Christmas goodies

[RichardBuck]

I didn’t get any new reading matter from Siôn Corn, but I wasn’t entirely neglected: my eldest found me a suitable pin-badge; friends got me some more book-plates; and my partner’s parents asked a friend who’s mamiaith for a suitable slogan for a print-on-demand T-shirt…

Images show a “Welsh-Cake Appreciation Society” badge; book plates with a black-and-white drawing of a cat atop a pile of books bearing the words Mae’r llyfr hwn yn eiddo i (‘This book belongs to’); and a grey T-shirt with the slogan Gorchfygais fy nhreigladau (‘I mastered my mutations’).

[Deborah-SSi]

@RichardBuck

Gorchfygais fy nhreigladau (‘I mastered my mutations’).

[suw]

Thanks to the recommendations on the other thread, I got a couple of great Welsh books, and a Welsh wordsearch puzzle book (which is fun, but done by someone who doesn’t understand Welsh because they include letters which aren’t in the Welsh alphabet, and don’t treat the digraphs as digraphs. In their ‘Words with two Rs’ puzzle, they included rhagfyr and rheithgor, treating rh as if it’s r and h).

Now all I need to do is find a way to reliably learn all this new vocabulary!!

[suw]

Thought I’d give you a little update on the Word Search Puzzles book, just in case anyone is thinking of getting a copy.

I like word searches, so I’ve been doing one a day. With over 100 of them in this book, I’ve got a good 3 months’ worth to keep me going. However, this book has clearly been put together by someone who doesn’t know anything about Welsh at all!

The grids include letters that aren’t in the Welsh alphabet at all like Z, X, and K, which I find quite annoying. It treats digraphs — ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th — as separate letters, which I don’t mind so much because otherwise it’d make everything a touch too easy.

What is a bit disappointing, though, is that there’s no understanding of mutations or the alphabet at all. So you’ll see ddaear instead of daear, feddw instead of meddw, ddadl instead of dadl. The list of “words with two Rs” included rhagfyr and rheithgor, and “words that end in L” included bell, dull, gall, hyll, and others that end in ll.

There are a lot more such errors, but you get the gist!

I wouldn’t let this stop you getting it, if you like word searches, but if you’re a new learner then it’s something to be aware of — don’t let it lead you astray!!

I wonder, has anyone seen a Welsh word search puzzle book that’s grammatically and orthographically correct?

[margaretnock]

With apologies to Devan Skolid (y?), if they are real, but it might well be computer or AI generated. Is the publisher kosher? Are there other languages in the series?

[margaretnock]

Apparently he/she has done Maltese, Mongolian and Danish, among many others.

[suw]

It looks like it’s a self-published book, so there’s no publisher information. He lists at least 46 other languages in the back of the book, so I think it’s just a bloke with some online dictionaries and some word search software.

[verity-davey]

Not for me, then.
I like puzzles made by humans. I used to play computer generated sudoku puzzles, but they “feel” wrong after you’ve tried some quality human-crafted puzzles. Just like articles written by AI aren’t right.
If you enjoy puzzles generally and not just for language practice, I highly recommend Cracking the Cryptic. They have a YouTube channel where they solve Times crosswords and challenging sudoku variants, and they’ve also published books of logic puzzles and some apps. It’s all English (and numbers, symbols, colours etc) but still. Lots of fun.

[verity-davey]

Google is my friend.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chwilair-Cymraeg-Language-Chwiliadau-Learners/dp/B08L3XC8W3
I can’t tell the quality or whether the creator is an organic lifeform, but from the cover it at least uses actual Welsh letters.

[suw]

If you click the “Read Sample” button, you can see the first few pages.

She does use the digraphs, which I will admit I have mixed feelings about because whilst they are technically correct, they do look a bit odd and do make it a lot easier.

[verity-davey]

It’s not cheating to use Welsh letters in a Welsh puzzle. They aren’t just “technically” correct, they are correct. They belong. I think it’s good practice for remembering that the digraphs really are single letters.
Odd, but I don’t get a “read sample” button. Maybe because I’m on a phone.

[suw]

I didn’t say it was cheating, I said it makes it a lot easier, which it does, because the digraphs stand out in a way that the single letters don’t.

Whilst I agree that it’s good to remember that digraphs are a fundamental part of the Welsh language, the reason I have mixed feelings is because if the puzzle is too easy, I won’t learn the words as well. Part of the process of learning the words is the actual searching, not the finding. If I look at a puzzle matrix and immediately spot a LL because it stands out amongst the other letters, then I’ll find “llyfr” without even trying, so I won’t be working my mind repeating the spelling as I search for the word.

Obviously this is a personal preferences thing, and you may prioritise orthographic accuracy over anything else, but having looked at her sample I’ve realised I prefer the single letter approach to digraphs because it makes me think harder.