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Es i and Des i

I have now added exercises for the simple past of mynd (to go) and dod (to come), so that you can practice using those forms in context. Es i and des i are quite easy to use — if you would use I went or I came in English, you can just slot in es i and des i, in exactly the same way.

These two new exercises can be found right at the end of the course.

Matthew Rhys on Widow’s Bay

Last month, Heno’s Rhodri Owen interviewed actor Matthew Rhys about his latest hit TV show, Widow’s Bay, his boat and playing Richard Burton on stage. Although the interview is only about 6 minutes long, it’s crammed full of vocab and phrases, with lots in the south Wales dialect.

I’ve pulled out nearly 80 words or phrases and built exercises for you to learn them so that the video it makes more sense on first viewing.

Interviews like this, where native speakers are talking quickly and using lots of colloquial language, are really challenging so don’t worry if you don’t catch it all! As learners, we have to get used to a little ambiguity.

Learn some of the vocab and watch the video here.

Coming soon

I’ve got a lovely piece about Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd’s Gwen John exhibition by Lauren Davies underway. And I’m halfway through the next set of exercises for the simple past of gwneud (to do, to make) and cael (to get, to receive).

Plus I have something fun up my sleeve that will be very different to what’s on offer via other Welsh courses. Stay tuned!

Speed reading exercises

I’ve uploaded speed reading exercises for every section now, having nailed down a faster workflow to produce them. 

The idea behind speed reading is that you stop trying to translate in your head and instead try to think in Welsh itself. Speed reading doesn’t give you enough time to translate, forcing you to connect the word to the meaning without going via English.

Log in to give it a go and see what happens! 

New ‘This, That, These, Those’ section

I’ve put together a whole new section on how to say ‘this man’, ‘that man’ etc, addressing both the yma/yna system and the ‘hwn/hon/hyn’ system.

As learners, we tend to default to the simpler yma/yna system. But if we flip it on its head, we can use the hwn/hon/hyn as a tool to help us learn noun gender. The benefit to this is that not only do we learn noun gender, which can be quite a challenge for English speakers, but we also become more comfortable with the hwn/hon/hyn system which is used more widely in written Welsh.  

Y Gelli Gandryll’s famous bookshops

S4C have a short video about the bookshops of Y Gelli Gandryll (Hay-on-Wye) on their YouTube channel, so I’ve put together some vocab games and exercises to help you prepare. Once you’ve learnt the vocab, you’ll find the video much easier to watch! Log in to learn and watch!