Debate: Making sense in Wales

Sorry you think it's about winning and losing.

My simple rules work fine for anyone wanting to read road signs and ask for directions. If you didn't get it the first time, try the examples I gave again. They work.

Iestyn himslef had to find 'other types of dipthong' to make a case, and even then relied on mysterious method of calculating the numbers of syllables and dipthongs to do so. I lost count and interest and found his explanations confusing, and even obfuscatory, personally. And he never did get round to his phonetic version of Llangyfelach, if I remember.

As for cake itself, which you can have and eat, 'teisen' as in 'teisen-lap', is routinely pronounced at least four ways. Teesen, Tuysen, Tuyshen and Teeshen. Although these variations are more about personal inflections than pronounciations as such.

> I've been speaking two languages ever since I can
> remeber. One is English, the other, Hebrew, a very
> phonetic language. So don't come at me with the
> 'dreadful twang'.
> What I meant by elbow was instead of you giving a
> complicated example for elach, just find a naturaly
> occuring 'eh'.
> Of course everyone knows how to say loch, but someone
> might think from your instructions that elach is
> eh-l'ch.

So where did the 'A' go? "elach" how could anyone miss that?

You tell someone there are no dipthongs, they go and pronounce everything as seprate vowels. There goes the rhythm, which is probably the single most important thing in making yourself understood, or as you put it, not sounding ridiculous.

reread the posts more carefully - he was saying you were being cavalier about pronunciation; not in your own necessarily. we can't tell through the screen how good your own pronunciation is!

the implication was that your rules were formed in too off-hand a fashion to be particularly useful.

look at your initial post more carefully. in what way does knowing that there are no v's or k's in welsh help someone pronounce a word? that fact would only help someone spell a word correctly once they'd heard it.

far more useful would be to say that all c's are pronounced like english k - that actually helps you say a word like ceredigion correctly. can you see the difference?

using welsh words as examples is a lousy idea unless they are words in common english use - someone who already knew how to pronounce the word felin could probably work out for themselves how to say fach correctly! remember who your target audience are - people who don't know how to pronounce a single word, and have only your guide to help them....

you never make clear at any point whether you are referring to letters or sounds in your descriptions - there's no letter v in welsh, but the sound an englishman would associate with v is definitely there. it's a very important distinction to draw - the main challenge is to stop english people using the english sound they associate with a letter with the corresponding welsh letter.

far better in this example, just say welsh letter 'f' sounds like english 'v', welsh 'ff' sounds like english 'f' - far less ambiguity and near enough correct. this actually helps someone read out loud, which was the entire point.

and sorry to say it again, but saying there are no diphthongs in welsh is misleading to anyone who even vaguely knows what the term means.

i think the point we are trying to make to you is that if you are going to give out supposedly helpful advice, at least take the trouble to ensure it is accurate, unambiguous and clear. if you weren't in the position yourself to do this, it was well-meaning but unhelpful and somewhat patronising to be the one handing out the advice; at the very least, be open to correction and constructive criticism.

I am being honest. I don't speak it yet, but you haven't given a straight answer. The more you evade, the less we are willing to believe.