| Hello Mike,
I started learning Welsh about 4 or 5 years ago, with books and
cassettes too (I now do not remember whether it was Linguaphone
or some other), and got about as far as the end of the first cassette
tape (out of 4).
I then went to a Welsh summer course in Bangor University.
The very first day, the teacher has a chat with each
student, in order to evaluate what his/her level is. I had asked
to follow the beginners'course, and was surprised enough to be sent
to the second level, even though my knowledge of Welsh barely enables
me to understand what you wrote.
If you are interested in more info about the Welsh summer course
in Bangor, let me know, I can look it up and send it to you. I really
did enjoy the course, which was very lively and well-given. There
are evening activities too (we had an evening with Dafyd Iwan,
sing-along evenings, an evening with very short plays performed
by the students at the different levels of Welsh,...) We also had
some time left at the end of the afternoon to go and visit the
surroundings in small groups or in our own. I really was delighted!
Unfortunately, there are very few opportunities to practise Welsh
in Belgium (I am Belgian), and I completely dropped it the last 4
years, which I find a pity. Working life and family life also leave
me very little time left to work on my Welsh, and I have not been using
my cassette & books course for all that time.
However, would anybody be willing to give a bit of guidance through
this note, I would be glad to start learning again.
Anne
|
| A guide to pronouncing Welsh ....
Craig
------ Forwarded mail received on 30-MAY-1991 at 20:42:31 ------
From: DECWRL::"GAELIC-L%[email protected]"
"GAELIC Language Bulletin Board"
To: Craig Cockburn <SYSTEM::cockburn>
Subj: Re: Pronounciation Guide
Someone was asking about the pronunciation of Welsh so here is
a rough guide.
Welsh is almost phonemically spelt, i.e. there is almost a one-to-one
correspondence between written letters and spoken sounds. The alphabet
has 28 letters as follows:
a - as in "man"
b - as in "but"
c - as in "cup" (never like s)
ch - a rough clearing of the throat, similar to German hard ch
d - as in "dead"
dd - as th in "the" (never as in "think")
e - as in "men"
f - as v in "van"
ff - as in "puff"
g - as in "get" (never like j)
ng - as in the southern English pronunciation of "sing", i.e. an n at
the back of the mouth but not followed by a pronounced g.
In a small number of words, the ng is two letters n+g or ng+g
pronounced separately, e.g. dangos "show" = dang-gos,
Bangor = Bang-gor, Llangollen = Llan-gollen
h - as in "hat"
i - 1. as ee in "feet"; 2. as y in "yet"
l - as in "laugh"
ll - put your tongue as for l and say s
m - as in "man"
n - as in "not"
o - a round vowel a bit like the vowel in "home"
p - as in "pen"
ph - as ff
r - a rolled r, not like an English r
rh - a voiceless rolled r, a bit like r and h pronounced together
s - as in "set" (never like z)
si is like English sh, e.g. siop "shop"
t - as in "tea"
th - as in "think" (never as in "the")
u - mid-way between English oo and ee, like Russian bI, or a French u
without rounding the lips
w - 1. a round vowel a bit like oo in "boot"; 2. as in "wink"
y - 1. as u in "circus" (in non-final syllables and in the words y, yr
(the), dy (your), fy (my); 2. as Welsh u in final syllables and
other monosyllables
Stress is usually on the penultimate syllable and there is also a tonal
accent on the final syllable. The consonants c, ch, ff, ng, ll, m, p, s,
t, and th are long, i.e. they are pronounced with double length
immediately following the stress. So the word cwpan "cup" is pronounced
coop-pan with two p's, two full vowels oo and a, stress on the coop,
and a raising of pitch on the pan. The plural cwpanau is coo-pan-au
with three full vowels, oo, a, and au (= a+u, vaguely like the y in
"lyre"), stress on the pan, and higher pitch on the au.
Vowels are normally short but long in monosyllables before
short consonants (and s and ch in most dialects), so that cwm "valley"
has a short vowel (almost like English "come" but with a rounded vowel)
where cwd "bag" has a long vowel (like English "cooed").
The circumflex is used over vowels to mark irregular stress and
long vowels, e.g. ton "wave" (also spelt tonn) is like English "ton"
but with a rounded vowel, where t�n "melody" has a long vowel, a bit
like some pronunciations of English "torn".
The name of the language is Cymraeg with stress (and pitch
accent) on the -aeg. This is because it used to be three syllables,
Cymra-eg. Also Cymraes "Welshwoman" and Cymreig "to do with Wales,
Welsh". By the way the pronunciation of the diphthong ae varies a lot
with dialect, it can be a+e, a+u, a, or a+i. Vowel quality in
general varies considerably with dialect. The rounded vowels with
consistent quality regardless of length, as above, are characteristic
of north Wales.
i - 1. as ee in "feet"; 2. as y in "yet"
l - as in "laugh"
ll - put your tongue as for l and say s
m - as in "man"
n - as in "not"
o - a round vowel a bit like the vowel in "home"
p - as in "pen"
ph - as ff
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Reply-To: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
Sender: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
From: John Phillips <john%[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Pronounciation Guide
To: Craig Cockburn <SYSTEM::cockburn>
|