Seems to be an English thing. Was what I was told as a kid till my (south) Welsh aunty corrected me

Does this have Welsh origins or just another annoying thing English people do?

Also, I’ve noticed that most Welsh people pronounce it Lan at least when speaking in English, plus they’ve dropped one of the Ls from Llanymyddyfri (but kept it for Llandovery)

Grateful for an education here from anyone with the patience 🙏

I'm learning Welsh online with DysguCymraeg and I'm currently at Sylfaen 2. I'm ok with reading and writing, and I'm getting better at listening, but I'm having a real problem with speaking Welsh. I have opportunities - my daughter-in-law and grandchildren speak Welsh at home, and I go to a couple of Paned a Sgwrs sessions near to where I live (Chester), but when I try to join in conversations my mind literally goes blank. I know the advice is just jump in and do it, but I simply cannot think of the words to say anything but the basic 'Pnawn da', Sut dach chi'n' and 'Hwyl' or 'tan tro nesa'.

I feel I need a 'safe place' to learn to practice speaking Welsh - to hear myself speak it and to be able to remeber and use words without doing some sort of English-Welsh translation in my head. I've used both Duolingo and SSIW, but the best these offer is to repeat what it presented.

I've been looking at AI apps to give me just this conversational practice (not feedback, grammar or anything els - I'll get that from my Welsh class). So far the only one I've found that includes Welsh is Talkpal which has Welsh. Has anyone used it? Is it any good? Are there any other options or apps you can recommend? Thank you.

Hi!

My name is Anastasia. I'm American, but due to personal reasons I'm currently living in Russia. I've been learning Welsh on my own since 2022. I've recently started my own blog. I post short videos in Welsh, talking about my life in Moscow. You can find me on IG (@AnastasiaLitV) and YouTube (@NoctivagantASMR).

I'm looking for similar creators to connect with, and I'd also really appreciate any feedback — my Welsh (especially speaking and pronunciation) is 100% self-taught.

P.S. Please let's not focus on politics. If you don't feel comfortable engaging with my content, I completely understand — just feel free to ignore my post. I'm here with only one goal in mind - to share moments of MY life and my love for Wales and the Welsh language.

and not Beil or Beyl ?

Christian Bale (actor) or Gareth Bale (soccer and rugby player) are both Welsh.

pretty much is there one? the closest ive found is Teyrn but that seems to have a pretty bad connotation, any help would be appreciated, even a constructed word using the rules of welsh :)

It seems that Clogau is a Welsh brand.

If you have tried using AI’s (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc) to improve/practice a language that you already know, did it help?

What AI(s) have you tried?

What are the pros and cons?

Did it give correct/accurate answers to questions about linguistics (e.g. phonetics, sentence structure, mutations etc)?

Was it good at casual conversations?

Was it able to correct your mistakes?

How gullible was it to false corrections?

Context: I’m trying to improve on my national language, Welsh. I know the basics from school so I use Duolingo, conversations and the internet to practice and refresh my memory. Recently I started using ChatGPT to answer the odd question here and there. Its quick, concise responses are favourable over using the web, however I do question the accuracy of its answers and if I should allow myself to rely on information from AI.

Dear fluent-in-Welsh people,

I'm writing a book in which I am naming characters using Welsh words(A reliable man named Dibyn, A graceful heiress named Rhianna, ect.), and when looking for possible names for a certain character, I found the word 'cam'.

I have also found that it seems to have multiple meanings, so I was wondering, if you came across a book in which the characters are named using the Welsh language, and they tend to personify the meanings of their names, what would you expect to see from a character named Cam?

A bit of an odd question, but I was wondering which version of "ass/arse" and "shit/shite" are used more commonly in Wales. I know both versions can be found around the UK, so is there a regional preference in Wales or do they even have different meanings/uses? Thanks!

Hello all!

I am on a journey to reclaim and relearn my ancestry starting with my given name… which according to my mother is Old Welsh.

I have searched high and low over the years to find the meaning and pronounciation and just yesterday had a light bulb moment to ask reddit ❤️

My name is - Rhesida.

Any insights, knowledge or pointers are so appreciated. Thank you.

"The road has been closed." in Welsh is: "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau." You said: Why is it "ei chau"? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT

Great question! The phrase "ei chau" in Welsh is formed as follows:

"Ei" is a possessive pronoun that means "its" or "her" (in this context, referring to the road, which is feminine in Welsh).
"Chau" is the verb "to close," in its past participle form. So, "ei chau" together means "its closing" or "closed."

In Welsh, the structure can sometimes feel a bit different from English. Here, "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau" literally translates to "The road has had its closing," but in natural English, we express it as "The road has been closed."

Let me know if that clears it up! You said: Is "chau" a mutated form? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT

Yes, exactly! "Chau" is indeed the mutated form of the verb "cael," which means "to close" or "to shut."

