Speakers' Regional Differences in Lessons

I hope you’re right! Thanks for your input - I’ll keep on making funny noises until it sounds right! (Despite the funny looks my family give me…)

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If you’re feeling brave at any point, you could stick a recording of yourself on SoundCloud and get feedback on here… :slight_smile:

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Yes, I learnt the Ll sound from our neighbours children.
@aran what about the Rh sound? Is it ok to have your tounge at the back of your pallet for this? I tend to copy the Northumbrian (glottal) guttural R for this.

You’ll hear people saying R at the back of their throat, but it’s a kind of ‘making up for a slight speech impediment’ sort of thing - perfectly understandable, but not what you want if you’re aiming for the most natural sounds possible…

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Ooo, that sounds scary… :slight_smile:

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Scary is good… :slight_smile: :wink:

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II’m not sure I have ever done Rh correctly, but then again in South Wales its a bit different and in the disappeared dialects of monmouthshire and herefordshire you didn’t even need to do LL either - words like arall were pronounced arath from what I’ve read.

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Fair point. Most days I travel between Swansea and Bristol. Depending upon where I stop for fuel, I have to be mindful of the changing pronunciation. Our office in Avonmouth is at the end of Bristow Broadway, which is a nice halfway pronunciation.

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Oh diolch yn fawr iawn Iestyn! I was all confused. Clearly Anthony knew what he was talking about, but I had been so sure your accent was South East! It is great to know I was not totally wrong!
‘rh’ I cannot claim expertise or even where I get it from, but I just say ‘r’ and ‘h’ at the same time. I’m not sure @Iestyn can do that because he has a SE aversion to ‘h’!!

This, generally:

When I was in school, we taught a BBC computer to speak Welsh. I can;t remember what the trick was for ll (or even if we ever made it work), but we got a perfect RH by spelling it HR. BAsically, as henddraig says, say the two together, and you’ll be pretty much there.

Truth be told, though, I cannot claim expertise, either, and my kids are constantly asking about spelling words “is that r or rh?”

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If it’s any consolation, those of us doing the northern course are similarly “tortured”. :slight_smile:

But it’s not meant as torture. To the extent that it is done consciously, I think it is done to get us used to the slight variations even within what we would normally think of as people speaking the same dialect. An obvious example is e.g. “nesh i” versus “nes i”. I have heard both versions from both Aran and Catrin at different times. As they say: “paid a becso” or “paid a phoeni”.

(BTW: nice to have a Scandinavian here; another fascinating language group!).

(BTW**2 - that grass like “parse”, or grass like “lass” also goes for southern British English vs northern British English (i.e. the northern vowel is shorter - in that case. Not for all vowels/dipthongs though. Lots of variation!). “lass” is a typical northern English usage, actually. My family come from the north (of England), but I was brought up in the south (of England), so my vowels are all over the place. :slight_smile: ).

In the Westcountry they say grass like lass too. Bath is also short.

Thanks for your input! I’ve decided to follow Iestyn’s advice and go with whatever comes most naturally … Which might simply mean copying Iestyn because he’s a native speaker!
Just for the record, I am well aware of accents and dialects, and I don’t have an issue with that at all (the more variation, the more personality a language has!). I just don’t like the idea of sounding like I don’t know what I’m doing, just like fellow Swedes who mix US and UK pronunciation (or mix the formal and colloquial register, for that matter - something that takes even longer to master).

Fydda i ddim yn becso gormod…

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I mix pronunciations all the time! I’ll often say “mae o’n…” and “…gyda fe…” I partly do this because I used the northern levels and live in the south, but also, my Welsh speaking fiancée does the same. Her mum is from North Wales but she went to a Welsh school in Cardiff. I don’t think people will mind.

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