3. Consonants - Welsh Pronunciation (Series 1)

Learn to pronounce Welsh clearly and understandably whether you're in north or south Wales.
Consonants (Series 1 | Video 3)
Part of the Welsh Pronunciation Series.

[@dylanjacobs3795]

Out of all the languages in the UK and Ireland, Welsh has the most simplest orthography that can easily be read unlike Irish and English.

[@joalexsg9741]

So true and it´s a blessing not many people know how fortunate learners and speakers alike are for that! However, I advise you also try beautiful Cornish, it´s closest sister in Britain, its phonetic orthography is also a blessing!

[@mytube001]

Irish is quite easy as well. Very few exceptions, and unlike Welsh, initial mutations don't "hide" the original word, but are added on, making it easier to see what the word really is.

[@MixelsFan2015]

Agreed. As an Irish person. I can definitely say Irish orthography is just... how do I put this?... a mess.

[@forhisglory7720]

Thank you for having these wonderful videos. I'm using them in conjunction with duolingo. Blessings!

[@welshplus]

Croeso! Glad it helps. It's a good idea to combine lots of different resources like you're doing. Pob bendith = Every blessing!

[@jasonrhodes5023]

This is great! I just came here so I can pronounce the names correctly in the English translations of the Mabinogion and the Four Ancient Books of Wales. Thank you!

[@welshplus]

Croeso! / You're welcome!

[@mononoke721]

I've struggled with 'll' up till now but your little guide has helped tremendously! I still can't roll my r's though...

[@user-kj6td2on7e]

When I listened to the pronunciation of the letters i and long y in northern Wales, I noticed that it is pronounced exactly like in the Swedisch language.

[@welshplus]

They're very similar, yes. Northerners have to stick together! 🤜🤛

[@sif_2799]

I love the sound of LL

[@alyanahzoe]

me too, it sounds like a cute hissing cat!

[@Escviitash]

The CH sound is even closer, if not exactly as, to the dutch G, than it is to the scottish or german CH

[@welshplus]

Interesting. Wikipedia says so too, for Northern Dutch particularly: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_uvular_fricative

[@alyanahzoe]

​@@welshplus i'm not clicking that link either!

[@violettachernishova5083]

Thank you for your amazing lessons! ❤🎑

[@benw9949]

Fantastic! Now I can halfway pronounce Welsh words properly! -- Could you please give more attention to LL and R versus RH? The single R gives me no problems, but trying to do a "voiceless" RH does, and LL wants to slide to something else, almost like a SH or palatal KH/CH or even TH (unvoiced) which isn't the sound you're making for LL. -- And please cover W and Y and how they differ from the other vowels. Thank you!

[@welshplus]

Glad you found it useful. If you can pronounce R, then RH shouldn't be too difficult. Practise whispering it first and then adding breath (or an "H" sound). There's more practise and advice on RH and LL in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnbOm3-MjNyUo6s W is either short like Enlish "oo" in "book" or long like English "oo" in "food", so shouldn't be too difficult. There's a whole video on Y here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqLZYpqbftGZfKs

[@benw9949]

Thank you!

[@NoHealerJustPain]

Great channel!

[@welshplus]

Diolch! More to come soon.

[@susannam3923]

I always thought the r is rolled only once! well, if it's just a normal rolling that's very fortunate for me

[@susannam3923]

II keep spitting when I try to say ll, it sounds about fine apart from that though haha

[@welshplus]

Hahaha! Stand well back 😄

[@ydfgydg]

Hi, thank you for your videos, they're really helping me to learn and understand Welsh pronunciation! :) I do have one question regarding the letter [d] - in the South Wales pronunciation, it sounds like the letter [d] at the end of a word is pronunced closer to a [t]-sound, whereas [d] at the beginning or in the middle of a words sounds like a "regular" rounded [d]-sound. Is this right, or are my ears betraying me? It actually sounds quite similar to what we to to our ending [d]s in German...which is interesting since I've noticed that especially the South Wales pronunciation is the same as or very close to German pronunciation in most of the letters :)

[@welshplus]

