Happy St. Patrick's Day! If you are wondering why we are doing a video on us trying to pronounce Welsh on this holiday, we explain that at the beginning. This video was a TON of fun! We laughed at ourselves a lot here! We certainly mean no offence by our attempts, if you could call them that. We guessed, we struggled, we even got close on a couple. If you are one of the many non-Welsh speakers, join along with us in this episode! Let us know how close your attempts were and if you got any right! The Welsh language is a beautiful language but for these two Americans, we think we'll leave it to the native speakers. We hope you have fun watching and listening to us give it our best and embarrassing ourselves. Please enjoy! Thanks to each of YOU for watching! If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our channel, it is the BEST way to support our channel and it's FREE! Also, please click the Like button. Thank you for your support!
St Patrick was actually Welsh so you kinda unknowingly have linked St Patrick’s Day with doing a welsh video released on St Patrick’s Day, lol Also I think you did pretty well, welsh is surprisingly easy to read, welsh is a very phonetic language unlike English, the reason English people find it difficult is because they are looking at it from an English perspective but when you forget what you know from an English perspective and learn what the Welsh letters are, for example W is not a consonant in welsh, it’s a vowel, a single F is the equivalent of V in English, FF is an F, a C is always a Kuh sound, never an suh sound like in English and so on, I won’t go through them all, but once you learn the rules for the sounds, it’s actually very easy, you just say what you see, unlike English which I am sure you discovered from learning how to say English place names, saying what you see very rarely results in the correct pronunciation, lol There are 43 letters in the welsh alphabet, traditionally J is not a welsh letter but it’s kinda been added in modern times when adopting English words so if you count J then 44 letters but I don’t count J Traditionally there is no J, K, Q, V, X, Z K was used in the Middle Ages but then dropped again at the invention of the printing press, so was used for a very short time. The diphthongs over the vowels like ŵ make the vowel a long vowel, so in welsh, a W is a vowel which is the equivalent to the oo in good and hood for example and Ŵ is oo in mood and brood or the u in rude or the o in who. So in welsh to say the word bwc would be pronounced the way book is pronounced in English, cwc would be Cook. A DD is th as in with or thus, the soft th not the hard th. So Dafydd would be pronounced Dav-ith Taxi sound be Tacsi, no x in Welsh so the combination of c and s make the X sound So the welsh town Wrexham which is where the football club owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney is, would be Wrecsam. Welsh is known as the language of Heaven. It was JRR Tolkien’s favourite language and he was a language expert, he said that when he dies and goes to heaven he imagined that everyone would be speaking welsh. Despite what the language police would like to tell you, many words in use today originate from welsh, words the likes of google etc will tell you were Greek or Latin or Dutch etc but are actually Welsh but that’s a whole other story to do with the persecution of the welsh and the attempt to essentially genocide the language and culture. So Saint and Angel for example are of welsh origin, Saint comes from the welsh word Sant and Angel is Angel in welsh. One of the great things about welsh is you can easily determine if it is of welsh origin as opposed to being adopted from another language because welsh words are always made up of building blocks of root woods, so if you can reverse engineer a word and it’s root words describe what the word you are reverse engineering, you know it’s of welsh origin. I can almost guarantee that you probably speak some welsh everyday, lol
This may help you. www.felinfach.com/pages/welsh-alphabet-welsh-vowels#:~:text=There%20are%20seven%20vowels%20in%20Welsh%2C%20a%2C%20e%2C,separately%2C%20and%20an%20acute%20%28%C2%B4%29%20which%20indicates%20emphasis.
St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland but he didn't originate from there. St Patrick, or Padraig in Welsh , was actually British and believed to be from South Wales
@@TheNatashaDebbieShow you did better than most. My father's family first language is Welsh. My Welsh cousins didn't start to speak English until they started school. I was brought up in England so only have a very basic understanding of Welsh.
@TheNatashaDebbieShow Welsh is phonetic. You say it as you see it, so once you know what the letters sound like, ie English has ch, th, etc which have their own sounds and so does Welsh with ll, ch, y, etc, then you're good even if you don't know what the word means. I live in North Wales, I'm not fluent in speech but know some and can pronounce.
Diolch a galon - thank you from the heart - for your kind appreciation of our country, culture and language. You are both bendigedig! You are both wonderful!
as someone who speaks welsh and is not welsh i'm just sat here cheering you on everytime you get even remotely close to the pronunciation. I will note though that having the accent down (even in english) first really helps.
Definitely, helps with that stress, had to learn Welsh accent as a kid when I was in Undermilk Wood so it out me in good stead for learning the language later on
I'm a Yorkshire lass who has lived in Wales for about 11 yrs. My partner is Welsh but wasn't taught the language (as the now do in most schools) She tried learning last year and found it extremely difficult. You both need to watch a BBC comedy called Gavin and Stacey...it educated me 😂😂😂😂
I'm English but went to uni in North Wales - a very strong Welsh speaking area. I tried to learn a few words. Hello, please, thank you etc. I picked up a few tops dd is pronounced 'th', ll is a breathy 'ch' sound w is kind of 'oo' and u and y can be 'i' and a more neutral schwa sound. Lots of English people make fun because of the throaty sounds and the lack of recognisable vowels, but it really is the most beautiful language - specially when sung. You didn't do too badly - I think Debbie has a real knack for it.
St Patrick probably spoke something similar to Welsh so it’s very fitting! He was a Briton, before the English arrived, and so would have spoken the language that diverged into becoming Welsh / Cornish / Cumbric etc The rules of Welsh are consistent compared to English so the trick is learning those, once you’ve got them it’s not too bad, but always much more fun to try first 😀 glad you found a video, I could only find short snippets
@@stu9936 yes, exactly but the classification of Old Welsh doesn’t start until ~800AD so I didn’t specify Old Welsh - I suspect the language changed a bit in 400 years
Diolch yn fawr cariads. How wonderful that you did this. I'm Welsh but living in London - always happy to give you a tour thro the medium of Welsh! You guys were amazingly good right off the bat
Tony, as an English lady, living in Wales, how do you think my humble 'breakdown' of the tricky constants for our lovely Cariads is?? (see above) I did try honest .. 😉😊
Main things to remember (as a non-speaker myself): 1. ALL letters are sounded, no silly silent letters. Especially at the ends of words. "r" at the end is usually said as "err" 2. = "d" as in "dog". = soft "th" as in "that, there". 3. = hard "th" as in "threw, through/thru" 4. inside a word is u" as in "put". at the end of a word is "u" as in "lute". 5. is usually the glottal throat sound. Welsh is VERY regional, though, especially North and South.