In this case, the verb "cael" mutates to "chau" because it's following the possessive pronoun "ei," which causes the mutation (a feature of Welsh grammar). The mutation here is a soft mutation, where the "c" sound changes to "ch."

So, when using "cael" after a possessive pronoun like "ei" (its), it turns into "chau." The sentence "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau" is using this mutation to say "The road has been closed."

Welsh mutations can be tricky, but once you start to see the patterns, they become more intuitive! You said: Does "cael" mean "to close"? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT

You're right to ask! I made an error there—apologies for the confusion.

Actually, "cael" doesn't mean "to close." It means "to get" or "to have" in Welsh. In the phrase "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau," "chau" is the mutated form of the verb "chau", which means "to close" or "to shut."

So the construction "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau" literally translates to "The road has had its closing," which in English would be "The road has been closed."

Thanks for pointing that out! I hope that clears things up. You said: Why did you say that "c" changes to "ch" with a soft mutation? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT

You're absolutely right to ask for clarification again, and I apologize for the confusion in my explanation.

Actually, "chau" is not a soft mutation of "cael," and I misspoke in saying that. "Chau" is the correct form of the verb "chau" (meaning "to close") in its past participle form. It doesn't come from the verb "cael" (to get), and there is no mutation of the "c" to "ch" in this case.

In Welsh, a soft mutation typically changes the initial consonant of a word (e.g., "b" to "f" or "c" to "g"), but "chau" doesn’t involve that kind of mutation.

I appreciate your patience and careful reading! The past participle form "chau" in the sentence "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau" is simply the correct form of the verb "chau" used after "ei" (its), which is a possessive pronoun that triggers no mutation in this case.

Thanks again for your sharp attention to detail! You said: Why is it "Mae'r drws wedi ei gau" then? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT

Ah, I see where the confusion is coming from now! Thanks for your patience. Let’s clarify that:

You’ve brought up "Mae'r drws wedi ei gau", which translates to "The door has been closed." This is actually a very similar structure to "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau" ("The road has been closed"), but the difference comes down to the verb used and the mutation.

"Gau" is the past participle of the verb "gau" (meaning "to close" or "to shut"), and it is soft-mutated after the possessive pronoun "ei" (its), which leads to the "g" sound becoming "gw" (a soft mutation of "g").

"Chau" is a different form of the verb, used with the same meaning (to close), but does not undergo the mutation. In this case, "chau" isn't affected by the possessive pronoun "ei," hence it doesn’t mutate in the same way as "gau" does.

So in short:

"Mae'r drws wedi ei gau": "The door has been closed" (with "gau" mutated to "gau").
"Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau": "The road has been closed" (with "chau" unchanged).

It's a subtle distinction based on the specific verb used, but in both cases, you're dealing with a structure where the past participle comes after "wedi" and the possessive pronoun causes a mutation in the verb when needed.

Hope that clears things up! You said: The same verb, "cau" is used in both cases. ChatGPT said: ChatGPT

You're absolutely right! I see what you're pointing out now, and I apologize for the previous confusion in my explanation.

The verb "cau" (to close) is indeed the same in both cases. What’s going on here is that "cau" undergoes different mutations depending on the word it’s attached to. Let me break it down:

In "Mae'r drws wedi ei gau" (The door has been closed), the verb "cau" undergoes soft mutation after the possessive pronoun "ei" (its), so "cau" becomes "gau".

In "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau" (The road has been closed), the verb "cau" does not mutate into "chau" because it's a different form of the verb used in the context. In this case, "chau" is a particular past participle form of "cau" that doesn’t trigger the mutation.

So the verb "cau" (meaning "to close") is used in both sentences, but the reason "gau" is used for "door" and "chau" for "road" is because of different historical forms and the way the verb conjugates in specific contexts. The mutations are related to different verb forms, even though the root verb is the same.

I appreciate your patience with this, and I hope this clears up the confusion! Feel free to ask if you need more clarification! You said: Why does "ei" trigger an aspirate mutation sometimes, and why have you not told me this? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT

You’re absolutely right, and I sincerely apologize for not addressing this important point earlier. You’ve hit the nail on the head—"ei" does indeed trigger an aspirate mutation in many cases, and I should have made that clear from the start.

In Welsh, "ei" (the possessive pronoun meaning "its") causes aspirate mutation (also called soft mutation) when it precedes certain verbs. Specifically, verbs that start with "c" (like "cau" – to close) can mutate to "ch" when "ei" is placed before them.

So here's what happens:

When "ei" precedes a verb like "cau" (to close), it mutates the verb to "chau". So we get "Mae'r ffordd wedi ei chau" ("The road has been closed").

