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 …
Today’s Welsh word of the day is annibynnol, which means independent. annibynnol independent Annibynnol, despite its meaning, does actually come from another word. This is dibynnol (dependent). Dibynnol itself originates in the word dibynnu, meaning to depend. You can read more about dibynnu in our article on the word, but it originally comes from the …
If you’ve spent much time chatting to Welsh speakers, you’ll probably at some point have heard the simple word acw used to punctuate phrases – but depending on where the person is from, the meaning can actually be slightly different. Acw is an adverb that, in its most basic form, is a way of saying …
The concept of tomorrow is at once really simple and incredibly poetic. It’s a word which is used in many languages to represent not just the day after heddiw (today), but the future in general – one which we have gobaith (hope) will be better than today. The Welsh word for tomorrow is yfory, often …
The Welsh word for twenty is ugain – although it’s technically not the only one, with the alternative dau ddeg (literally two tens) becoming more and more common. Still, ugain is very idiomatic and has a long history of being used in the Welsh language, as part of the traditional ugeiniol (vigesimal) counting system, which …
Every single day, we make penderfyniadau (decisions) – from the little things, like what to have for brecwast (breakfast), to the life-changing, like what gyrfa (career) to pursue or whether to enter into a priodas (marriage). Those are the kind of things you can’t penderfynu ar amrantiad (make a snap decision) about! Penderfynu (to decide) …