When I was 7, in the English Midlands, we had a teacher from Wales who taught us to sing the Welsh national anthem "Mae hen wlad fy nhadau" (hope I remembered that right!) in (our attempt at) Welsh. I have had a love of the language (if very very little ability) ever since. But, go to a Rugby international, and hear the crowd absolutely belting out this so-powerful anthem in Welsh at full volume, and you will simply be totally blown away - trust me. NO other country does it better. Or with more passion.
Good job to the two of you! Just a fun fact- if you listen to the Elves in Lord of the Rings speaking Elvish (Sindarin), then to a non Welsh speaker it sounds just like Welsh (even to a non Welsh speaking Welsh person such as myself, who grew up hearing the language around them). It's because Tolkien based the Sindarin language on the sounds and grammatical structure of Welsh, a language in loved and even learnt to speak and read.
Well done! Im a partial Welsh speaker and Welsh is hard for non speakers as it has sounds that aren't found in English. An English friend of mine said Welsh looks like an explosion in a Scrabble factory.
to be fair, at least Welsh spelling is 100% phonetic - if you know the rules. you know how a Welsh word is spelled. Very much unlike English, where "-ough" can be pronounced in 13 different ways depending of context.
@@arthur_p_dent 100% seems like a bold claim! Aren't there any irregular words that don't follow the rules? Maybe loan words from other languages, or words where the pronunciation has shifted since the spelling was standardised? Or that have different pronunciations but the same spellings in different parts of Wales?
Shwmae, one welsh word that most welsh people know even if they don't speak welsh is 'cwtch' which is pronounced 'kutch' to rhyme with 'butch' its a welsh word for cuddle or hug. You guys did pretty well there give each other a cwtch and a pat on the back.
The welsh language is a weird dichotomy for us who are welsh but don't speak it. Being born and bred in Wales means we're exposed to the welsh language every day of our lives to some extent, mostly visually as all of our road signs are bi-lingual and the language is promoted everywhere in Wales. Roughly fifty percent of our towns, cities and roads and streets are named in Welsh. Consequently, we find ourselves in a strange place of being able to pronounce these words but not necessarily knowing what they mean!
True, and it must be even worse for the Scots. My best friend is Scottish and, as I'm a Welsh-speaker, I can usually work out the meanings of Scottish place-names better than he can... and he's lived there all his life!
Canadian living in wales... love the welsh language its so beautiful and fun. Love the welsh for microwave but unfortunately they have officially updated it but popty ping is just so cool! It will for ever be popty ping for me. Came for a holiday and still here 40 years later. Shwmae is also a favorite.
Yes! I tried learning Welsh, but I had nobody I could practise it with, being from a mainly English-speaking part of the country. Pronounciation is no problem, but getting to speak the language enough to become fluent, while living just to the east of Cardiff, and having no Welsh-speaking family or friends - not ever going to happen, sadly. So I know some standard phrases, enough to get by as if I was a tourist in my own country, but couldn't hold a conversation in Welsh.
The Welsh language is difficult to pick up but you gave it your best and did quite well. Entertaining language lesson this morning , l Learned a little and laughed a little thank you
Thanks for attempting the Welsh language. It's really not that difficult, I think you were expecting it to be difficult. Most words are phonetic but I admit it would help to know how some of the letters are different (we have a Welsh alphabet). As an examp le "dd" sounds like "th" in "the", "f" sounds like "v". But well done for trying so hard xxx
I would just like to point out that 'a, e, i, o, u, w and y', are vowels in Welsh. Also the digraphs 'ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh and th', are each written with two symbols, they are all single letters. The addition of the caret (^) in Welsh word, causes a longer pronunciation of the letter by stretching out the vowel.
Those diagraphs are impossible to figure out unless taught...and impossible to explain in writing. Classic one of double LL - how would one explain that!!! ch as in bach...I used to live in Llanbradach!!!
Oh and c is always the k sound. And there are no silent letters. Apart from that, the girls are overthinking it. Single letters are usually pronounced just as in English. Just well enunciated.
@@myladyswardrobe 'ch' sounds like loch. 'dd' is pronounced like an English th, as in the. 'ff' sounds like an English f, as in food. 'ng' is usually pronounced like sing. For 'll' place the tip of your tongue behind your upper teeth while blowing through the sides of your mouth. 'ph' sounds like the ph in pharmacy or photo. 'rh' usually sounds like Rhine, the tip of your tongue should vibrate behind your upper teeth as you push air through, producing a rolled r sound. 'th' is pronounced like the th in thin.
@@nadiajones-sarwar3730 We’ll have them speaking Welsh in no time. For dd, try th then just move the tongue tip forward to the teeth to give a slightly harder sound. I think the only other one that caught them out consistently was si. It often replaces a j (no jk or v in Welsh) as in the Welsh for John and Jane (Siôn a Siân) but is pronounced like the English sh.
Da iawn. Im a fluent welsh speaker from North Wales and was pleasantly surprised by your attempts at the language. Cyfarchion i bawb yn yr Unôl Daleiuthau. ❤
I love you for trying this ladies. ❤ The channel 'Welsh Plus - Learn Welsh With Us' has an excellent playlist entitled 'Welsh Pronunciation - All the basics you need'. The first three videos together total just 10 minutes, and they have specific spaces for you to repeat words, so you could play them without pausing. Importantly though, they explain some fundamentals like the Welsh alphabet and the Welsh vowels, so you better understand what is going on. For example, some consonants in English are actually vowels in Welsh, and our alphabet includes several 'digraphs', like 'dd', 'ff' and 'll', which look like two letters but are considered only one.
