Here’s an excellent introduction to Talwrn Y Beirdd, the Welsh language poetry contest.

If you’re in or near Cardiff, you can join the audience of a live recording of the Radio Cymru programme Y Talwrn at the Duke of Clarence pub on 23rd March 2010.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant Hapus!

Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd.

Happy Saint David’s Day!

Do the little things in life.

Y Gofalwr is a new Welsh translation of Harold Pinter’s play The Caretaker. It will be performed at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay on 12th and 13th March 2010 with a talk and guided tour aimed at Welsh learners.

If folk rock and psychedelic pop from the 1960s and 1970s is your kind of thing – or you are at least open to the possibility – I can highly recommend three very fine albums of Welsh language stuff: Welsh Rare Beat, Welsh Rare Beat 2 and Galwad Y Mynydd. All three albums were released by Finders Keepers Records a few years ago, who enlisted the help of Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals for some of the selections and the excellent liner notes.

They include tracks by Meic Stevens, Heather Jones and Geraint Jarman, among some lesser known – but no less deserving – artists. (Incidentally, Meic Stevens is not to be confused with the academic and writer Meic Stephens.)

Now on Spotify! Yes, most recently they’ve been made available on the licensed streaming service Spotify (which is currently only available in certain European countries). The three albums are also available on CD, vinyl and digital services.

Welsh Rare Beat
This album collects 25 early tracks from the vaults of Sain, a fascinating label which recently celebrated its 40 year anniversary. Among the diverse material, there are some groovy numbers on here, like Meic Stevens’ Y Brawd Houdini (The Brother Houdini) and Y Tebot Piws’ Mae Rhywun Wedi Dwyn Fy Nhrwyn (Somebody Has Stolen My Nose). Also we have that kind of pure almost hymn-like singing best typified by Eleri Llwyd on O Gymru (O Wales) and some nice fret-burning Hendrix-esque guitar action like Tich Gwilym’s take on the Welsh national anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. And it probably wouldn’t have been complete as an introduction without the first release on Sain, Dŵr (Water) by co-founder Huw Jones, which is a protest song about the village of Capel Celyn.
Welsh Rare Beat album on Spotify

Welsh Rare Beat 2
It could be said of these albums that the punning titles might not be to everyone’s taste. But maybe it’s OK to use a marketing gimmick which relies on a well worn gag, since this vintage music hasn’t received anywhere near the attention it deserves. (Just like the laverbread on the cover I suppose.) As far as the content is concerned this is even more true of part 2, which collects recordings from not only Sain but the Dryw, Gwawr and Afon labels. In other words, unless you have relatives who were there, living in the 1960s “Dyfed triangle” on which this album is loosely based or are prepared to spend the rest of your life at its car boot sales, you would otherwise be out of luck. Rarity doesn’t equal quality of course, but in this case we do get both. The overall feel here is perhaps more melancholic, less immediate than the preceding Welsh Rare Beat album. Witness for example, the marvellous Niwl Y Môr (Mist of the Sea) by Galwad Y Mynydd and Cân O Dristwch (Song Of Sadness) by Heather Jones. That said, there’s a spot of glam rock like Bran’s party starter Tocyn (Ticket) which was more recently covered by Cate Le Bon. We also get some “proper” rock’n'roll in the form of Os Hoffech Wybod Sut (If You Want To Know How) by bizarre television character Caleb (according to Gruff Rhys’ liner notes, imagine if “the Fonz lived in a cave and looked like a biker-style Teletubby…”).
Welsh Rare Beat 2 album on Spotify

Galwad Y Mynydd – Galwad Y Mynydd
Galwad Y Mynydd were the winners of the pop group competition at Pontrhydfendigaid’s local eisteddfod in 1972. This self-titled album collects two EPs, which makes eight tracks altogether: the sum total of their output under that name (I think) before they morphed into Hergest. There is a naive, youthful charm to the music here and the lyrics are distinctly pastoral – roaming the landscape around Aberystwyth with themes like fishing, hills and the sea.
Galwad Y Mynydd on Spotify

