My guidance is: “take what’s easier”. Since Iestyn is native speaker I rather copy him. To be honest I don’t do much of researching how to pronunce things. They’re said by Iestyn and this is fairly enough to me. If I (nosy as I am and pure into Northern thingy sometimes) hear Aran saying differently (or Catrin for that matter as there she’s native speaker if I remember correctly) I usually set my mind to “aha, this is tinny bit of Northern difference against Southern” and that’s it.
Oh, boy, if all my learning would go that simple …
Diolch yn fawr iawn iawn Gareth, that is the most useful thing I’ve seen for ages as it explains yet another mystery of ‘ei’!! I must say, I tend to say it, usually like English “ay”, but there’s at least one place in “Mae hen wlad f’nhadai” where it seems to be sung as ‘y’ as in English ‘my’, which is how I pronounce Cymraeg ‘ae’ and ‘ai’!!! Any help with all this would be most welcome!!
Sionned - the ‘ee’ pronunciation is ONLY for the actual words ei ‘his/her/its’ and eu ‘their’. In any other words, the spelling ‘ei’ sounds like ‘uh-ee’ in most dialects.
Henddraig - of course the plural ending -AU is another matter…in this case we have an ‘official’ careful pronunciation as spelt (so like -y in English ‘my’ or -igh as in ‘sigh’), but an actual pronunciation -e (in the South) or -a (in the North).
Then -ae really IS usually -y/-igh when stressed, -ey when unstressed; but the word Cymraeg is often CymrAAg in many parts of Wales.
Definitely a bit confusing! But I think you’d be understood whichever way you pronounce things, wouldn’t you? You might be thought to be from another part of Wales, or a learner who hasn’t had much conversation, but you’d be understood.
Sorry to butt in, if I have; new to the forum. I am tackling level one North , and I would like to have some idea as to how long each " lesson " takes, if one lets it run without pausing; I’m not very good at this sort of thing, and have been all day, off and on, on lesson one, and I would like some idea as to how long the lesson was in real time.
Ah, maybe I found the answer; 30 mins plus a bit? It seemed like hours,though that does include the weeping and the biting the carpet, obviously.
Hi Kay, welcome to the forum! You’re not butting in at all - that’s what it’s here for!
Yes, each lesson is 30 minutes, give or take a couple. But I agree, at the start it can feel like forever! It does get easier after around the sixth or seventh lesson, though.
Yes; I thought so. As poor Aran knows, cos I have bombarded the poor man with my problems, I have particular difficulties with learning languages, and have been working at Welsh for over a decade, but ever the optimist… one thing that I have discovered already is that some of my pronunciation has slipped,( eg dysgu had become “diski” so to that extent the course has helped already.Thanks for the reply; most welcome to someone continuously lost in the thickets of a scary learning experience.
It’s great that you haven’t given up! I’ve had my own difficulties learning languages - I tried Italian for seven years when I was in school, and Japanese for four, and was hopeless at both. This course however, is fantastic because the learning process feels much more natural, and the focus is on your ability to speak and understand, not write essays like in the traditional school system.
And you’re most welcome - the people on this forum have been immensely helpful to me, it’s only fair that I pass that on!
Great! And very encouraging. My problem is that while I know quite a lot of Welsh vocabulary , so can often understand a simple book or sign, I cannot for the life of me form a sentence in English to Welsh… very frustrating. But giving up trying to learn Welsh is not an option. Aran has taken the time to be enormously helpful; if he had not I would have given up SSIW ages ago; I tried it a while ago and fell back, exhausted…(to keep the struggling through the thickets metaphor going ) …onwards and upwards, etc etc…
Oh, thank you, you “two Ks”. “T” is struggling also as you can read elswhere on this forum but just doesn’t let herself to give up, thanks to Aran’s constant will to help, no matter how many times I’ve said I would. For me the things are even more frustrating as I never before had difficulties of learning languages. I speak them 4 (besides my native tongue) quite comfortably but have enourmous difficulties now, approximately 10 years later (when I last studied one foreign language or speak it) trying to learn Cymraeg.
We will all three eventually prevail those difficulties one day, I’m sure of that no matter how much and how passionately I moan across the forum…
And, Croeso ar fforwm @kaymeddings. You’re not alone with your difficulties. I’m sure I can speak for all - we’re all here for you.
I’m in the mood to post some positive energies to you and so I’ll do it! Here we go!
Croeso Kay!! From another frustrated long-time learner!! (See elsewhere in forum!!). I, too, know a lot. Mine is mixed de & gog and I get fried brain when faced with certain expressions where I naturally use a mix of de and gog!! @aran just told me to carry on regardless!! So I shall and I’m sure you will, and will persevere!! @tatjana is already very good, she just doesn’t know it!!!
I find sometimes it takes me a while to drag the Welsh out of my head when I’m attempting to speak. I think that practice will help that…we’ll see.
Aran is always a massive help, any time you need encouragement, just post somewhere on the forum and he’ll more than likely PPP up with some motivation for you!
My big problem at the moment is live conversation. I find that I can do the lessons somewhat ok, but the minute I’m in front of a real person, I find I can’t say anything and run back to English!
@tatjana, from what I’ve seen on the forum, you seem to be doing brilliantly! And I should mention that reading some of your posts was enormously helpful to be when I first started posting here and was still finding my feet, so thank you for that!
I’m using Memrize in conjunction with lessons and was wondering: what is the difference between syrthio and cwympau? Is it a North/South difference…or a context difference?
[quote=“cyd, post:78, topic:3153”]
what is the difference between syrthio and cwympau? Is it a North/South difference…or a context difference? [/quote]
According to my dictionary (Gareth King) both cwympo and syrthio mean “(to) fall.” (Each of those entries refers you to the other for example.) He says that cwympo is mostly used in the South, and that cwympo can also mean “(to) drop” while he only gives “(to) fall” for syrthio (and doesn’t indicate North or South).
That was William Salesbury wasn’t it? In the New Testament. He spelled a load of words showing Latin connections, tenuous or not. I seem to remember reading other more knowledgeable people (than me, not Gareth King ) saying that there was no evidence he thought the words were derived from Latin - it was possibly more that just spelling words to look like Latin was meant to look impressive and prestigious (yeah, at least just as daft). And that he didn’t intend the words to be pronounced as he was spelling them- which would have rendered all those poems already written in cynghanedd invalid at one stroke- just that he was using a spelling system which wasn’t as good as the one already in place.
Apparently only a few words got carried over into use in later versions of the bible and other writing (ei, of course, and sanctaidd off the top of my head), so these are having an effect on pronunciation he apparently didn’t intend!
Mind you, spelling has an effect on pronunciation in any literate population- the “h” in front of “herb” or the “th” in clothes can be pronounced or not depending on where you come from! It’s a natural thing. But of course it’s what people actually say, rather than whether it is derived from spelling that matters. Which is what Gareth King said, of course.
Just general burbling off the top of my head, and would say I was teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, but it’s for people other than Gareth King if they are interested (I’m sure Gareth King will either know this already, or have a completely justified lack of interest in the matter!*), as someone was unwise enough to say they liked the history of it!
And it could be all rubbish, as I can’t remember where I read it at the moment
) saying that there was no evidence he thought the words were derived from Latin - it was possibly more that just spelling words to look like Latin was meant to look impressive and prestigious (yeah, at least just as daft). And that he didn’t intend the words to be pronounced as he was spelling them- which would have rendered all those poems already written in cynghanedd invalid at one stroke- just that he was using a spelling system which wasn’t as good as the one already in place.