I am learning Welsh on Duolingo I thought I was doing okay then they introduced sentence structure and I then realised how much I still have to learn. You two remind me so much of me trying to remember what I had "learned" 5 minutes ago 😂😂😂
Don't give up Victoria.I'm on a 277 day streak with 🏴Dualingo. It's a weird grammar but once you get the knack of it it is a logical and economical language. Just remember Welsh is periphrastic. Another words,long winded.more words used than English for the same meaning.E.g: Rydw i'n meddwl yr aiff e i... I think he'll go to.................... So don't translate word for word,but understand phrases. hwyl!👍🏴
As an English lady of 6 decades who had lived here for over 36 years, I still get baffled by reading and speaking Welsh. I can say a few phrases now, and I will sing the National Anthem with gusto. You did a sterling job ladies, 'A' for effort in my humble opinion. I struggle with the rolling 'R's and and get my 'W's mixed up.. Sometimes they're a 'W' sound and sometimes an 'OO' . Rule of thumb for me is... If the W is in the middle of a word, it's an 'OO' sound. (Most of the time) 'DD' is a 'th' sound. One D is a Vee sound. Y's are normally an 'I' sound. Double 'L's are uniquely Welsh... Good luck with those (they normally get butchered into a 'clan' sound by non Welsh speakers). Anfon llawer o gariad o gymru ... Which means... Sending lots of love from Wales 💖😊🏴
One F is a V not one D W as a vowel is oo as in nook or cook etc, ŵ is just a longer oo as in mood or boo etc Y depends on where it is in the word When it’s last syllable it’s i as in sin, win, thin etc hence Cymry and Cymru are pronounced the same as U is the same Otherwise Y is like U in rum or i in first. The English sound for w as in wuh comes from the welsh Ŵ. If you say oo as in mood the end of that sound is wuh and hence why it became how it is pronounced in English and why it became a consonant, often when you add sounds either side of the welsh w as the sounds flow together they end up sounding like wuh that’s why from hearing words you perceive that it is sometimes and oo sound rather that always. Take the name Owen for example, a welsh name, O and oo and en, O and W being two vowels makes a vowel pair, the welsh vowel pair ow which is pronounced oh like in row or go, when you say o and oo fast, merged you get oh, say oh and en together and it sounds like their is a wuh sound. Same with Gwen, goo-en, when you say it fast you end up with a wuh sound
Well done for having a go, you're both naturals at figuring out the general sound of a Welsh word. Welsh is such a beautiful language but it's usually so difficult for non Welsh speakers ❤️ hundreds of Welsh words are borrowed from Latin, so if you learn Welsh you essentially know some latin too! You can find info on this from the RUclips video "England's missing Celtic language'" 😄 Natasha, there's a cafe in Cardiff next to Cardiff university called "Hoffi Coffi". It's popular with international students as it's easy to pronounce 😂
I have been watching your UK snack videos and came across this. I am Welsh and from Brecon so that was a nice surprise. FYI with regards to the Welsh names for Swansea and Brecon, “Aber” means “mouth of the river” therefore Abertawe (Swansea) means mouth of the river Tawe and Aberhonddu (Brecon) means mouth of the river Honddu.
Helo. Da iawn chi. Another amazing video by you 2 awesome ladies. Welsh isn't an easy language to learn. You did great at learning them. You should be proud of yourselves. I love being welsh and I love our Welsh Language and I'm so so proud I can speak my native language. My boys have been to a Welsh school from age 3. It's important we keep the language going. Bendigedig.
I am learning Welsh at the moment and this was so much fun to watch, well done ladies. You did well with some of the words. it is a very hard language to learn but I am trying hard every day.😀
Well done, girls! Welsh is IMO a lovely, musical language. My own Welsh is limited to having learned how to pronounce (some) names of places and geographical features, driven by a love of walking and wanting to do the locals the courtesy of at least trying. Like the big hill you see as you drive into north Wales (Moel) Famau is pronounced something like "...vameye." Now I have just retired, this Englishman is keen and determined to learn a whole lot more of the language. I always love watching faces, when they realise that "afon" ("river") is pronounced "a-von" (short "a") and it dawns on them - as it did on me first time - that this is where the English word (river) Avon comes from. And why we are actually saying "River River...".
Hi ladies .... that was a great video fun but very difficult and I loved Debbie's thought process... word association 😂 made me chuckle I definitely would need to watch that video and others like it many many times before I could remember any of it though
I’ve been learning Welsh over the last few months. It is pretty complex to learn, but here’s some basics that help with pronunciation: DD - pronounced like the ‘Th’ at the start of ‘that’, not the one at the end of ‘goth’ F - pronounced as a V FF - pronounced as an F LL - try pronouncing and L and an H at the same time W - pronounced as a U U - pronounced as an I (i) Y - pronounced as an ‘uh’ if it’s the first letter of the word and an i if it’s anywhere else C - always pronounced as a hard C like in cake no matter where it is in the word O - if at the end of a word is pronounced as a short o like in pot E - if at the end of a word is pronounced as a short e like the first e in ever Si - when together are pronounced as Sh Au - together are pronounced as “eye” Dw i - pronounced as dwee / Dw i’n - pronounced as dween I think you did pretty well considering it was your first time and it’s so different to English.
I think you’ve done very well. I’m Welsh, bilingual. In Welsh and English, born and brought up in Wales, but now living in London. When you visit London, go to the Central London Welsh Church in Eastcastle Street on Sunday morning to experience a bilingual service and good singing.
With Welsh, there's some fundamental things you need to grasp first before jumping into words. For example: 'Y' and 'W' are vowels; 'DD' is pronounced more like 'TH'; 'LL' is essentially it's own letter, and the other vowels are not pronounced how you might expect. It really helps to get familiar with the Welsh alphabet first, which has more vowels than English thankyouverymuchenglishpeople ;)
Chwarae teg...fair play, a good effort without prior knowledge of the pronunciations. It's good to see the Welsh language being appreciated on an international platform. It can only encourage people at home who don't speak Welsh for whatever reason to feel pride in their language & have a go 😊.
Da iawn! Very good the W and Y are vowel sounds which puts people off. People complaining Welsh doesn’t have any Vowel sounds even though it has two more than English! The DD is a different letter to a D it’s a TH sound.