Expanding your Welsh Vocab
When listening to Welsh language music, old or new, I make a point of investigating the meaning of the band name and the title of the song – at least. These new words then tend to stick in my vocabulary, taking very little effort to learn. I guess this is partly because they have a musical context, sometimes even a melody. (It’s also because I’m a fan and collector of pop trivia anyway.) For instance, Galwad Y Mynydd means “Call of The Mountain”. The noun Galwad can be derived from the verb galw which means “to call”. For a tiny bit of effort these can be once-learned-never-forgotten words.

Dafydd has some of the original record sleeves from Sain and other labels on Flickr.

For grammar and spelling, dedicated service Cysill wins!
http://www.cysgliad.com/cysill/arlein/

If you want to get the “gist” of a piece of text, Google Translate can be handy.
http://google.com/translate

I should come clean and say there is no battle being fought between Google Translate and Cysill. It’s just about using the right tool for the right job.

In particular, if you’ve been tempted to use Google Translate to check your spelling or grammar then Cysill is much more suited to the task. I have it in my web browser’s bookmarks toolbar, ready to be clicked when I’m writing email… or my latest literary masterpiece.

Here’s a quick tip for looking up words on the Firefox web browser.

The tip uses smart keywords and will work for any dictionary – or indeed any web page – as long as it has a search box. The result is very impressive and it takes a lot of friction out of expanding your vocabulary.

Whenever I want to look up a word, I type a very short keyboard into the address bar followed by the word I want. Then I get the translation in seconds. You can too.

For example, if I want to look up the Cymraeg word “cyflym” then I type:
c cyflym
into the address bar, press enter and I go to a web page with its dictionary entry.

If I want to look up the English word “something” then I type:
e something
into the address bar, press enter and I go to a web page with its dictionary entry.

The letters c and e are my chosen keywords to look up a Cymraeg word or English word respectively.

My choice for everyday terms tends to be the BBC’s Cymraeg-English dictionary. We’ll use that one here. Here’s how to set it up.

1. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/wales/learnwelsh/welsh_dictionary.pl
2. Right-click on the white text box above the “english > welsh” button. You’ll get a context menu.
3. From the menu, click “Add a Keyword for this Search”
4. Type your chosen name for the keyword. You could type “BBC English to Welsh” as a reminder for the future (although it can be anything).
5. Type your chosen keyword. I like one-letter or two-letter keywords. For English to Welsh I use a letter e.
6. Repeat from point 2, but click on the other text box immediately above “welsh > english” and chose a diffrerent keyword. For Welsh to English I use a letter c for Cymraeg.

If you want to delete or edit a keyword, it can be found in your Firefox bookmarks.

I know there are many, many browsers out there. Certain others may support a similar feature to that of Firefox.

The BBC dictionary is not my only choice. I sometimes refer to Geiriadur as an alternative for everyday terms and Termiadur for technical and scientific terms. You could set up keywords for those too, as well as any other website with a search box such as YouTube or Google Blog Search.

If it’s a passage of text, Google Translate can be handy for the gist but be careful. It wasn’t designed as a dictionary and makes a poor substitute.

Happy vocab expanding.

In Wales’ capital there has been a outbreak of drinking establishments with animal names in Welsh. Most are recent additions to the city. By recent, I mean in pub years. Anyway here goes.

Milgi
City Road’s arty cocktail bar. Milgi means “greyhound”. Milgi is derived from ci (dog, pronounced like the English word “key”). I’m not sure what the “mil” bit means, anyone? Anyway, the plural of milgi is milgwn. Another similar word is corgi which literally means “dwarf dog”. The food is quite dear I suppose but pretty unusual. Likelihood of a Cymraeg conversation: medium (the sisters who own it are Welsh speakers from near Aberystwyth)
milgilounge.com

