"sh" sound vs "s" sound in pronunciation

I’m studying the North version in Course 1. Is there a particular reason why words like “nes, weles, ges”, etc… are pronounced with an “sh” sound by one presenter and an "s " sound by the 2nd presenter? Is it presented this way to show that we might hear it either way? I don’t know which way to pronounce these words. Thanks!

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It’s fairly common to use a “sh” sound where a “s” sound is followed by a vowel; particularly in the south.

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I hear both commonly (partly because I live in Cardiff where there’s a mix of accents from all over the country). I tend to say ‘s’ myself, because that’s what comes easiest to me. It doesn’t matter which you go with, as you’ll be understood with either. Use whichever feels easiest to you, or listen out for people around you (if you live in a Welsh-speaking community) to find out which is most common where you are, if you are most concerned to fit into that pattern.

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Thank you for your input. I was worried about being misunderstood.

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I constantly worry about that! :wink:

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Yes, this. The plain ‘s’ sound is probably a touch more formal - but go with whichever you prefer… :slight_smile:

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You mean chapel like? :wink:

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“s” followed by “i” is often pronounced “sh” as in “siarad” or “siop” – and this seems to apply to some people even if the “i” is the next word as in “wnes i/nes i, dwedais i/ddudes i”.

I’ve noticed that Aran and Catrin have different pronunciations here and have wondered which pronunciation to use.

But going by what Aran said somewhere that Catrin sometimes speaks more formally when she’s in front of a microphone than she might usually, and that the biggest influence to his accent is how Catrin (usually) speaks, I imagine that both are fine here!

On the other hand, Aran has also said that occasionally, he’ll deliberately say something slightly differently from Catrin on purpose (e.g. slightly different word order or leaving out/putting in an optional word), just so that listeners get used to several possible variations, so that might also be the cause here!

I think you can probably pick whichever feels right or comes out of your mouth first :slight_smile:

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Thanks to everyone for all the useful comments. This has been bothering me for months now so I’m glad that I finally have an explanation which helps me feel good about my pronunciation choice!

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