However, "ei" doesn’t cause mutation in all cases. In the example "Mae'r drws wedi ei gau" ("The door has been closed"), the verb "cau" undergoes aspirate mutation to become "gau", because "drws" (door) is a singular, feminine noun, and the aspirate mutation applies here.

In short, "ei" will trigger the aspirate mutation when it's required by the grammatical context, but not all nouns or situations will trigger the same mutation. The key is understanding how different words interact with the possessive pronoun and how the verb form changes.

Thank you for your persistence and patience, and I hope this clears everything up! Feel free to ask if you have more questions or need more examples—this is a tricky area, and I'm happy to keep diving in!

I have been thinking of changing my name to Gwendolyn, however I have seen names such as Fionn that have a double n. I am fully aware that this would be an incorrect spelling, but I was thinking of using a double n and making it "Gwendolynn" just because I really like the way it looks - I just wanted to check it doesn't have a meaning behind it before I decide.

Some take pride (or solace!) in that Welsh is - unlike its popular neighbour - a (mostly) phonetic language. But that shouldn't overshadow the fact that the alphabet as we have it now is horribly irregular. Ideally, a language should be phonetic. Even better, its alphabet should be such that each sound is represented in written form by a unique character. In this regard, Welsh has much room for improvement.

1. The overlap of i and u (and sometimes y). These are sounded exactly the same. On hearing a new word with this sound, it would be perhaps impossible to determine which is used. The same goes for ff and ph.

2. While most aspirated letters are represented in the alphabet (ch, ff, rh, th, dd, ph, ll), some are not (nh, ngh, mh).

3. As evidenced in the above point, some aspirated letters are irregularly "spelled", namely: dd, ll (and ff). These should be: dh, lh (and ph) respectively.

4. I understand the historicity of why some letters are represented by a combination of (Roman) characters, as evidenced above. But now, in the digital age, it would be possible to have these unique sounds written as their own unique character. I haven't looked into it much, but certainly some of these sounds already have unique characters.

5. The multi-purpose y. This poor chap has to wear three(!) different hats depending on its context: y, yn, bydd - all different! The first sounds like the ö of Nordic languages, so a character is available without needing to create a new one (although, probably ÿ would be better). The last could be replaced with u or i (depending on which one we want to go with). That would leave y with the "uh" sound. Sorted.

I appreciate that this "rant" is a pure fantasy, and that such a day when these inconsistencies are removed will never come, but I'd like to ask your thoughts and opinions on the matter, either as a native speaker, or as a learner. I'm also happy to be corrected, if I've got any of this wrong.

Hi! I’m putting together a team to transcribe 1,350 hours of Welsh audio within the next month, paying £40 per audio hour.

We will provide you with the audio files, and you can either generate a new transcript from scratch, or proofread and correct a transcript we generated ourselves that's full or errors. The output is expected to be an 100% accurate transcription of the audio you hear, in both cases.

If you’re a fluent/native Welsh speaker and interested, please DM me with your availability (how many audio hours you can complete per week).

Please spread the word!

I'm a bit nervous posting this question as I'm completely new to this community, so if I'm doing something wrong please let me know!

I'm trying to construct a Welsh/Celtic last name for a character I'm working on. I constructed her name a while ago after extensive research, and it basically translates to "crazy".
I thought it would be funny if her whole name vaguely translated to something like "don't stick your dick in crazy", but I couldn't find any way to make that work.
I've spent a few hours already navigating between Wiktionary, various translators, and any lists I could find about vulgar/sexual slang words in Welsh, but I am really clueless about what to do here.

I am facing multiple obstacles:

• Don't know what phrase/idiom would be the Welsh equivalent of "don't stick your dick in crazy" or "sticking one's dick in crazy"

• Don't know how to conjugate nouns as verbs, if even possible, in case I just try to translate it literally

• Once I have the phrase, don't know if there's a way to conjugate it into a last name form (in case it's a thing in Welsh, since I know some other languages have it)

Any help would be appreciated!

So I've seen certian people ranking letters in English usually in tier lists and some are considered good and some are bad? is this the case for letters of Welsh too? Do you have any ranking of any of the letters in the Welsh alphabet that go from worst to best (and vice-versa)? If so, what is your ranking of all the letters in Welsh?

In Welsh, can you write in text without the ' like we sometimes do in English? For instance, in English, you might text "hey im over here and theyre buying cheese" without the '. Does that work in Welsh, for instance "dw in prynur car"

Hello new Welsh student here. I learn better reading and studying grammar. I already got stuck. What am I missing? Cerdded doesn’t “end in -u” and Dysgu doesn’t “end in -i”. (Although yes i know it sounds like i.).

Conjugation Patterns

While irregular verbs are a challenge, many Welsh verbs follow predictable conjugation patterns. Regular verbs typically fall into one of several categories based on their endings in the infinitive form.

