#dysgu

[karmagotme]

It's been announced that DuoLingo will stop updating Welsh courses. They've always championed endangered languages in the past but articles say they want to focus more on popular languages like Spanish and French. The following is a link to a petition to get the First Minister of Wales to work with the DuoLingo CEO and get them to save the course.

As someone who is learning Welsh, it's devastating news. Yes, there is still Say Something in Welsh and other methods, but DuoLingo is also extremely helpfull, especially for anyone who may not be able to afford all of the later courses in SSIW.

So please, signage would be most appreciated.

EDIT: Please don't think you have to live in Wales to sign this! I signed and I live in Australia. Share this with your language-learning friends around the world!

[lymphomalass]

Today, I thought I'd share my latest Cymraeg (Welsh language) illustration - covering the seasons and the months of the year. Some of the months can be a bit tricky to learn in Welsh... so I thought illustrating them all might help! It's available as all sorts of prints, cards and printed to your order on all kinds of items at:

Thanks! Diolch! Sam aka LymphomaLass xx

[official-wales]

Is there an official Welsh word of the year? Like the Oxford word of the year (but better).

only for you anon

[arthursfuckinghat]

Listen, listen, I love rdr2 and rdr2 fanfiction very dearly, but one thing I wasn't prepared for was my english skills being put to the test with reading how southern accents are written-

"J'st a scratch s'nothin, y'dont hav'ta worry. Was only some'n small n'all."

Many, many apostrophes..

[llyfrenfys]

Do you know any free and/or online resources to learn Welsh?

Hello @runin-reads Just getting round to this ask now but there's a few things I know of which might help. Followers feel free to add on any more as well!

Resources:

Free Welsh coursebooks from DysguCymraeg available to download on their website

Free collection of Welsh dictionaries available to view on The Internet Archive

Cysill and Cysgeir are free to download here. Cysill is a Welsh grammar checker that checks for correct spelling, mutations etc. Cysgeir is a Welsh dictionary app. Both were developed by Bangor University and are free to download on Windows.

Gweiadur is a free online Welsh dictionary which not only has a comprehensive guide to Welsh words, but also provides example sentences, idioms and conjugation tables.

Followers add on any more if you can think of any!

[meddwlyngymraeg]

Vocabulary - to want

A few different ways (that I know) to express wishes and desires.

eisiau - to want. One of the standard ways of saying you want something, all across Wales. In truth, it’s not actually a verbnoun like many others, it’s really a noun. That’s why you don’t need the ‘yn’ before it ad you would for any other verbnoun: ‘yn mynd’, ‘Dwi’n mynd’. ‘Dyn ni’n aros.’ Etc.

‘Dwi eisiau cysgu.’ I want to sleep.

I believe the reason for this is an older construction that is used in literary Welsh, but that got shortened and dropped off over time in colloquial Welsh. ‘bod ... ar [rhywun]’ was the construction used, roughly meaning to have ‘a want upon you’ (very roughly).

Double checking this with Wiktionary (beloved), they do have a credible literary source demonstrating this: the Welsh bible (which thanks to a frenzied linguistics and orthography-fuelled spiral down Wikipedia, and oddly enough, the Welsh comedian and radio broadcaster Elis James (unrelatedly), I know was first translated in the 1500s and directly led to the loss of the letter ‘k’ from the Welsh alphabet).

‘Yr Arglwydd yw fy Mugail; ni bydd eisiau arnaf.’ The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Close enough to colloquial Welsh to understand, that's using ‘eisiau arna (i)’. Over time, colloquial Welsh has dropped the ‘ar’. The example sentence above could've been 'Dwi eisiau cysgu [arna i]'.

A note. Some people have a misconception that eisiau should cause a soft mutation in the word following it, because it is an exceptional case of an action (of sorts) that doesn’t need an ‘yn’, and so must follow a pattern similar to a few other conjugations out there like ‘dylu’ (should).

‘Dylet ti ddweud rhywbeth’ (You should say something), ‘Galla i wneud rhywbeth amdano fe’ (I can do something about it), ‘Ga i rywbeth?’ (Can I have something?), the past tenses of gwneud, ‘wnaethon ni ddysgu Cymraeg’, ‘Mae rhaid iddyn nhw dduhino’n gynnar!’ (They must wake up early!)

And so on. This isn’t the case, as eisiau is not a conjugated verb. It’s just a noun for desire! (*not exactly. I’m trying to explain this as best I can)

There is a south Walian usage of ‘eisiau’ that makes this idea clearer.

