I’m listening to the South Wales lessons - which are saying that the pronunciation for ‘sut’ is ‘should’. My children (both in welsh medium schools in south wales) are saying that they would say ‘sit’, not should.
thoughts, please?!
It’s just a regional accent thing. It’s a bit like the difference in English between, say, someone from Manchester and someone from Surrey saying ‘bath’ or ‘glass’.
Personally, I learnt using the southern lessons but I say ‘sit’ for ‘sut’ because I live with a northerner. But then in English I often say ‘glass’ with a short ‘a’ even though I originally come from the south of England (because I did live in the north for a while).
So it doesn’t really matter - it’s whatever you’re comfortable with.
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Hi Becky!
Yes, what Sara says!
The natural southern pronunciation is generally should, but you will quickly come to use what you hear most, so probably use should for a bit (while you mostly speak to Cat and I during the lessons), then gradually morph to sit under the influence of your kids.
For the avoidance of doubt, the “correct” way (ie according to how the word is spelt, and how the Welsh language works) to pronounce the word is as the English sit. That is probably because it was first written down by a northerner… You will often see “shwd” or “siwd” written in informal / written-as-its-spoken Welsh from southerners, though.
thank you both - there seem to be quite a few discrepancies between what my children say is correct and what is in the lessons, such as use of eisiau, moyn and angen. But that has been explained in other posts. Now I know that there will be many variations, yes, it makes sense to do as Iestyn says, copy what’s in the lessons and then slowly adapt!
Please explain this: as far as I know ‘si’ in Cymraeg is ‘sh’. Now that is true before a vowel e.g. Sian (the name). A county ‘sir’ I pronounce ‘shir’. If I did the same with ‘sit’ it would be a bit rude in English, so I thought people had, over the years, modified & softened it to ‘shwd’.
You’re probably already aware that “sit” is only the phonetic English spelling for what “sut” sounds like in (northern) Welsh, and that “sit” as it is spelt doesn’t actually exist in Welsh (as far as I know).
But it’s true that the letters “si” together gives the “sh” sound when used together - whether a vowel or a consonant follows it. There are a few of these 2-letter groupings in Welsh that change the sound of the actual letters, and these are called Diphthongs, although “si” isn’t actually classed as one. But it also isn’t classed as a Digraph either (CH, DD, FF, NG, LL etc), yet it’s still there amongst the consonants!
Sorry!! I was having a senior moment!! Of course I knew sir = county and sut = how!!! (But I forgot that!!)