This thread has been quirt for a while, but I suspect it will be of continuing interest as SSiW learners gradually find themselves ready to move on to reading (and we are probably all different about how long it takes us to find that readiness).
I did manage to find two parallel text Welsh-English books:
“Si Hei Lwli” - "Twighlight song by Angharad Tomos (Gomer)
and
“Y Lôn Wen The White Lane” by Kate Roberts (also Gomer).
I believe they are both worthwhile books, but having said that, I’ve put them aside for when I’m a bit more advanced.
I found I was getting further (and having more fun) with the likes of “Blodwen Jones” in the “Nofelau Nawr” series (also Gomer). Even without the vocab at the bottom, a time-served SSiW learner, sorry, speaker, will probably understand at least 75% of it. With the added boost of the vocab, you can then pretty much get most of it, only having to look up the odd word (if it’s not obvious from context). It gives a nice sense of achievement. And the nice thing is that you are seeing the words used in context, which a straightforward dictionary lookup won’t necessarily give you. And you will see examples of mutations, and short-forms
…
Talking of which, I only recently realised that the BBC Learn Welsh dictionary (which was developed by Bangor University). is able to
- “de-mutate” words - i.e. you can type in the mutaded form, and it will look up the radical form.
and
- “de-conjugate” conjugated verbs, i.e. short-form verbs, i.e. you can type in the conjugated/inflected form, and it will look up the verb-noun form - really useful if the stem is not easily guessable from the verb-noun form.
Both of these are really useful when reading.
I believe that the free Ap Geiriaduron dictionary app (also developed by Bangor) will also do this, although I don’t have a device on which it can be used. I was thinking of buying their “Cygliad”, which is a package including dictionaries and a grammar-checker, and more), for use on my PC, but I’m still umm-ing ah-ing over that.
http://www.bangor.ac.uk/canolfanbedwyr/ap_geiriaduron.php.en
http://www.bangor.ac.uk/canolfanbedwyr/cysgliad.php.en
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/welshdictionary/cy-en/