Forvo and correct pronunciation of words

Welsh General / Questions
#1

I often use Forvo.com to listen the pronunciation of Welsh words when I have only seen them written down, and have found it a very valuable resource.

Unfortunately relatively few words (compared to other wider spoken languages) have pronunciations or translations, and often I have trouble finding audio files of pronunciation anywhere online, so I am often not entirely sure on the pronunciation of new words.

Is there another resource that people here use for hearing pronunciations?

Also a user I came across (who has provided audio files for three Welsh words) had SaySomethingInWelsh as their username http://forvo.com/user/SaySomethinginWelsh/

I was wondering if this was a previous attempt by the community to provide pronunciations to Welsh words, and was wondering if this could be something useful to do, i.e. people could post words and members could provide pronunciations if they could etc.

#2

I’m not aware of a conscious joint effort by the SSiW in that direction, although it doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

Two other possible sources are:

the Ivona text-to-speech voices. There is one male and one female, and they seem pretty reasonable to me.
https://www.ivona.com/
(Just make sure you use the “Welsh” voices and not the “English, Welsh”. You will soon see the difference.

Another possibility is
http://www.gweiadur.com/en/Pawb

It is a great dictionary in any case, but in addition offers a large number of audio samples. Not every word, but quite a lot, in my experience.

I could not be certain whether it is a human voice or a synthesised one, but if the latter, then it’s pretty good! (in my opinion).

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#3

That was definatelly @aran. I compared voices from the link you’ve posted and this one on SoundCloud: Peth Beaver Scout

As vision impared I have great sense for voices so … this is it … the secret revealed. :slight_smile:

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#4

Thank you, the sites look very useful, will give them a go :smile:

It did seem to much of a coincidence to not be someone with SSIW connections haha

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