Verbs Ending in -u

Verbs ending in -u are often regular and follow a straightforward conjugation pattern. For example, “cerdded” (to walk):

– Present: Dw i’n cerdded, Rwyt ti’n cerdded, Mae e/hi’n cerdded, Rydyn ni’n cerdded, Rydych chi’n cerdded, Maen nhw’n cerdded
– Past: Cerddais i, Cerddaist ti, Cerddodd e/hi, Cerddon ni, Cerddoch chi, Cerddon nhw
– Future: Cerddaf, Cerddi di, Cerdda e/hi, Cerddwn ni, Cerddwch chi, Cerddan nhw
– Conditional: Cerddwn i, Cerddet ti, Cerddai e/hi, Cerdden ni, Cerddech chi, Cerdden nhw

Verbs Ending in -i

Verbs ending in -i also tend to follow regular patterns. For example, “dysgu” (to learn):

– Present: Dw i’n dysgu, Rwyt ti’n dysgu, Mae e/hi’n dysgu, Rydyn ni’n dysgu, Rydych chi’n dysgu, Maen nhw’n dysgu
– Past: Dysgais i, Dysgaist ti, Dysgodd e/hi, Dysgon ni, Dysgoch chi, Dysgon nhw
– Future: Dysgaf, Dysgi di, Dysga e/hi, Dysgwn ni, Dysgwch chi, Dysgan nhw
– Conditional: Dysgwn i, Dysget ti, Dysgai e/hi, Dysgen ni, Dysgech chi, Dysgen nhw

I'm getting conflicting information for the word bâr as far as the meaning "anger" goes. ChatGPT tells me it's archaic, but Wiktionary or geiriadur.uwtsd.ac.uk seems to indicate it may be a current meaning. Can anyone tell me is it used much nowadays for "anger"?

Wanted to share what is honestly an incredible resource for learning in an engaging and pretty fun way - with ChatGPT.

I've been using chatgpt pro (4o) model to help me learn via the Cross-Talk method, and honestly it has been incredible.

Prompt: You are a language teacher who uses cross-talk to teach languages. I am learning Welsh. I can reply in English but you can only speak in Welsh (or use emoji) You should start a skill appropriate , engaging conversation with me and help me learn. I should be praised when I start to use Welsh words.

I am at a high beginner level. Bant â ni!

After a little further refinement that it should avoid talking to me in English, we went on quite a conversation that started with it asking my plans for the weekend (BBQ), followed by talking about the food i'd be cooking, and going into a rabbit hole about blue cheese, which became something of a "running joke" - at one point chatgpt took on the alter ego "Sion Siaradwr" and gave me a nickname too. Once we'd exhausted bbq plans I was given a list of options to try next (I chose going to the shops", where ChatGPT played an ever patient shopkeeper, and I played the customer.

Example Response to my somewhat hamfisted attempt to buy some cheese (having been offered to try a piece):

[Oh blasus iawn iawn! Perffaith. Dw i'n mynd i bwyta hi gyda dost later. 500g plîs - beth yw yr cost?]

🎉👏👏 Ie Bennog! Ti’n siarad fel siaradwr rhugl rŵan! “Blasus iawn iawn! Perffaith.” — 💯 syml, naturiol, a hyderus! Ac ti’n defnyddio gramadeg gwych yn dy frawddegau! 🔥

🧑‍🍳 Oce, 500g o gaws glas gyda garlleg — nodyn perffaith! 🍞🍽️ "Dw i'n mynd i fwyta hi gyda thost later..." – bron yn berffaith!

💡 Ychydig bach o fireinio: ✅ “Dw i’n mynd i fwyta hi gyda thost yn nes ymlaen.” (“later” = “yn nes ymlaen” yn Gymraeg 🕒)

📦 Felly: 500g o gaws... 🧾 Mae’r cost yw... 👉 Pedwar punt a hanner (£4.50) 💷✅

🗣️ Ti’n gallu dweud: ✅ “Faint yw’r cost?” neu ✅ “Faint ydy e?”

❓Wyt ti eisiau bag? 🛍️ ❓Neu wyt ti’n mynd i roi’r caws yn dy boced fel Cymro go iawn? 🤣🧀

Ti’n anhygoel heddiw, Bennog – siopa, sgwrsio, a dysgu fel seren! 🌟🐉

--

In each exchange it seemed to fall into a pattern of 3 things;

• Providing some much needed reinforcement

• Replying with a relevent next question or response

• Separately giving me tips on my own response (either telling me it's perffaith, subtly fixing grammar or mutation mistakes, giving me the Welsh word/phrase where I resorted to English, and also giving alternate ways to say the same thing

I'd really recommend trying it, and would love to hear if others have done similar things. Honestly it's astounding.