This is a really perceptive question. What you're hearing (or not hearing) is "voice" or "voicing". Voice means the vocal folds in your throat are vibrating. When you say _d_ in German, it's voiced. You can feel you Adam's apple vibrate if you put your fingers on it when you say _d._ When you say a _t_ in German, it's unvoiced, meaning the vocal folds don't vibrate. An unvoiced _d_ is a _t_ - that's the main difference between the two sounds. As you say, in German a written _d_ at the end of a word loses its voice, making it a _t_ (although still written _d_ ). The _d_ in Welsh is pretty weakly voiced i.e. the vibration is just a little. It's probably less voiced than German _d_ and (a lot less than languages like French and Italian _d_ ). When a _d_ is in the middle of a word, it's often surrounded by other strongly voiced sounds (vowels are strongly voiced sounds, for instance), so the voicing or vibration from these surrounding sounds carries through to the _d_ as well, making it sound quite strongly voiced - making it sound like a proper _d_ essentially. At the end of a word however there's no voicing after the final sound - just silence, right? In preparation for the silence, your vocal folds stop vibrating near the end of a word and so voicing starts to tail off as a word finishes. This means the end of a sound like _d_ will lose some of its voicing. Considering the fact that _d_ is already weakly voiced in Welsh, I can understand why it would sound like a _t_ to you. If you slowed it right down it would probably actually be a _dt_ , if that makes sense, where the voice is lost halfway throught the sound as _d_ becomes _t._ The same thing has happened in German, but the loss of voice comes earlier, making the _d_ a fully unvoiced _t_ sound. As an example, German _Bad_ is actually pronounced _bat_ whereas Welsh _bad_ "boat" is more _badt_ (both with a long _a_ ). It doesn't sound like _bat_ like it does in German, but it's halfway there. Sorry, a bit of a long explanation which isn't really suitable for a KZbin comment, but hopefully that's a bit clearer. Please ask if not. Essentially, you have a very good ear. Most people don't hear these things so I'm very impressed. Da iawn!

[@ydfgydg]

​@@welshplus Thank you so much for your detailed explanation - this makes things a lot clearer for me! I never even (consciously) realised the intricacies of voiced/unvoiced ds in German until now :) Diolch yn fawr iawn!

[@zulkiflijamil4033]

Hello Gareth and Lori, i find your video and lesson very superb. Cheers for sharing.

[@welshplus]

Croeso mawr! / You're very welcome!

[@alyanahzoe]

​@@welshplus gareth? lori? is that all of you?

[@owainthoma3945]

Don't know if you still read comments but is there a way to differentiate "dd" from "th" or is there a difference I'm not catching?

[@welshplus]

You can think of Welsh _dd_ as English _th_ in: _this_ _that_ _then_ _there_ whereas Welsh _th_ is like English _th_ in: _thin_ _thing_ _theme_ _thought_ . They're two different sounds but they're both spelt with _th_ in English so that's how the confusion arises. If you put your fingers on your Adam's apple, you should feel vibration when you say a long _dd_ but when you say a long _th_ you don't have that vibration. Try it out.

[@alyanahzoe]

​@@welshplus sorry, but no.

[@jaycee330]

Should note with "s" the combination "si" (like sion) becomes the "sh" sound.

[@davidw.6876]

Hello, I am having some difficulty pronouncing "r" and "rh" as I can't roll my r's. How would you advise I fix this issue?

[@welshplus]

There are different ways you can learn to roll your R's. If I were you I'd do a search here on KZbin as there are loads of videos on how to roll your R for all sorts of languages - it's all pretty much the same principle. Try a few out and find a method that works for you. Once you've learnt how to roll your R, you can then practise whispering it to pronounce Welsh RH (which isn't in many other languages). Step at a time though. Let us know how you get on.

[@alyanahzoe]

​@@welshplus 여러분. 이게 뭐지?

