes). llygad eye Other plurals are llygadau and llygadon, or the very literary word for eyes, golygon. All three are much less standard and it’s honestly very unlikely that you’ll ever …
One of my worst habits is that at any minor inconvenience, I always make my friends say druan o Nia (poor Nia). Truan – mutated to druan in that example – is a Welsh adjective and noun, meaning poor as in miserable or pitiable, or poor thing. The plural form of truan as a noun …
Today’s word of the day is the adjective gwyllt. And in my opinion, gwyllt is one of those Welsh words that truly sounds like what it means – which is wild. gwyllt wild There are nuances to this meaning though. Gwyllt can mean a wild landscape, plant, or animal (in the latter case, often as …
When learning body parts in Welsh, you’ll be taught the word gwallt for hair. This is how we talk about hair on our head. However, hair on other parts of the body, or fur on animals, is blew. This is a collective noun, and the singular is blewyn (a hair). You also use blewyn for …
One of the first words a new speaker learns in Welsh is mae, which is all-important as it basically functions as an equivalent of the English is. It’s easy to confuse with the almost completely phonetically identical Mai, which is our word of the day today. Mai May There’s a reason that the Welsh Mai …
Today’s Welsh word of the day is melys, an adjective meaning sweet. melys sweet Melys describes something that is sweet in taste. Conversely, it’s less often used to mean a sweet smell, sound, or personality than it is in English – although it’s not completely impossible to hear it used in this sense. It’s also …
At some point in almost everyone’s life, they’ll suffer a briw (injury) or contract a salwch (illness), and will need to get a meddyg (doctor) to trin (treat) them. In English, this word treat has a variety of meanings, though, beside the most obvious medical one. And in Welsh it’s just the same! Read on, …
