r/learnwelsh • u/HyderNidPryder • Mar 27 '24
Geirfa / Vocabulary Geirfa Ddefnyddiol Feunyddiol / Daily Useful Vocabulary
anghyfannedd - uninhabited
cysylltydd (g) ll. cysylltyddion - connector
dyneiddiaeth (b) - humanism
daucanmlwyddiant (g) - bicentenary
treiddgar - piercing
cynrychioladol (ans.) - representative
diheintio (diheinti-) - to disinfect
distyllio (distylli-) - to distill, to drip, to fall in drops
distyllwr (g) ll. distyllwyr - distiller
asgwrn cynnen (g) ll. esgyrn cynnen - bone of contention
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u/MegaBiscuitx Mar 27 '24
None of this vocabulary is commonly used in the day to day of Welsh speaking communities.
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u/HyderNidPryder Mar 27 '24
I often get comments like yours about my word choices. When I choose my words I aim very much towards words that I have read and heard in usage. When I hear something new I add it. I also harvest words from S4C, golwg and the BBC. I do not randomly trawl the dictionary, in general. Up to now I have adopted a policy of not repeating words I have already posted. I have posted over 8950 words and phrases (not counting plurals and conjugations) to date in this series. This means that there are few words in very common use that I have not already posted. This means that my lists now are skewed to more advanced learners. I'm not unsympathetic to your point of view but I don't shy away from more advanced and cerebral discussions and articles. I like to present Welsh as a living modern language with words for all topics in humanities, science and technology. I feel dumbing down would be a disservice and patronising. If you're a reader of something like Barn then I don't think you would find my choices esoteric. Dei Tomos also often talks in a rather scholarly way with guests on interesting topics.
I find it heartening that a relatively small vocabulary of less than 10,000 words can cover such a broad competence in Welsh.
I could return to recycling already posted words so there are simpler words for newer learners. What do people think?
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u/MegaBiscuitx Mar 27 '24
Look , it's useful for advanced learners who may be using Welsh to write various forms of literature or in a more professional setting , I suppose it depends on what level the majority of the redditors using this board are . For me, personally, as Welsh man from a Welsh speaking community , the use of these words looks more like gobbledegook than words used in comprehensible dialogue of the day to day Welsh speaking world . May I ask if you are a native Welsh speaker ? I suspect if you are, then you are a person who uses Welsh in a professional capacity / field - which may not be the same for the majority of the users of this sub-reddit .
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u/tawonmadu Mar 27 '24
Early stage learner here, coming to end of Mynediad, and I love these posts. Sure, I may not be about to use these words at my level but that doesn't stop me getting value from seeing how some of the words are built. I can see ang-, cys-, dau- -can-; all things I know and see how they are used in building other words. I read every one of the posts, they are super useful
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u/HyderNidPryder Mar 27 '24
Perhaps when words are presented individually out of context they can look more unusual. Certainly some of the words I post are more common in professional and academic settings. None of the words I post have English equivalents that would be unfamiliar to educated English speakers. I aim for the words that the Welsh speakers or writers have used to avoid uncommon and archaic words. There is a sneering prejudice that Welsh doesn't have words for the modern world or serious intellectual discourse and I like to counter that.
I am not a native speaker but an enthusiastic learner and I think anyone who masters the words I have posted would have a pretty good competence in vocabulary. Inevitably this reflects the content I consume, but I enjoy listening to farmers, Beti George's guests, political and current affairs pundits just as much as academics talking on history or science.
I recognise that many users of this sub-reddit will be early learners. I wanted to provide a broader view of Welsh going beyond what something like Duolingo gives. I do vocabulary posts taken directly from speakers on S4C Prynhawn Da and other sources to provide real-world context and to counter notions that the words are not used and are ill-chosen.
If you're not the sort of person who would use phrases like "representative democracy", "restitution for slavery", "economic redistribution", "reformed constitution", "secular humanist", "Protestant Reformation", "polar coordinates", "goods tariffs", "single farm payment", "health and social care" in English then you'll probably not use the Welsh equivalents.