I had a laugh with you watching this, i don't no any Welsh and had fun trying guess with the Welsh words with you and was funny, to dance- dawsons creek😂
One of the best theatre experiences of my life was at a concert of Welsh music at Y Tabernacl (not sure if my spelling's right there, but it means The Tabernacle) a former church now an Arts Centre in Machynlleth, Powys (try saying that!). Not for the concert itself, which I've now forgotten, but for the moment at the end when the entire audience, without prompting, stood as one to sing the Welsh National Anthem, in Welsh. The pride and joy, the beautiful sound of the language and the energy with which it was sung were just mind-blowing... thought the roof was going to lift off, seriously! Absolutely incredible. You might like to consider timing a visit to Wales to coincide with the Machynlleth Festival which takes place in August each year. Although it's only a small town they get some top quality arts people from all over the world taking part. And you might just get to be in the theatre and hear that National Anthem sung for yourselves. 🙂
The Welsh language might be tricky to pick up for non Welsh people, but that is surely the same for any language. I'm trying to learn Dutch at the moment, and that seems difficult too. The word order is quite different, the way they pronounce certain combinations of letters is wildly different (e.g. "ui" is similar, but not exactly the same as "ow"), and they use very different words in some cases to English (e.g. Instead of saying "I am cold", they say "I have cold"). The big issue most people seem to have when trying to pronounce Welsh words is that they assume the letters should be pronounced the same way as English. They are two very different languages. Welsh is significantly older. It's also a much more phonetic language than English. Aside from a couple of exceptions, letters and combinations of letters are always pronounced the same way. For multi syllable words, the word emphasis is always on the penultimate syllable. Good attempt. At least you recognise that "dd" is a "th" sound, so that's a good start! 😁
BTW, certainly no offence taken. If you were making this video to make fun of the language, that would be offensive. But you seem genuinely interested to learn it, and you would be expected to get it wrong if you're basing it off a single video without having been taught the pronunciation rules first. Nobody in Wales should ever criticise you for trying. It's the people who go to live in Welsh speaking parts of Wales and can't even be bothered to learn a few basic words that are more offensive. And as for the difference between north and south, they're not that much different. Would be a bit like the difference between, say, New York and New Orleans. Both English, with a few differences in the words they use, but still mutually intelligible.
I'm from North Wales, I'm somewhere between a learner and semi-fluent, and honestly, you did pretty damn well. Some of the things that you weren't told was that W and Y are vowels, and some letters have two characters, for example, Dd, Ll, Ff, and Ng are classed as one letter. And "si" is pronounced "sh" Nicely done though, I think you did really very well.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! If you are wondering why we are doing a video on us trying to pronounce Welsh on this holiday, we explain that at the beginning. This video was a TON of fun! We laughed at ourselves a lot here! We certainly mean no offence by our attempts, if you could call them that. We guessed, we struggled, we even got close on a couple. If you are one of the many non-Welsh speakers, join along with us in this episode! Let us know how close your attempts were and if you got any right! The Welsh language is a beautiful language but for these two Americans, we think we'll leave it to the native speakers. We hope you have fun watching and listening to us give it our best and embarrassing ourselves. Please enjoy! Thanks to each of YOU for watching! If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our channel, it is the BEST way to support our channel and it's FREE! Also, please click the Like button. Thank you for your support!
April 23 is St George's day and Shakespeare's birthday.
Lá fhéile Pádraig sona agus dea-shláinte!
Happy St.Patrick's day and good health to you!
St Patrick was actually Welsh so you kinda unknowingly have linked St Patrick’s Day with doing a welsh video released on St Patrick’s Day, lol
Also I think you did pretty well, welsh is surprisingly easy to read, welsh is a very phonetic language unlike English, the reason English people find it difficult is because they are looking at it from an English perspective but when you forget what you know from an English perspective and learn what the Welsh letters are, for example W is not a consonant in welsh, it’s a vowel, a single F is the equivalent of V in English, FF is an F, a C is always a Kuh sound, never an suh sound like in English and so on, I won’t go through them all, but once you learn the rules for the sounds, it’s actually very easy, you just say what you see, unlike English which I am sure you discovered from learning how to say English place names, saying what you see very rarely results in the correct pronunciation, lol
There are 43 letters in the welsh alphabet, traditionally J is not a welsh letter but it’s kinda been added in modern times when adopting English words so if you count J then 44 letters but I don’t count J
Traditionally there is no J, K, Q, V, X, Z
K was used in the Middle Ages but then dropped again at the invention of the printing press, so was used for a very short time.
The diphthongs over the vowels like ŵ make the vowel a long vowel, so in welsh, a W is a vowel which is the equivalent to the oo in good and hood for example and Ŵ is oo in mood and brood or the u in rude or the o in who.
So in welsh to say the word bwc would be pronounced the way book is pronounced in English, cwc would be Cook.
A DD is th as in with or thus, the soft th not the hard th.
So Dafydd would be pronounced Dav-ith
Taxi sound be Tacsi, no x in Welsh so the combination of c and s make the X sound
So the welsh town Wrexham which is where the football club owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney is, would be Wrecsam.
Welsh is known as the language of Heaven.
It was JRR Tolkien’s favourite language and he was a language expert, he said that when he dies and goes to heaven he imagined that everyone would be speaking welsh.
Despite what the language police would like to tell you, many words in use today originate from welsh, words the likes of google etc will tell you were Greek or Latin or Dutch etc but are actually Welsh but that’s a whole other story to do with the persecution of the welsh and the attempt to essentially genocide the language and culture.
So Saint and Angel for example are of welsh origin, Saint comes from the welsh word Sant and Angel is Angel in welsh.
One of the great things about welsh is you can easily determine if it is of welsh origin as opposed to being adopted from another language because welsh words are always made up of building blocks of root woods, so if you can reverse engineer a word and it’s root words describe what the word you are reverse engineering, you know it’s of welsh origin.
I can almost guarantee that you probably speak some welsh everyday, lol
This may help you. www.felinfach.com/pages/welsh-alphabet-welsh-vowels#:~:text=There%20are%20seven%20vowels%20in%20Welsh%2C%20a%2C%20e%2C,separately%2C%20and%20an%20acute%20%28%C2%B4%29%20which%20indicates%20emphasis.
