If you’ve been learning Welsh for a while, you may have done a double-take at the title of this article – “What? Royalty isn’t breindal!” In fact, it is, but only in a specific context. A breindal is a royalty as in a tâl (payment) made to someone, like an awdur (author) or dyfeisydd (inventor), …
Eiddew (ivy) is a type of planhigyn prennaidd (woody plant) common across much of the world. It’s known for clinging close either to pridd (soil) or coed (trees). In many European cultures, the fact that eiddew is bythwyrdd (evergreen) means that people associate it with resilience and other spiritual properties. That’s likely the reason behind …
When I’m not working in front of the computer or working out at the leisure centre, I take great pleasure in tending to our local community allotment. Every year we plant different kinds of llysiau (vegetables) to share with our community fridge – though admittedly some years have been more successful than others! On occasion …
Achosi is a Welsh verb which means to cause or to bring about. It’s used in a very similar way to its English equivalent, and is a great way to make formal language flow better and sound simpler and more natural. achosi to cause You have probably already heard of achosi’s parent word, which is …
Are you afraid of corrod (spiders)? These creepy crawlies have a bunch of Welsh names differing from region to region and person to person, and today’s Welsh word of the day, corryn (spider), is one of them. Luckily, a lot of the different words for corryn are quite similar, so you’ll usually recognise when someone …
One of my favourite things about Welsh is that whether you just started learning it yesterday or you’ve been immersed in the language since the day you were born, there are always new things to discover. This is of course true of any language, but one thing that makes it particularly evident in Welsh is …
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 …