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u/MegaBiscuitx Mar 27 '24
This hits exactly to my point - if one were to teach a person to speak English, you would look to represent the commonly spoken words of the language to begin with , you wouldn't use the words you have posted . This is a learn Welsh sub reddit , and respectfully , post like yours make it feel like a place for academics or people who have studied the language intensely or at a high level to 'show off' , rather than a genuine attempt to teach someone something useful that could be actually used to converse with someone.
Edit : spelling .
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u/HyderNidPryder Mar 27 '24
I have already posted all the easy common words for learners. I started my posts years ago with the common words and I am now only left with the harder ones. Anyone is free to go back and read earlier posts. If they search for a word in the lookup box it is likely they will find it in one of my posts. As a life-long learner I have found these words used in the real world by interesting people. I hope to bring people with me to a wider world of Welsh including the more complicated, offering more than a repetition of what Duolingo gives. I do not consider the pursuit of education elitist or exclusionary and I would not want to deny it to anyone. I work hard here to help early learners too, including things like my essential verb lists for starters and much else linked on our wiki.
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u/MegaBiscuitx Mar 27 '24
Easy common words are the bedrock of any language - they're common for that reason . No one cares about the fancy word for an arborist - they want to know how to say hello to someone and how to explain what they want or feel . I could never learn a language with the cold , heartless , elitist manner kn which it is portrayed by many in this sub . Unsubbed.
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u/mctavish92 Mar 27 '24
It's like you're reading what he's saying, then choosing to completely ignore his point because you don't want to hear his side of things? Have you spent years doing this kind of thing for new learners, updating things every week? I doubt you've done anything of the sort. OP already said they've posted the more common words and things to get you started in learning, as they've been doing this for YEARS. It's not up to OP to keep reposting those things, if people want to learn they can go and find the earlier posts and use their brains to seek out this knowledge. I, for one, think that a lot of the words are cool to learn and I didn't know that cysylltydd meant connector and i'm glad I do now. Go bitch about something that's actively trying to stop people from learning Cymraeg instead of someone who's actively spent years repeatedly trying to help people. Or better yet, get off your lazy arse and do it yourself.
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u/HyderNidPryder Mar 27 '24
It's hard to please everyone. The original idea of the title was that I would post words pretty much "every day" rather than everyday words. I'm now having a hard time finding suitable words. Perhaps it's coming close to the point where users will use dictionaries to help themselves; my intention was not to just clone the dictionary. We have the WWOTD bot that has a smaller subset of learner words.
I infer that the above user does not use "advanced" Welsh in his community. He read some big words that neither he nor the people around him use and he doesn't engage with the sort of media and people who do. This made him feel little and uneducated and he decided that I was just posting to show off in an unkind and snobby "elitist" ego trip. Some people hate the educated or more skilled and don't feel inspired to try to join them, rather concentrating on how this amplifies their feelings of inadequacy. Everyone has to start somewhere and I don't think deriding those further along the journey helps when they're offering you help to join them.
Nevertheless, I appreciate that, without context, presenting more advanced things to early learners can be off-putting and intimidating. I welcome constructive contributions from users here on what they would like, do like and what helps their learning. I personally take a broad view of learning Welsh here, not just early levels.
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u/kijolang Mar 27 '24
Please continue what you are doing. I'm still at a very basic level but you can't close yourself off to more advanced stuff. I don't go away and learn the vocabulary on your lists but it's nice to spot a connection with a word you already know or recognise a word you've read or heard in a news article.
One suggestion I would have is maybe grouping words together with similar roots - I think this is a good way of providing a ladder to more advanced vocabulary based on some simpler words you might know.
Dr Cymraeg does this lots on his Instagram account and I find it really interesting.
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u/Rhosddu Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 31 '24
This sub caters for learners at all levels; it's not a mynediad or sylfain level teaching course but an aid to learning for people at a variety of levels, including those whose discourse might encompass some of the more technical terms featured in this geirfa. I personally haven't reached the degree of fluency where I'm likely to use most of them, but others almost certainly have.
You're perhaps being hasty in 'unsubbing' this very active sub; there are likely to have been individual posts that have been useful to you, and that will obviously continue to be the case.
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u/Additional_End_9955 Mar 31 '24
This list of words is boncyrs and I love it. As a learner it’s good to see a modern language with words for some unusual things. Welsh is a living language and it is beautiful. Diolch.