What's Weird About Welsh Words? Snippet

Flag of Wales.

If you are thinking of a holiday in Wales, look for a couple of Welsh words.

You can learn Welsh on Duolingo.

If you haven't had time to brush up on your welsh, if you drive across the border from England to Wales you will see bilingual signs, Welsh and English.

Adjectives and Nouns - which comes first
On my most recent trip to Wales, as we drove along and I attempted to translate each word back, I could see that the nouns came first in Welsh, the adjectives second, the reverse of English. So business park became park business. The city of Newport became port new.

One familiar word was castle, castell.

Useful Website:
duolingo.com


About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. I teach English and other languages.
I have several other posts on Welsh and Wales. Please share links to your favourite posts. 

What to see in Wales

Problem

Where to go in Wales?

Answer

The A40 from London goes to Wales (via Bristol or Bath for a stopover.

Or the M4 motorway. Or the train from Paddington in London to Newport, Cardiff and Swansea and change to go on to Fishguard. 

Bath (stopover in England)

- the Roman baths and 

Jane Austen.

Theater

Bristol - (stopover in England)

suspension bridge.

 Slave trail. 

RLS associations.

Caerleon

Roman museum

Roman Amphitheatre

Wooden sculptures

Caerphilly Castle

One of the most photogenic castles.

Cardiff

Cardiff Castle

Castle Coch

Cardiff Museum (free)

Fishguard

Last Invasion Tapestry.

Lower Harbour where Moby Dick was filmed.

Laugharne

Dylan Thomas Boathouse museum 

Llandudno

Monmouth

Nelson Museum

Newport

(Yo Ho Ho Morgan's Rum) Tredegar House.

Portmeirion

Italian style village with tropical gardens and feature folly houses and buildings. Accommodation. Charge to enter.

Swansea 

Liberty Stadium

Fine to view from a distance. Tours.

Tenby

Tips

If driving, budget for the toll bridge.

(More later.)

More travel information from:

http://www.dylanthomasboathouse.com

http://www.stdavids.co.uk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishguard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tredegar_House

http://www.visitmonmouthshire.com (Nelson museum)

http://www.visitpembrokeshire.com

www.visitwales.com/

http://visitbritain.org

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several other posts on Wales and Welsh language.  Please share links to your favourite posts.

Scenes Seen From the Train: Wembley, England, and Newport, Wales

Wembley Arch, see from train. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

England
Wembley Arch. I saw it from two stations, firstly Stonebridge Park, then Wembley Central, going out of London. Coming into London you would see Wembley Central first, then Stonebridge Park.

You may have to change to a seat on the opposite side of the train. Alternatively stand by the opening doors. I found that Stonebridge Park gave a better view. If you are not in a hurry, you can get off at a station, take a picture from the platform and get back on the same train or the next one. Or walk towards the place you wish to photograph.

Wales
Newport has lots of public art:

Steel Wave Sculpture, Newport, Gwent, Wales. Seen from train. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

http://www.newport.gov.uk/en/Leisure-Tourism/Attractions/Public-Art.aspx

What You See in the Welsh Capital Cardiff and On The Trains Through Wales

Problem
Even if you are not planning to visit Cardiff on a train trip through Wales, you will probably pass through Cardiff and one or two other interesting places and spot old and new buildings. What will you see? If you come home with a picture taken through the car or train window, what have you seen?

Answers
Firstly by car you will probably take the M4 over the spectacular bridge. (You need some cash for the toll, but you only pay one way. Going into Wales is free. You'll need some cash for the toll coming out. Or is it the other way round? I can never remember. I have to look it up.) Just across the bridge is Newport. (Divert right to Caerleon to see the Roman museum.) Then the capital and largest city of Cardiff. Cardiff.

These are my photos from a train trip right the way across Wales, from Paddington in London to Fishguard and Goodwick on the West coast of Wales. I passed through the largest city in Wales which is also the Welsh capital, Cardiff, which I had visited every year for a decade, sometimes by car, and walked around the city and had afternoon trips.