St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland but he didn't originate from there. St Patrick, or Padraig in Welsh , was actually British and believed to be from South Wales
Welsh is not an easy language. Impressed how well you did, well done ladies.
We didn't feel we did very well but thank you!! ❤
@@TheNatashaDebbieShow you did better than most.
My father's family first language is Welsh. My Welsh cousins didn't start to speak English until they started school.
I was brought up in England so only have a very basic understanding of Welsh.
@TheNatashaDebbieShow Welsh is phonetic. You say it as you see it, so once you know what the letters sound like, ie English has ch, th, etc which have their own sounds and so does Welsh with ll, ch, y, etc, then you're good even if you don't know what the word means. I live in North Wales, I'm not fluent in speech but know some and can pronounce.
Natasha pronounces the Welsh for water, Dwr as the Cornish: Dour! PS St Patrick was Welsh!
The “little roof” or circumflex lengthens the letter/vowel. NB the letter’s Y and W are vowels in Welsh.
Diolch a galon - thank you from the heart - for your kind appreciation of our country, culture and language. You are both bendigedig! You are both wonderful!
as someone who speaks welsh and is not welsh i'm just sat here cheering you on everytime you get even remotely close to the pronunciation.
I will note though that having the accent down (even in english) first really helps.
Definitely, helps with that stress, had to learn Welsh accent as a kid when I was in Undermilk Wood so it out me in good stead for learning the language later on
Yn wir? Bendigedig! O ble ydych chi'n dod?
@@evilcommunistpicklerick3175 from the border. So I'm English. But this place technically used to be Wales.
i'm also dyslexic so couldnt remember how to spell that in welsh lol.
@@yourdadisizzy Lmao!
Nice! Thanks for learning and the interest! Who knows, maybe it'll return to Wales soon haha
As a first exposure to the language without knowing any of the rules, you did a great job.👍 Da iawn (well done).
I'm a Yorkshire lass who has lived in Wales for about 11 yrs. My partner is Welsh but wasn't taught the language (as the now do in most schools) She tried learning last year and found it extremely difficult. You both need to watch a BBC comedy called Gavin and Stacey...it educated me 😂😂😂😂
You did very well for a first attempt!! Da iawn!!
Thank you for giving such respect and affection to Wales and the whole United Kingdom ❤
I'm English but went to uni in North Wales - a very strong Welsh speaking area. I tried to learn a few words. Hello, please, thank you etc. I picked up a few tops dd is pronounced 'th', ll is a breathy 'ch' sound w is kind of 'oo' and u and y can be 'i' and a more neutral schwa sound. Lots of English people make fun because of the throaty sounds and the lack of recognisable vowels, but it really is the most beautiful language - specially when sung. You didn't do too badly - I think Debbie has a real knack for it.
St Patrick probably spoke something similar to Welsh so it’s very fitting! He was a Briton, before the English arrived, and so would have spoken the language that diverged into becoming Welsh / Cornish / Cumbric etc
The rules of Welsh are consistent compared to English so the trick is learning those, once you’ve got them it’s not too bad, but always much more fun to try first 😀 glad you found a video, I could only find short snippets
St Patrick would have spoke old welsh he was born in a place called Banwen in Wales and was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland
@@stu9936 yes, exactly but the classification of Old Welsh doesn’t start until ~800AD so I didn’t specify Old Welsh - I suspect the language changed a bit in 400 years
Diolch yn fawr cariads. How wonderful that you did this. I'm Welsh but living in London - always happy to give you a tour thro the medium of Welsh! You guys were amazingly good right off the bat
Well we clearly need it 😂
Tony, as an English lady, living in Wales, how do you think my humble 'breakdown' of the tricky constants for our lovely Cariads is?? (see above)
I did try honest .. 😉😊
Great and funny video lady's, and hello from Wales 🏴👍
Main things to remember (as a non-speaker myself):
1. ALL letters are sounded, no silly silent letters. Especially at the ends of words. "r" at the end is usually said as "err"
2. = "d" as in "dog". = soft "th" as in "that, there".
3. = hard "th" as in "threw, through/thru"
4. inside a word is u" as in "put". at the end of a word is "u" as in "lute".
5. is usually the glottal throat sound.
Welsh is VERY regional, though, especially North and South.
Absolutely brilliant. Our language isn't easy but it is beautiful. You made me laugh so much.
Da iawn a Diolch xxx
Natasha, you've got me laughing so much, the tears are stopping me reading the screen.
I'm fluent in speaking Welsh and you guys did pretty well for someone who has never heard or spoke Welsh before 👍 Da iawn.
Thank you! ❤️
Saint Patrick may have spoken a language similar to Welsh so always that connection for you guys! 😊
When I was 7, in the English Midlands, we had a teacher from Wales who taught us to sing the Welsh national anthem "Mae hen wlad fy nhadau" (hope I remembered that right!) in (our attempt at) Welsh. I have had a love of the language (if very very little ability) ever since. But, go to a Rugby international, and hear the crowd absolutely belting out this so-powerful anthem in Welsh at full volume, and you will simply be totally blown away - trust me. NO other country does it better. Or with more passion.
Good job to the two of you!
Just a fun fact- if you listen to the Elves in Lord of the Rings speaking Elvish (Sindarin), then to a non Welsh speaker it sounds just like Welsh (even to a non Welsh speaking Welsh person such as myself, who grew up hearing the language around them).
It's because Tolkien based the Sindarin language on the sounds and grammatical structure of Welsh, a language in loved and even learnt to speak and read.
very funny intro Debbie rocks have a great day on 21 Tuesday manyy brithday wishes 🍦🍦🍦🍿🍿🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁😊😊😊❤❤❤❤
Well done! Im a partial Welsh speaker and Welsh is hard for non speakers as it has sounds that aren't found in English. An English friend of mine said Welsh looks like an explosion in a Scrabble factory.
to be fair, at least Welsh spelling is 100% phonetic - if you know the rules. you know how a Welsh word is spelled. Very much unlike English, where "-ough" can be pronounced in 13 different ways depending of context.