Y Fuwch Goch
It means “The Red Cow” where “coch” is red and “buwch” is cow. It’s on Womanby Street and is a bar owned by Clwb Ifor Bach, which itself is directly opposite. They also do Welsh food but only on Fridays and Saturdays. Clwb Ifor Bach is not named after an animal as such, but a Welsh revolutionary. As with Clwb, in Y Fuwch Goch nearly all the bar staff speak Welsh. Likelihood of a Cymraeg conversation in Y Fuwch Goch: fairly high (on a random night) and very high (on, say, their occasional Welsh language comedy nights ayyb)
yfuwchgoch.com

Y Cadno
It means “The Fox”. It’s aiming to be a new “traditional” pub on Cathedral Road, but it has been described by some as a “Victorian theme bar”. I’m not sure if the fox is dead or alive in their big concept. I haven’t been there so I can’t give it a likelihood of Cymraeg rating. No website.

Gwdihŵ
As far as I know, gwdihw is the only onomatopoeic word for an animal which Welsh has. Or indeed any language has. (Other than the Cantonese word for duck, I hear you cry!). It means “owl” and I have a feeling it’s more of a hwntw (south Walean dialect) word. Another word for owl is “tylluan” but that’s not a drinking establishment yet. Full disclosure: I DJ there. Incidentally, if you stand on a specific spot on Guildford Crescent in front of Gwdihw you can see the back of Cineworld which resembles an owl. The owl is sometimes considered a Masonic symbol and they too have a building visible from that spot. So we have a triumvirate of owls here. I guess exploration of that line of enquiry is outside the scope of this blog post.
gwdihw.co.uk

Y Mochyn Du
It means “The Black Pig”. It’s just off Cathedral Road. It is perhaps the daddy of them all here because of the regular dysgwyr (learner) meet-up events and Cymraeg things in general (pub quizzes, folk music, ayyb). All the bar staff speak Welsh. Likelihood of a Cymraeg conversation: very high. No website though, there is a mochyn-shaped hole in the web. I have always found out about their events on the grapevine.

I used “ayyb” in this post a couple of times, which stands for “ac yn y blaen”. It means “etc”. You would say “ac yn y blaen” just like you’d say “etcetera” when you see “etc”. It’s good for conversations, meetings, lectures… I dunno, media appearances – when you run out of words. Make an appropriate hand movement and say it with confidence, they’ll assume you contain universes.

It’s not all about Cardiff, nor is it about animal names – nor a good pint of Brains. It’s just that it is in my world. If you want to redress any perceived imbalance here, comments are open (as are numerous blogging services).

The word dysgu in Welsh means “learn”. It’s pronounced roughly like the English word “dusky”. (Possibly apt?)

The curious thing about the word dysgu is it also means “teach”. So the above sentence could also mean “I’m teaching Welsh”.

I’ve often wondered if this could result in misunderstanding. Fluent Welsh speakers assure me that it’s possible to get the correct meaning from the context.

Nevertheless I’d like to think dysgu connotes the glorious learning swap which happens when education happens properly. You know, where the so-called teacher and learner both teach and learn from each other.

Incidentally, this is probably why people from, in particular, the south Wales valleys say “I learned him” and so on. The pattern has stuck – even if sometimes fluent use of the Welsh language hasn’t.

Related words and phrases:

(remember that Welsh verbs also work as gerunds, unlike English which uses ing-words as gerunds)

(singular, pronounced like “dusk oor”)

(plural, pronounced like English phrase “dusk weir”)

(Saesneg is pronounced “sis-neg” or “sice-neg”. Compare to Scottish word sassenach.)

(Remember double-d is equivalent to a hard th sound in English. So something like “ath-isc”.)

(A school teacher friend informs me that professional educators use this verb to clearly distinguish between “learn” and “teach”…)

Hello Welsh learners! Some big changes are afoot here on Clwb Malu Cachu, so keep your eye on things as they develop. If you want the old site, it’s still around! We will be moving content over to this new site, but I’ll be keeping the old site in that archive folder as a cute bit of techno-archaeology.

Meantime, please have patience as CMC pupates.