my favorite things in welsh so far

[cimorene]

1. smwddio ('smoothio', to iron)


2. gwisgo gwisg ysgol ('gwizgo gwiz gizgoal', to wear a school uniform)


3. sboncen ('s bonkin', squash - the game)


4. dim o gwbl ('dim o'gooble', not at all)


5. dim smygu ('dim smiggy', no smoking)

Comments

[dragonlady7]

I studied medieval Welsh briefly in college for some weird reason and I loved the language so so very much, but it was the reason I decided not to go to grad school-- there was an Incident where I got confused by a dictionary definition for guelet that just said "see" and a series of citations and I dutifully looked up all the citations and was none the wiser and finally a classmate had to explain that it's the verb, "to see"-- and that had nothing to do with Welsh and everything to do with my patent unsuitability for linguistic studies. I broke down crying in class and my professor kissed me on the head and scolded my classmates, "I told you not to leave her alone with [the Big Dictionary only the name was in Welsh and I rather think it was along the lines of y Geriadwr Mawr but don't quote me]," and in that very moment I realized that grad school was not for me.
Again, not the fault of the Welsh, but.

At any rate, my favorite Welsh word is "mympwy", which means, as I recall, "whimsy", but as it was rather a couple of decades ago now I can't be sure of that, but I'm sure how to pronounce it anyway. (And it may not mean that in modern Welsh anyway, there were rather a lot of linguistic shifts.)

[cimorene]

Ah, gweld is 'to see'. I've just learned that in the last few days.

Your memory seems accurate:
mympwy whim n.m. (mympwyon)
caprice n.m. (mympwyon)
fad n.m. (mympwyon)
mympwy (=whim) notion n.m. (mympwyon)
mympwy (=whim, idea) fantasy n.m. (mympwyon)

[spark]

A thing I found interestingly tricky as an American studying Welsh on Duolingo is that the English in the Duo Welsh course is British English, and some words don't have the same meaning in as American English. I first tripped over that with edrych ("to look") and gwylio ("to watch"), because gwylio only means to observe, it doesn't mean to supervise, the way an American would say "I'll watch the kids". I'm told "edrych ar ôl" for "to look after" has crept into Welsh from English but was not originally the Welsh way to express that concept.

I also got confused in a conversation with my neighbour after he borrowed my ladder, I was pretty sure he was saying thanks but he seemed to be saying something about school (ysgol). So actually ysgol means ladder, and of course schools are ladders =)

[cimorene]

ok, I knew that about british 'watch' and 'look' but ... ladder?!?! 😂

[spark]

Climbing up those levels!

[spark]

Also my most recent favourite thing in Welsh is "cont y môr" but Duo won't teach you that one ;)

[twistedchick]

So far I'm only at Dw i'n hoffi coffi, but I like that. (probably have the apostrophe in the wrong place)

[cimorene]

You do not! Duolingo always complains if you put the apostophe in the wrong place so I've definitely learned that one. Although I do not like coffee, I don't mind talking about it, but I am heartily sick of discussing leeks.

[spark]

My Welsh friends mostly just write "dwin", at least in emails and texts.

[cimorene]

yeah, I've gathered that from googling. Duolingo complains whenever you even leave out the space, though. Going to the extra trouble to type a space between even when it's "dw i" instead of "dw i'n" seems egregious to me... I was going to say the apostrophe must be for more formal (standard?) written situations, but actually it says in the hints that Duolingo focuses entirely on colloquial Welsh. I guess they thought it was just going too far.

[krait]

"Dim O'Gooble" sounds like a localism for 'village idiot.' :D