Breakthroughs: Does anybody have small successes/breakthroughs speaking Cymraeg they want to share?

True, although Henddraig’s example does have 4 borrowings from English in it. Still Welsh.

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Interestingly toast, please and just come from old french and brown is germanic in origin…well according to the web!

Goes to show how language develops. Hope noone has a boef with that :wink:

Oh we all know the Normans named the yummy food they scoffed while the mucky animals looked after by the peasants had their names in the language of the peasants! Or so I’ve been told!

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Well all borrowings from English would ultimately come from something else because English comes from old French and Germanic. Hence why I have no issue with borrowings. Ultimately the words original origin does not stop it coming from English to Welsh (tacsi, for example. Greek, but arrived in Welsh because of the English use). The vast majority of us, unless we check GPC for every word we use, couldn’t honestly say where the borrowed word comes from. Therefore, jyst siarad a phaid a phoeni :smiley:

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Gymkhana and jodhpurs, kimono and origami…

I had an eyebrow raised at me (I’ll put it no stronger) on one bwtcamp for using “jyst”.
I wanted to reply (in Welsh of course): “but in my head, I’m spelling it jyst, no matter if it sounds like just to you”. :slight_smile: (But my spontaneous Welsh wasn’t good enough to express that idea… :slight_smile: )

I knew I had heard it loads of times within Welsh sentences on Radio Cymru, but I was even less well able to express that idea (at least not spontaneously) in Welsh.

But chwarae teg, perhaps we learners should sometimes stop and try to make the extra effort not to take the easy way out and use a word that sounds like English, even if it’s also often used by “proper” Welsh speakers.

I do have a problem with ‘j’ words, although ‘garej’ is in all the dictionaries and is accepted, so I suppose ‘jyst’ may be too, or soon will be!
Checked - it’s about 5th choice for ‘just’ in my app!! So a ‘j’ is now part of the Welsh alphabet and I’m no longer ‘Siac’ with connotations of lean-to sheds and rotting wrecks in allotments, but can legitimately be ‘Jac’!!!

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I would argue Kimono, gymkhana, and origami are loan words from their original languages because they have not undergone any alterations before arriving in Welsh. Just as if Welsh had not developed ty bwyty and used restaurant. But toast, brown, and please have all undergone alterations to arrive at their meaning in English. Origami is the art form in every single language. Please does not mean the same in French. Therefore, plîs is a loan word from saesneg not French.

look up jyngl

Not finding it in GPC, but the latter did offer “jync” (meaning what you’d expect).

My attempt at sophisticated humour for this morning:

Was Freud Jung at heart, or was he just full of joy?

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Hahaha!! I enjoyed that more than I should have

Jwngl

It’s there under both spellings

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I was quoting loan (stolen) words in English! I have always said English isn’t a language but a polyglot! I stopped at 4 words from 2 languages, but could have gone to a lot more! If people use these words in English, why do we fret about Welsh? Well. I suppose we worry that the big boy drws nesa will finish up taking over and nobody will speak Cymraeg anymore!

“Stolen”? That’s a bit strong. I prefer to look at all languages as accepting that there are times when “if it ain’t broke…”

I know English has loads, but I have no objection to borrowings. I think it shows the strength of a language to adapt. This is why I dislike the arguments that dysgwyr should avoid using them. To me that’s a romantic harking back to a world of isolation that’s never existed. Cymraeg has been influenced by languages since before it was known as Cymraeg.

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This is fine. As long as the new vocabulary isn’t chasing out the old. English does indeed have loads. But comprehend didn’t kill off understand, it just added an alternative.

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That’s a very good point! To which I strongly agreed. I like that English has liberty and freedom.

So I’m all for building the vocabulary not replacing

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Well back to breakthroughs. Did pretty well in the lunchtime quiz on radio cymru!

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Not that we can do anything about it. Languages don’t work like that.:wink:

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Dwi newydd cwpla ar Her dau ddeg un, o’r ail lefel… dyna pump her heddiw er un o’r gloch p’nawn 'ma. Dwi’n teimlo rhywble fel chwyrligwgan neu falch ohoni i fy hunan. This was so very very hard but brain and ears are seemingly on par, or now very very close to being as useless at understanding Welsh as they are understanding English (this is a good thing, even if it reads bad, it makes sense when most things are hard enough!)

I think I’m going to have several glasses this weekend to celebrate how far I’ve come in two years given everything. I genuinely think I deserve it for once!

Da iawn i fi, os byddai’n dweud fy hunan!

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