Pronunciation

Welsh General / Questions
#1

I’m new to this but I already have a question about how to pronounce something.

When I was in school we always used to say ‘Sut’ (How?) exactly as it sounds as if you were reading it and saying it in English. However when I’m doing the SSIW course I find it is pronounced more like ‘Should’. I have heard it said this way before, but I want to know why we were never corrected in school when we said it as ‘Sut’?

Are there different ways of pronouncing it in different regions/ dialects etc?, or were our teachers just too lazy to correct us?

Thanks in advance

#2

Hi William,
I’m guessing you’re doing the Southern course. Yes, these are regional variations. If your experience is like mine, doing the Southern course you’ll find a few words pronounced differently from school (in South Wales). Variety’s the spice of life, and all that :smile:

#3

Yep I’m doing the Southern course.

Thanks for the quick reply, this has been confusing me for a little while now so it’s good to finally know what it’s about.

How would they say it in North Wales then?

#4

Hi, in North Wales it would be said something like ‘syt’ or ‘sit’.

#5

diolch

#6

I also have a pronunciation question which I thought might go best here. How is the welsh R sound pronounced? It sounds like it is rolled? I learned Japanese as a child so my Rs sound like they are somewhere between an L and a D. So it feels like I am mispronouncing a lot of the words. Anyone able to help?

#7

Yes, it is, but it’s not the end of the world if you can’t roll it - there are first language speakers who can’t roll it - although you might like to try and see if you can catch the rolling habit by practising with bRead - it’s a little easier to get the beginning of the roll after the B :sunny:

#8

Thanks, the bRead trick is really helpful.

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