How To Recognize and Remember Welsh words: bee, butterfly

Bee. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
How do you remember Welsh words?

Answer
Use the letters or hand gestures to create hooks for your memory.

Bee photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Welsh
gwenynen - bee (Visual aid: gwEnynEn)
pila-pala - butterfly

English
bee - gwenynen (It looks like: When in a glen Gwen has a yen for honey, no, nen.)
butterfly - pila-pala (A pillow for my pal and a a pila-pala)

Say the word in Welsh and make a humming sound with GWENNNNyNENNNN.

Make your hands into a butterflyby crossing your wrists and flap your fingertips up and down saying the Welsh words, pila-pala, pila-pala, pila-pala.

Butterfly at Changi Airport Butterfly Garden. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and other languages.

How to Learn to recognize and remember Welsh words: hen, wolf, shark, owl, goat

Problem
How do you remember Welsh words?

Answer
List them twice in a notebook, Welsh English and English Welsh. Test yourself by covering half the page.

Welsh - English
blaidd - wolf (If I had a blade I'd rescue Red Riding Hood from the wolf.)
gafr - goat (GAfr - GoAt. The f and the t are both letters with uprights.)
Lar - hen (LAr - LAy eggs, hen, layer)
siark - shark (Sounds like shark. Same sound as the name Sian pronounced like Shawn.)

English - Welsh
goat - gafr -(like gaffer meaning old guy or boss)
hen - lar (looks like layer)
shark -siark
wolf - blaidd (Remember y turns to i often in the middle of a word. Double d at the end, like a double blade.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Learn Welsh words for cow, duck and rabbits

Problem
How do you remember Welsh animals?

Answer
Look for letter combinations.

Welsh - English
buwch - cow (think of b for bull, u for moo, w third letter of cow, c first letter of cow)
crwban - tortoise (think of it being cruel to ban a tortoise CRwBAN)
cwningen - rabbits (CheWING carrots and breeding like rabbits aGaiN)
hwyaden - duck (how why a D uck)

English - Welsh
cow - buwch
duck - hwyaden
rabbits - cwningen
tortoise - crwban

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker, and teacher of English and other languages.