[@jameshumphreys9715]

If the "Ph" is the same as the "Ff" and has no distinction then why is it in the Welsh alphabet, you could readjust the mutation table, so an aspiration "P" will be "Ff" rather than a "Ph", espically when it is absent or rarely used; unlike the "Dd" and "Ng" you can least see them at the middle, or ends of words, the "Ph" doesn't appear in any entry in the dictionary e.g. words beginning with: "A" "B" e.t.c or none, I've come across in a Welsh Dictionary, yet the Welsh Collins dictionary, both old and new do have a "Ph" entry, without the words themselves not being a mutation, but none of these words are related to Welsh culture or life, and could be spelt with "Ff", I also found a house name "gorphwysfa" when I looked this up, if has "Ff" rather than "Ph", and I looked the word up, in the Collins dictionary; when something has the Welsh alphabet, and it comes to "Ph" it is represented as ("ei" + a word beginning with "P", normally it is pen), yet you do not see the three nasal mutation of "C" "P" or "T": fy nghi; fy mhen; fy nhad, and unlike "Ph" I've at least seen: ngh, mh, and nh in a middle or ends of words; this makes the Welsh language inconsistent; the Welsh scrabble doesn't have "Ph", and i gathered, it wouldn't crop up in many Welsh crosswords No other alphabet has letters, it doesn't use.

[@jameshumphreys9715]

@Liam Quinn so ei phen, becomes ei ffen. What wrong with dropping a letter from the alphabet.

[@alyanahzoe]

​@@jameshumphreys9715 yeah

[@berylkemp7874]

Since when has j been a letter in the welsh alphabet when I was young the 1st learning book was sion a sian a sienkin not jan and jon and jenkin

[@welshplus]

I did a quick search and the earliest example I can find of it in Welsh is 300 years ago (a version of the word _jiwbilî_ in 1719 to be precise) but I'm sure there are earlier examples. Of course, educators often take a while to catch up so my belief is that it was introduced "officially" into the alphabet some time in the 20th century, but I'd like to see a reference for that. If you go to an infant classroom in a Welsh school today, you'll see _j_ sitting happily next to _i_ and _l_ on the alphabet posters.

[@kuklamaus]

Please can you make a video explaining when d, b and g are pronounced like 't', 'p' and 'k' 😢

[@welshplus]

Do you mean that Welsh _b_ _d_ _g_ sound more like _p_ _t_ _c_ to you? What is your native language?

[@kuklamaus]

@@welshplus my native language is russian, and sometimes Welsh b, d and g (voiced stops) sound for me exactly like if they were unvoiced - p, t and c. And the problem is that I can't understand in which positions they become unvoiced...

[@welshplus]

@@kuklamaus I thought so. In languages like Russian, French, Spanish etc. the voiced stops are quite strongly voiced and the unvoiced stops are unvoiced (makes sense!). In other languages like Welsh though, the voiced stops are only weakly voiced and the unvoiced stops are unvoiced and also aspirated (have a puff of air or _h_ sound after them). This means the main contrast between voiced and unvoiced stops in Russian is voicing whereas the main contrast between them in Welsh is really aspiration. When a Welsh person says _b d g_ they sound like _п т к_ to a Russian and vice versa! So in order to sound more Welsh, I'd advise practising the aspiration after Welsh _p t c_ in order to distinguish them from _b d g_ .

[@kuklamaus]

@@welshplus thank you so much for your detailed response 🙏

[@welshplus]

@@kuklamaus Croeso / Пожалуйста 😊

[@jamesidk1575]

5:52 god fucking damnit

[@alyanahzoe]

no cursing here!

[@bloodaxe5028]

dd just sounds like v

[@welshplus]

"Dd" is like "th" in English "that". If you can make the difference between "that" and "vat" in English then you'll be able to pronounce Welsh "dd".

[@susanab3831]

That would be even better if the words were translated

[@user-ns6os2ym6n]

The accent of the female speaker is like Old English)

[@juangaflogger]

you forgot the mh, nh and ngh

[@welshplus]

This video just goes over the consonants in the alphabet, but we'll cover "mh", "nh" and "ngh" in a video about the treiglad trwynol (nasal mutation) in the second pronunciation series. It comes out in the new year, so watch this space!

[@juangaflogger]

Welsh Plus - Learn Welsh Online With Us great!👍

[@mapshite8663]

@@welshplus it seems you forgot to make those videos

[@welshplus]

@@mapshite8663 Haven't forgotten, just haven't had the time! Mae'n flin 'da fi!

[@alyanahzoe]

3:50 it didn't go well at all...

[@zsupersaiyan]

Swssws amogws

[@alyanahzoe]

😂😂😂

[@radiyhakhatun1041]

I'm going to stick to 'sh' sound for ll. You can't stop me.

[@alyanahzoe]

yes i can!