Let's start with a list of the places to visit in Cardiff which I saw on previous trips. Yes, it is worthwhile taking an afternoon or day trip to Cardiff.

Newport
Clock in the city Centre.

Cardiff
Cardiff Castle, a grand castle which dominates the city. Black and imposing.
Castle Coch (red castle). Exotic colourful decorations. A short side trip.
Cardiff Museum. City centre and free.

Swansea
Home of Dylan Thomas. See outside of his birthplace; then his cottage museum on the seafront.

Fishguard lower town, water, boats, plaque.

Herring sculpture.

Cannon.

Old terraced cottages painted in pastel colours, flowers bedecking lamp posts and the herring sculpture.

Fishguard
Pretty lower bay.

Go uphill to Fishguard hotel and read about how Liz Taylor and Richard Burton filmed here. The bay was the setting for films about Moby Dick and Dylan Thomas.

Swansea is on the shortlist to be the Uk's city of culture, not yet, (Hull's is this year's) not even next year but in the year 2012, in five year's time.

Websites
In the past Wales has been the setting for films (movies) of Dr Who, The Prisoner, Snow White and many more, as shown on the official website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40611161 (About the city of Culture shortlist.)
www.visitwales.com official website

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Starting to Read Welsh on stations - then Learning Welsh Online

A month ago I looked at the Duolingo list of languages and was quite surprised to see Welsh (and not yet Greek). I thought, how many people want to learn Welsh? I suppose people living in Wales, especially those in schools, teaching Welsh, learning Welsh, in a bilingual school, which has bilingual notices, or government offices producing leaflets in the Welsh language.

However, this month I too a train to Wales, seeing Welsh on the train, Welsh signs on stations, leaflet in both languages. Immediately my interested in learning Welsh became intense, as strong as my desire to find a toilet (what's Welsh for toilet) and drinking water (what's Welsh for drinking water), not to mention changing onto the right train (what's Welsh for train?).

I picked up two Welsh language leaflets, one on the station and another on the Severn Crossing.

Duo lingo Welsh
As soon as I got a wifi connection (how do you say Wifi in Welsh) in my hotel (what's Welsh for hotel?) I logged onto Duolingo and signed up for Welsh. I have just done my first short lesson in Welsh. (I also discovered that the Duolingo website has rotating flashcards which you can use to test yourself. They pop up one at a time. That's a bit less daunting than the Review after each lesson.

It starts by asking you to match the words for morning and night with pictures.
Night - n o s  same initial letter
morning bore (I think of the English word starting with b, breakfast, or Break of Day. Is breakfast the most boring meal of the day?)
afternoon - p r y n h a w n - initial p as in P.M. (Latin for post meridian, after the middle of the day) last letter is n in both afternoon and prynhawn

Duo lingo Review
But the advantage of the review is that if you read the review of often 6 to 12 card all on the screen together, you can revise all the answers by reading to the end as they ask you to translate one way and then the other.

Mini Dictionary of Welsh
Regarding Welsh words here are some of my findings, with a little help from DuoLingo and a lot of hard work translating one word at a time on Google translate I shall fill in this list today:

English-Welsh
and - a
bus
brickwork - bricwaith
chocolate
coffee
drinking water
entrance
exit
ferry
gents (toilet)
ladies (toilet)
minutes - mind
no smoking
not
now
port
power  - p w e r
sandwich
station
tea
the
to
toilet
train - trên
what time?
where
where (is)
who
wifi
work - g w a i t h

Place names
Cardiff - Caerdydd
England
Fishguard
London - Llundain
Newport - Casnewydd
Scotland
Swansea
Ireland
Wales - Cymru

Welsh - English
a - and
am
ar - be
Caerdydd - Cardiff
Cymru - Wales
er
i
in -
Llundain - London
m i n u d - minutes (spaces because auto correct prefers minus to m i n u d)
t w n n e l - tunnel
y
yn - in

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.