@@arthur_p_dent 100% seems like a bold claim! Aren't there any irregular words that don't follow the rules? Maybe loan words from other languages, or words where the pronunciation has shifted since the spelling was standardised? Or that have different pronunciations but the same spellings in different parts of Wales?
Shwmae, one welsh word that most welsh people know even if they don't speak welsh is 'cwtch' which is pronounced 'kutch' to rhyme with 'butch' its a welsh word for cuddle or hug.
You guys did pretty well there give each other a cwtch and a pat on the back.
The welsh language is a weird dichotomy for us who are welsh but don't speak it. Being born and bred in Wales means we're exposed to the welsh language every day of our lives to some extent, mostly visually as all of our road signs are bi-lingual and the language is promoted everywhere in Wales. Roughly fifty percent of our towns, cities and roads and streets are named in Welsh. Consequently, we find ourselves in a strange place of being able to pronounce these words but not necessarily knowing what they mean!
True, and it must be even worse for the Scots. My best friend is Scottish and, as I'm a Welsh-speaker, I can usually work out the meanings of Scottish place-names better than he can... and he's lived there all his life!
I’m doing really well, I’m Welsh! 😂😂
Canadian living in wales... love the welsh language its so beautiful and fun. Love the welsh for microwave but unfortunately they have officially updated it but popty ping is just so cool! It will for ever be popty ping for me. Came for a holiday and still here 40 years later. Shwmae is also a favorite.
Yes, Welsh is completely phonetic.
Yes! I tried learning Welsh, but I had nobody I could practise it with, being from a mainly English-speaking part of the country. Pronounciation is no problem, but getting to speak the language enough to become fluent, while living just to the east of Cardiff, and having no Welsh-speaking family or friends - not ever going to happen, sadly. So I know some standard phrases, enough to get by as if I was a tourist in my own country, but couldn't hold a conversation in Welsh.
The Welsh language is difficult to pick up but you gave it your best and did quite well. Entertaining language lesson this morning , l Learned a little and laughed a little thank you
Thank you! 😃
I’m Welsh and I have problems pronouncing welsh words.❤🏴🇬🇧
They are so hard!
Me too😂
Same lol 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Congratulations,you are very brave to even attempt to speak Welsh. You did very well,
Thanks for attempting the Welsh language. It's really not that difficult, I think you were expecting it to be difficult. Most words are phonetic but I admit it would help to know how some of the letters are different (we have a Welsh alphabet). As an examp
le "dd" sounds like "th" in "the", "f" sounds like "v". But well done for trying so hard xxx
That was superb ladies, a huge pat on the back
I would just like to point out that 'a, e, i, o, u, w and y', are vowels in Welsh. Also the digraphs 'ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh and th', are each written with two symbols, they are all single letters. The addition of the caret (^) in Welsh word, causes a longer pronunciation of the letter by stretching out the vowel.
Those diagraphs are impossible to figure out unless taught...and impossible to explain in writing. Classic one of double LL - how would one explain that!!! ch as in bach...I used to live in Llanbradach!!!
Add to that that the single f is the Welsh for v and you’ve nailed it for them, Nadia. I was just about to write an almost identical post.
Oh and c is always the k sound. And there are no silent letters. Apart from that, the girls are overthinking it. Single letters are usually pronounced just as in English. Just well enunciated.
@@myladyswardrobe 'ch' sounds like loch. 'dd' is pronounced like an English th, as in the. 'ff' sounds like an English f, as in food. 'ng' is usually pronounced like sing. For 'll' place the tip of your tongue behind your upper teeth while blowing through the sides of your mouth. 'ph' sounds like the ph in pharmacy or photo. 'rh' usually sounds like Rhine, the tip of your tongue should vibrate behind your upper teeth as you push air through, producing a rolled r sound. 'th' is pronounced like the th in thin.
@@nadiajones-sarwar3730 We’ll have them speaking Welsh in no time. For dd, try th then just move the tongue tip forward to the teeth to give a slightly harder sound. I think the only other one that caught them out consistently was si. It often replaces a j (no jk or v in Welsh) as in the Welsh for John and Jane (Siôn a Siân) but is pronounced like the English sh.
I think you did great. My grown up kids are half welsh and my son is learning the language
This was awesome! Hi from Lincolnshire uk , you guys are just fab ! HB to Debbie ..you look not a day over 40 xx😊
No attempt at "cwrw"! 🤣
St Patrick was Welsh and was taken to Ireland as a slave
Being Welsh I congratulate you. Never laughed so much, I thoroughly enjoyed that. Da iawn - well done
3:42 the circumflex indicates that the vowel is long
I’m fluent northern Welsh speaker, thanks you so much for this video, fantastic
Da iawn. Im a fluent welsh speaker from North Wales and was pleasantly surprised by your attempts at the language. Cyfarchion i bawb yn yr Unôl Daleiuthau. ❤
Dawch, o'r De!
Welsh is one of Tolkien's
favorite languages 😊
Anhygoel
Must be why he put Welsh in Lord of the rings.
I love you for trying this ladies. ❤ The channel 'Welsh Plus - Learn Welsh With Us' has an excellent playlist entitled 'Welsh Pronunciation - All the basics you need'. The first three videos together total just 10 minutes, and they have specific spaces for you to repeat words, so you could play them without pausing. Importantly though, they explain some fundamentals like the Welsh alphabet and the Welsh vowels, so you better understand what is going on. For example, some consonants in English are actually vowels in Welsh, and our alphabet includes several 'digraphs', like 'dd', 'ff' and 'll', which look like two letters but are considered only one.
I think you did pretty well! My granny was Welsh, she taught me a few words, I wish I’d learnt more…
I am learning Welsh on Duolingo I thought I was doing okay then they introduced sentence structure and I then realised how much I still have to learn. You two remind me so much of me trying to remember what I had "learned" 5 minutes ago 😂😂😂
Me too and I also use the app called say something in Welsh which is amazing. They give you sentences and you just repeat them. No typing.
@@leestirling4623 I may have a look at that when I have finished my Duolingo "tree"
Don't give up Victoria.I'm on a 277 day streak with 🏴Dualingo. It's a weird grammar but once you get the knack of it it is a logical and economical language. Just remember Welsh is periphrastic. Another words,long winded.more words used than English for the same meaning.E.g:
Rydw i'n meddwl yr aiff e i...
