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Duolingo Welsh - makes a change from knitting!

(40 Posts)
Witzend Wed 17-Aug-22 21:48:54

I’m not Welsh but I’ve always loved the sound of it, so thought I’d give it a go.
Fascinating so far - so completely different from any other language I’ve ever studied, and they include Russian and Greek.

But I’m wedi blino (tired) now, so I think I’ll toddle off to bed and read my book.
Nos da, everybody.

LauraNorderr Sat 27-Aug-22 17:21:17

So me times mutations in the Welsh language can be amusing
The word for mutations is treiglad.
A fear of mutations is treiglaffobia.
I have a fear of mutations is mae gen i dreiglaffobia
Please note the mutation ?

Callistemon21 Sat 27-Aug-22 17:12:25

AGAA4

Callistemon21

As long as I can read the road signs ?

ARAF

That's the most important thing. Not that anyone round here takes any notice of ARAF

The problem is, though, AGAA4, that some of the road signs telling us about roadworks are so long and in Welsh first that we can miss the English part.

AGAA4 Sat 27-Aug-22 17:01:52

Callistemon21

As long as I can read the road signs ?

ARAF

That's the most important thing. Not that anyone round here takes any notice of ARAF

Callistemon21 Sat 27-Aug-22 16:38:37

As long as I can read the road signs ?

ARAF

Witzend Sat 27-Aug-22 16:08:44

StarDreamer, I tried to send you a PM, but evidently you have opted not to receive them.

I’ve just accepted yn as an untranslatable fact, but I dare say you’re right - it could equate to e.g. ‘I’m ‘doing’ liking/ eating/walking, whatever - or not ‘doing’ whatever the verb is, as the case may be.

Some erudite expert in different Celtic lingos might be able to enlighten us!

Pantglas2 Sat 27-Aug-22 15:06:32

‘Yn’ can also be ‘is’....

Mae’r cath yn eistedd ar y llawr

AGAA4 Sat 27-Aug-22 15:01:45

StarDreamer I did an intensive Welsh course to help with my work at the time.
I seem to have forgotten much of it now sadly.
Good luck with your Welsh course.

StarDreamer Sat 27-Aug-22 14:50:42

I think it posibly does mean 'in' in some circumstances.

I am thinking of sentences like the following.

Dw i ddim yn hoffi pannas.

And when abbrevated as 'n as in the following.

Dw i'n hoffi cennin.

AGAA4 Sat 27-Aug-22 14:48:55

Welsh is quite complicated because of all the mutations. So loosely yn means in or at I think.

Callistemon21 Sat 27-Aug-22 14:44:06

Doesn't yn generally mean in? I think the use may vary, though.

Callistemon21 Sat 27-Aug-22 14:41:50

I don't know, my Welsh is practically non-existent but yn rang a bell.

Of course, when I googled, a suburb of a Welsh city came up, which is called Allt-yr-yn but the yn in that instance should be ynn.
Ynn with two 'n's is the plural of onnen (ash tree), a word with which I'm very familiar.

Sorry, that's no help at all but I'll try to find out.

StarDreamer Fri 26-Aug-22 13:30:23

In the Duolingo Welsh course, it says that the Welsh word yn does not translate into English.

Looking at it, it seems to me that it can be regarded as meaning "doing".

Is that reasonable?

Witzend Thu 25-Aug-22 09:03:32

Thank you!

Callistemon21 Wed 24-Aug-22 18:46:16

Pawb = Everyone

Witzend Wed 24-Aug-22 18:42:05

Thank you! What does pawb mean? I know the other two.

AGAA4 Wed 24-Aug-22 16:48:33

Prynhawn da pawb from North Wales. Good luck with your Welsh lessons.

Witzend Wed 24-Aug-22 15:47:52

Very pleased today to have learned how to say ‘I don’t like ironing’ in Welsh! ?

Witzend Fri 19-Aug-22 08:37:16

I don’t suppose I’ll ever get to the stage of speaking it to anyone who will understand, nanna8 - I’m really just doing it out of interest (mostly) plus it’s supposed to be a good exercise for the brain.

Callistemon21 Thu 18-Aug-22 22:51:27

nanna8

I’d love to learn it,too but no one speaks it here. Gt grandma and gt gt grandad were from North Wales and I am proud of that heritage.

An Australian spoke Welsh to us when we were over in Australia, thinking we'd understand because we live in Wales. He was hoping for a conversation in the language of his forefathers and mothers but unfortunately he was disappointed.

Susan56 Thu 18-Aug-22 20:34:43

Inspired by you all I have signed up for the free trial and have done my first lesson today.

We were looking after the grandchildren today and while I was stumbling over pronunciation even the two year old was putting me right??‍♀️

StarDreamer Thu 18-Aug-22 11:34:10

One does not need to pay anything though. In which case one gets advertisements. However, not intrusive, only in a panel and only between lessons, not within a lesson.

ixion Thu 18-Aug-22 11:21:27

Thank you so much for your reply. That's really helpful!

I know what you mean about 'mopping up' - it's what I do a lot of these days, but not the language learning?
My small grandsons are totally bilingual- both grandmas have different languages, so they respond appropriately and fluently.

Witzend Thu 18-Aug-22 11:16:02

You can have a free trial, ixion. I’ve only just signed up for £4.99 (IIRC) a month.

Yes, it’s interactive in that you have a lot of keyboard input, choosing what you hear, writing this or that in Welsh or English, etc. and it tells you whether your answer was correct - showing you the right answer if not.

There’s a ‘speaker’ where you can hear the same phrase repeatedly, plus a ‘slow’ version, which I’m finding very useful.

So far (I haven’t got very far!) it’s apparently working on much the same sort of principle as the listen, understand, repeat, method, which of course is how you learn as a child. However a native speaker child has years of total immersion in a language, so it’s just not the same for an adult learner, particularly when their brain is past the ‘mopping up’ stage.

Hence I do need pen and paper, and something written to refer to, even at this stage.

StarDreamer Thu 18-Aug-22 10:29:36

Perhaps you might find having a go at some Esperanto would be much easier and get you in the mood for some Welsh at a later date.

LINK > www.gransnet.com/forums/culture_arts/1314422-Learning-Esperanto-using-Duolingo

nanna8 Thu 18-Aug-22 10:18:55

I cheated and looked up what you said, stardreamer. Now and since Covid, my memory is shot to pieces so I am not sure if I would be able to cope. Once , a long time ago, I was a teacher of English but we are going back to the 1970s and 80s.