In some southern dialects, the construction ‘mae eisiau i…’ is used to mean that someone needs something. E.g. ‘Mae eisiau i ti fwyta’ means ‘you need to eat’. What it literally means is ‘there is a need for you to eat’, and so you can see the noun eisiau (a need) in use.

North Walian Welsh uses the same structure, but with the noun angen instead. ‘Mae angen i ti fwyta.’ ‘Mae angen iddyn nhw sosban’, literally, ‘they are in need of a saucepan’.

Speaking of dialect differences, especially in north Wales Welsh, you might come across spelling variants of eisiau: ‘isio’, ‘isia’, (N) ‘isie’ (S), ‘isho’, etc. Perks of a phonetic language are that nothing’s a misspelling really if it sounds alright when said out loud. I did raise an eyebrow at the last one a little, ‘sh’ isn’t the English ‘sh’ in Welsh, is it? (Is that Wenglish?)

Other forms!

moyn - to want. Used pretty much only in the south and valleys, but this one is a regular verbnoun. ‘Dwi’n moyn cwpla fy ngwaith gytre’n fuan’ (I want to finish my homework soon)

(Just realised there are a Lot of dialect words in that sentence! Cwpla -> gorffen, gytre -> cartef)

It seems simpler than the exceptional eisiau construction, why isn’t it more widely accepted?, you ask. (Most people I’ve said it to say it immediately places you geographically to them because they never hear anyone else say it.) It derives from an older verb, ymofyn, which itself comes from the word gofyn (to ask), ‘ym’ + ‘gofyn’ = ‘ymofyn’, which sort of goes away from the original idea of wanting, and into one of asking. Still, language evolves, and so you will still hear moyn in South Wales. In fact, the Say Something In Welsh course teaches it (which is how I know it. Probably worth giving a disclaimer that I’m simply mad about linguistics and Welsh alternative bands, before anyone starts to think I live in Wales just because I occasionally write long grammar posts!)

Awydd - a desire. Used similarly to eisiau, no ‘yn’ precedes it. The whole point of making this post was that I just came across this sentence: ‘Ti awydd mynd i Gastell Caerfili?’ Meaning, do you want to go to Caerphilly Castle?

And those are the ones I know!

[creatrixcymraes]

some cute lil celestial signs ✨🌙

yn Gymraeg hefyd wrth gwrs 🥰

[crwbannwen]

It's kinda known that most Welsh people prefer pilipala (it sounds so cute), so I encourage people who don't know Welsh to also take part..

[itchylimpet]

Learners of Welsh*, what's your favourite word so far?

Mine's a tie between:

Esgidiau - I like the way it rolls, and

Morfil - it's exactly the kind of name a dignified middle aged whale would have and I think that's perfect

* I'm specifying learners because I like how my favourites have been changing as I learn new words, but I'm still up for hearing cool favourite words from everyone

[maicamochichan]

お久しぶりです！I know I said last year I’d be back but disappeared again, I had a lot happen in life and my focus was pulled away from learning languages as I navigated through some hard times, BUT I AM BACK!!

Some updates with my languages: I haven’t been focusing too much on Japanese as I started learning Welsh! Of course I still use Japanese and still plan to make vocab lists for Japanese so don’t worry! But as I learn more Welsh, I plan to incorporate that into my Tumblr as well💕

I hope you guys have missed me as much as I have missed you!! ここいるから心配しないでね！(*^_^*)

[magpiecollectingknowledge]

Been doing notes for my Welsh course every Saturday for the past four weeks. I’m enjoying the sounds and speaking especially - I love languages so much.

I hope you’ve all had a good week!

[lymphomalass]

Are you learning Welsh...? Dach i'n dysgu Cymraeg...?

I'm learning Welsh... Dw i'n dysgu Cymraeg... I've just finished unit 4 of the Welsh government supported course (Dysgu Cymraeg / Learn Welsh ) via a zoom class.

...And after getting myself in a pickle assuming soft mutations only applied to place names (how wrong could I be...🤣), I wrote and illustrated this little bit of prose, with the help of a friendly Facebook group for Welsh learners.

It's now available printed on all sorts of stuff at: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/137386080

Thanks!

Sam aka LymphomaLass xx

[hypomancy]

wedi ffindio yn dino blastig fach ar y traeth a wedi gwneud docw shoot blastig fach // found a little plastic guy on the beach and did a little plastic nature documentary photoshoot

[official-wales]

where to learn welsh ? :(

just in here!

[aeolianblues]

lads they’re putting me on S4C briefly

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Going into my Welsh exam soon; the thing is easy as piss but my insides are still grinding into soup (ominous)