I think he'll go to....................
So don't translate word for word,but understand phrases. hwyl!👍🏴
@@gandolfthorstefn1780 well I made it to 82 day streak so far a little way to go yet
@@victoriaroberts7034 How’s it going now? Still got your streak going?
This is really funny, love it x
Happy you enjoyed! ❤
Happy st Patrick's day girlies. Having fun learning with you. Great video you didn't do too bad xx
Great fun and I’m Welsh 🏴🇬🇧🇺🇸
😂😂😂....I live in Wales and don't speak Welsh, but have had fun learning with you guys ❤ and you will be fine in Wales..they speak English 😂😂😂
Da iawn ferched!
St. Patrick was from Wales! Now you need to visit us in Wales. People here would love to hear you using the language.
Cheer up ! I had a Welsh grandmother (who I adored) but still can't get to grips with Welsh language.
So much love to you lovely couple, from wales
This was Epic, I laughed so much.
😂😂 we laughed at ourselves too
As an English lady of 6 decades who had lived here for over 36 years, I still get baffled by reading and speaking Welsh.
I can say a few phrases now, and I will sing the National Anthem with gusto.
You did a sterling job ladies, 'A' for effort in my humble opinion.
I struggle with the rolling 'R's and and get my 'W's mixed up.. Sometimes they're a 'W' sound and sometimes an 'OO' .
Rule of thumb for me is...
If the W is in the middle of a word, it's an 'OO' sound. (Most of the time)
'DD' is a 'th' sound.
One D is a Vee sound.
Y's are normally an 'I' sound.
Double 'L's are uniquely Welsh... Good luck with those (they normally get butchered into a 'clan' sound by non Welsh speakers).
Anfon llawer o gariad o gymru ... Which means...
Sending lots of love from Wales 💖😊🏴
One F is a V not one D
W as a vowel is oo as in nook or cook etc, ŵ is just a longer oo as in mood or boo etc
Y depends on where it is in the word
When it’s last syllable it’s i as in sin, win, thin etc hence Cymry and Cymru are pronounced the same as U is the same
Otherwise Y is like U in rum or i in first.
The English sound for w as in wuh comes from the welsh Ŵ. If you say oo as in mood the end of that sound is wuh and hence why it became how it is pronounced in English and why it became a consonant, often when you add sounds either side of the welsh w as the sounds flow together they end up sounding like wuh that’s why from hearing words you perceive that it is sometimes and oo sound rather that always.
Take the name Owen for example, a welsh name, O and oo and en, O and W being two vowels makes a vowel pair, the welsh vowel pair ow which is pronounced oh like in row or go, when you say o and oo fast, merged you get oh, say oh and en together and it sounds like their is a wuh sound.
Same with Gwen, goo-en, when you say it fast you end up with a wuh sound
@@Penddraig7 No, the English W sound doesn’t come from Welsh, it’s something that English and also Elfdalian preserved from Proto-Germanic.
Well done for having a go, you're both naturals at figuring out the general sound of a Welsh word. Welsh is such a beautiful language but it's usually so difficult for non Welsh speakers ❤️ hundreds of Welsh words are borrowed from Latin, so if you learn Welsh you essentially know some latin too! You can find info on this from the RUclips video "England's missing Celtic language'" 😄
Natasha, there's a cafe in Cardiff next to Cardiff university called "Hoffi Coffi". It's popular with international students as it's easy to pronounce 😂
I have been watching your UK snack videos and came across this. I am Welsh and from Brecon so that was a nice surprise. FYI with regards to the Welsh names for Swansea and Brecon, “Aber” means “mouth of the river” therefore Abertawe (Swansea) means mouth of the river Tawe and Aberhonddu (Brecon) means mouth of the river Honddu.
Helo. Da iawn chi. Another amazing video by you 2 awesome ladies. Welsh isn't an easy language to learn. You did great at learning them. You should be proud of yourselves. I love being welsh and I love our Welsh Language and I'm so so proud I can speak my native language. My boys have been to a Welsh school from age 3. It's important we keep the language going.
Bendigedig.
That was a very good attempt ladies. From a Welsh speaking Welshman.
as a welsh person, im impressed you even tried 😂 its a tough language!
watching this video made me roll on the floor laughing very entertaining
I am learning Welsh at the moment and this was so much fun to watch, well done ladies. You did well with some of the words. it is a very hard language to learn but I am trying hard every day.😀
Another amazing video. Great effort. Sending you cwtches (hugs) from South Wales 😊
Thanks so much! 😊
Happy St. Patrick's Day ladies. And far more importantly, Happy birthday Debbie xx
The little mark above any letter elongates the letter. You are doing so well,my family thinks you are too. Lots of encouragement on the way.
Well done,now i have to pick myself off the floor from laughing so much. We are very proud of you 10/10. Prynhawn da.
Well done, girls! Welsh is IMO a lovely, musical language. My own Welsh is limited to having learned how to pronounce (some) names of places and geographical features, driven by a love of walking and wanting to do the locals the courtesy of at least trying. Like the big hill you see as you drive into north Wales (Moel) Famau is pronounced something like "...vameye." Now I have just retired, this Englishman is keen and determined to learn a whole lot more of the language. I always love watching faces, when they realise that "afon" ("river") is pronounced "a-von" (short "a") and it dawns on them - as it did on me first time - that this is where the English word (river) Avon comes from. And why we are actually saying "River River...".
Hi ladies .... that was a great video fun but very difficult and I loved Debbie's thought process... word association 😂 made me chuckle
I definitely would need to watch that video and others like it many many times before I could remember any of it though
I’ve been learning Welsh over the last few months. It is pretty complex to learn, but here’s some basics that help with pronunciation:
DD - pronounced like the ‘Th’ at the start of ‘that’, not the one at the end of ‘goth’
F - pronounced as a V
FF - pronounced as an F
LL - try pronouncing and L and an H at the same time
W - pronounced as a U
U - pronounced as an I (i)
Y - pronounced as an ‘uh’ if it’s the first letter of the word and an i if it’s anywhere else
C - always pronounced as a hard C like in cake no matter where it is in the word
O - if at the end of a word is pronounced as a short o like in pot
E - if at the end of a word is pronounced as a short e like the first e in ever
Si - when together are pronounced as Sh
Au - together are pronounced as “eye”
Dw i - pronounced as dwee / Dw i’n - pronounced as dween
I think you did pretty well considering it was your first time and it’s so different to English.
