Reply To: [unofficial weekender] Friday dudes!

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@woldenspoons – that’s  Llan – DID – no, right? 😉

My nephews are native Welsh speakers and tell me that Welsh is – apparently – a very “phonetic” language; you just need to know what the phonemes are – they’re not the same as many other (European) languages! It took me a while to get the LL sound right (it’s a “soft” sound – not at harsh as “cl-” you sort of bite the sides of your tongue, smile widely and “hiss” the sound out of the sides of your mouth).

Living in Llangollen (or, Lan-gow-len as our US visitors would insist) we’d often hear tourists reading Croeso i Cymru as “crow-esso ik-cim-roo” and I guess it makes sense, until you learn y is u, and u is i (so phonetically, said “croy-so ee cumri” but even this isn’t a perfect explanation – there are “long vowels” and “clipped vowels”, which is impressive for a language where, as @limburger suggests “vowels go to die”). To this day, I’m not entirely sure how to pronounce Betwys-y-Coed (it changes, depending on who I’m talking to, and how *they* say it!)

Sometimes there aren’t enough vowels in Welsh words. Sometimes there are far too damned many to choose from!