Can anyone enlighten me… I have happily learned “shwd” with the Say something in (South) Welsh course… then I listen to a CD (from another source) offering South Welsh and it’s given as “sut”. Apart from a specific answer to this point as, ultimately, it will be beneficial to know all the variations, can anyone advise whether it is better / easier to learn North or South Welsh first, then work on the variations?
Thanks, Paul
1 Like
Perhaps Welsh sut be standardised.
Jason - The variations in dialect (which there are many in Wales, not just North and South), is what brings the natural charm to this beautiful language! To standardise the language completely would somewhat remove this charm and beauty from the language. For formal written Welsh, standardisation may well prove to be more acceptable. But this being a speaking course, with the aim to produce natural sounding Welsh speakers, the variations are all important.
Paul - With regards as to what would be better or easier, that’s up to you to determine. As a general rule, if you have a link to Wales, you would go with the dialect that would most likely be used in the part of Wales you have a link to. But if you’re just interested in learning the language in general, try out a lesson from each dialect and see which one you feel would suit you to learn. On your Welsh-learning journey, you will pick up other words or other ways of pronouncing words from other dialects along the way. The important thing is NOT to worry about these! Just recognise that they are there, understand them if they’re used in any conversations you will have, and use the words or pronounciations that suit you better in your conversations.
The thing to remember is that pretty much every little village in Wales has its own way of pronouncing various words - English is the same in that regard. As a result, the more official stuff tends to be the most common pronunciations of given words in the north or south. If the course were Say Something in English, it would be like having the option to learn English as spoken by a cockney or English as spoken by a Geordie ;). Well, perhaps not quite that extreme, but hopefully you get the idea.
Thanks guys for the responses, most useful (i.e. supportive). paul