Absolutely fabulous girls, I laughed so much Sophie came running in to see if I was OK. Well done😂😂
I think you’ve done very well. I’m Welsh, bilingual. In Welsh and English, born and brought up in Wales, but now living in London. When you visit London, go to the Central London Welsh Church in Eastcastle Street on Sunday morning to experience a bilingual service and good singing.
14:35 - I loved the TV show, Mork and To Go To! 😉
😂😂
Ladies that was wonderful. I'm sure the lovely people of the principality will appreciate your efforts 👌
Certainly hope so. And thank you!
With Welsh, there's some fundamental things you need to grasp first before jumping into words. For example: 'Y' and 'W' are vowels; 'DD' is pronounced more like 'TH'; 'LL' is essentially it's own letter, and the other vowels are not pronounced how you might expect. It really helps to get familiar with the Welsh alphabet first, which has more vowels than English thankyouverymuchenglishpeople ;)
Chwarae teg...fair play, a good effort without prior knowledge of the pronunciations. It's good to see the Welsh language being appreciated on an international platform. It can only encourage people at home who don't speak Welsh for whatever reason to feel pride in their language & have a go 😊.
Im from wales in the uk, loved this video so close on a few of them, had a fun time watching this video
Beautiful Kit 🏴
Da iawn! Very good the W and Y are vowel sounds which puts people off. People complaining Welsh doesn’t have any Vowel sounds even though it has two more than English! The DD is a different letter to a D it’s a TH sound.
Loving that shirt Debbie 😊 I'm Welsh and struggle with some words myself so good effort😂 👏
You did very well,enjoyed the video.very funny.well done.
When you come up against 'f' or 'ff' remember 'of' & 'off'. 1 f = v & 2 f = f. Love from UK 🇬🇧
Welsh is taught as a subject in all schools in Wales, but about 1/3 schools teach their whole curriculum entirely through Welsh.
😂 that was difficult but educational thanks for it
This is hilarious. 🤣
Great video as always. Big hug
Thank you 🤗
I had a laugh with you watching this, i don't no any Welsh and had fun trying guess with the Welsh words with you and was funny, to dance- dawsons creek😂
Doing really well
Walk is hard, but "run" in Welsh is bonkers!
Enjoying your posts.
You two are so great. I am Welsh born and Welsh is my first language. Keep up the fantastic job you do,you crack me up. Maybe try out Welsh food soon.
Am so proud of you both - you did wonderfully 😍💖💖
One of the best theatre experiences of my life was at a concert of Welsh music at Y Tabernacl (not sure if my spelling's right there, but it means The Tabernacle) a former church now an Arts Centre in Machynlleth, Powys (try saying that!). Not for the concert itself, which I've now forgotten, but for the moment at the end when the entire audience, without prompting, stood as one to sing the Welsh National Anthem, in Welsh. The pride and joy, the beautiful sound of the language and the energy with which it was sung were just mind-blowing... thought the roof was going to lift off, seriously! Absolutely incredible.
You might like to consider timing a visit to Wales to coincide with the Machynlleth Festival which takes place in August each year. Although it's only a small town they get some top quality arts people from all over the world taking part. And you might just get to be in the theatre and hear that National Anthem sung for yourselves. 🙂
Happy Saint Patrick's Day....did you ladies ever see the first ever performance of Riverdance...I urge you both to watch it
loved this video - you did good! I went to university in Wales - Aberystwyth which is Welsh speaking. Took me right back.
Hi there! I also went to university in Aber, from 1973 to 1976. Roomed in Alexandra Hall at the far end of the Promenade. Nice to hear from you.
@@TenCapQuesada I was there 1990-94 at Rendel and then Cwrt Mawr. Promenade would have been nice.
😂 the funniest thing I've seen thank you
So glad you enjoyed it!! ❤️
My heritage is part Welsh too. But the language is so hard!
Yesss!!
I adore you two x
The Welsh language might be tricky to pick up for non Welsh people, but that is surely the same for any language. I'm trying to learn Dutch at the moment, and that seems difficult too. The word order is quite different, the way they pronounce certain combinations of letters is wildly different (e.g. "ui" is similar, but not exactly the same as "ow"), and they use very different words in some cases to English (e.g. Instead of saying "I am cold", they say "I have cold").
The big issue most people seem to have when trying to pronounce Welsh words is that they assume the letters should be pronounced the same way as English. They are two very different languages. Welsh is significantly older. It's also a much more phonetic language than English. Aside from a couple of exceptions, letters and combinations of letters are always pronounced the same way. For multi syllable words, the word emphasis is always on the penultimate syllable.
Good attempt. At least you recognise that "dd" is a "th" sound, so that's a good start! 😁
BTW, certainly no offence taken. If you were making this video to make fun of the language, that would be offensive. But you seem genuinely interested to learn it, and you would be expected to get it wrong if you're basing it off a single video without having been taught the pronunciation rules first. Nobody in Wales should ever criticise you for trying. It's the people who go to live in Welsh speaking parts of Wales and can't even be bothered to learn a few basic words that are more offensive.
And as for the difference between north and south, they're not that much different. Would be a bit like the difference between, say, New York and New Orleans. Both English, with a few differences in the words they use, but still mutually intelligible.
The patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, was Welsh!
Well done !.. I'm Welsh and I know it's hard,.
Thank you!
Wow Debbie your a natural for languages, unlike myself!
St Patrick was born in Wales so there is a tenuous link for your video lol
I'm from North Wales, I'm somewhere between a learner and semi-fluent, and honestly, you did pretty damn well.
Some of the things that you weren't told was that W and Y are vowels, and some letters have two characters, for example, Dd, Ll, Ff, and Ng are classed as one letter. And "si" is pronounced "sh"
Nicely done though, I think you did really very well.
That was fun!You did well 👏 xx
That was both funny and entertaining 👍🏻