This might be obvious but I just want to make sure I’m getting it right.
So far (I’m on challenge 7) I’ve mostly been learning by ear and just copying the pronunciation, but I had a glance at the vocab lists today and noticed dechrau. It always sounds like “dechra” rather than “dechrau” in the challenges. Is it a silent u or have I been mishearing it?
Thanks
Colloquial pronunciation. In the North the ‘eye’ diphthongs (au, ae, etc) tend to get abbreviated to an a sound.
Since a lot of plurals in Welsh end with the au diphthong, you’ll hear a lot of this - sgidia instead of esgidiau, gwylia instead of gwyliau and so on.
And just to add that in the South, those same dipthongs often turn into a ‘eh’ sound.
e.g. pethau:
North - petha
South - pethe
Hence ishe much more common is speech than eisiau!
I see, thanks!
Sorry, couldn’t resist…
’Dechra rhoi petha newydd mewn brechdana weithia’ - starting to put new things in sandwiches sometimes
’Dechrau rhoi pethau newydd mewn brechdanau weithiau
Let’s not forget “eisiau” becoming “isho” in the North.
We hwntws pronounce “eisiau” as "“moyn” 
So the abbreviation isn’t just in the spoken, it’s in the written too… That explains tge whole “dwed rywbeth…” thing… Or at least I think it does…
Yes. That’s a valuable point. In the most informal Welsh, and often in reported speech in literature, ‘spell it like you say it’ is normal.
So on Twitter, Facebook and the like, you’re very likely to encounter stuff like dechra (N)/dechre (S) instead of dechrau, wsos/wthnos rather than wythnos, chwara/ware for chwarae, and so on.
Most confusing one, solved by your fine self and a Gareth fideo was “goro”. Felly, diolch am hynna
Very useful information. I learnt Welsh in school and sometimes it comes out but I’m always concerned it’s wrong and this proves it. Can’t wait to learn the right stuff or more of the right stuff. I’d hate to sound like a textbook. Ahhh compulsory Welsh waste of time.
Yes, chasing up what I don’t understand from Llyfr Glas Nebo, between 2 pocket (a Collins Gem & a Heini Gruffud, thus South oriented, Learners’) dictionaries, GK’s MWD, 3 online dic sites (Ap Geiriadur, Glosbe, and now GPC, too), + searches on Facebook, the latter of which turned up the solution to “Sifys”, is like a very enlightening treasure hunt.
Some things only appear in Eng-Welsh sections of dictionaries.
Difaru is a good ’un. Glosbe helped me with that giving me numerous Biblical examples of “regret”, but when I searched Glosbe for “edifaru”, the fuller form, it told me “repent” & gave no quotations of it in context!
Trying to guess which initial vowel has been dropped before a vowel cluster in a word used in reported speech and spelled as spoken is really fun!
It also links up with those bits of S4C’s offerings via Clic which have been given Welsh subtitles. A real boon for identifying where all those little particles, those that emerge in little pile-ups to & from Gareth yr Orangutan when he is on Work Experience/Profiad Gwaith, have come from…
Just wait till you’re listening to Welsh music and reading the lyrics, and you find a word with ‘ae’ being pronounced like the English ‘ay’ instead of ‘eye’. “Clustiau March” by Al Lewis Band has ‘straeon’, “Llwytha’r Gwn” by Candelas has ‘saethu’… 
Gotta love these little exceptions sprinkled here and there. You think you have the rules figured out, and then…
Yes, adds to interest. The way that au can be eye, ay, a, e, o or ach, depending on where you are at the time. Although Ive never actually heard the ach one in real life yet. Also a and e swap over including place name words outside Wales.
Some of these geographical variations are great though, for instance if you want to know which Penygroes or Frongoch is being referred to. 