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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 70 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
Special Topics
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Welsh
| Now if you've learned anything from the last questions, you might be able to guess which bird takes its name from the Welsh for "white head". What is it? | Welsh Colours
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penguin. The word "pen", meaning head, features also in many Welsh place names. And "gwyn" is white, as you discovered in question 3.
| No clues for this one! Dyma'r mochyn. Pa liw ydy hwn? | Welsh Colours
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pinc. I know not all pigs are pink, but ask children to colour one, and they will invariably choose that colour!
porffor. "Planhygyn wy" is a direct translation of the word "eggplant", the alternative name for aubergine. "Porffor" (purple) sounds like it looks, but the "r" is sounded.
du. "Du" (black) is pronounced "dee" and is very close to the Gaelic word "dhu". "Ceffyl" is horse. The clue refers to Black Bess, the horse famously ridden by Dick Turpin.
glas. Many Welsh words share the same roots as French words, for example the word for church is "eglwys" - French "eglise". Here the word "mor" (sea) is similar to French "mer". The word "glas" (blue) is pronounced "glarss".
coch. The pronunciation of "coch" (red) is closer to cork than cock, but the last "ch" sound is soft rather than hard.
oren. "Moron" is pronounced as you might think. "Oren" (orange) the colour is pronounced or-wren.
gwyn. A fairly common Welsh name for girls is "Gwyneira" - in other words Snow-white. I bet you thought she only existed in a fairy tale!
gwyrdd. Many Welsh words sound like their English counterpart, even if the words don't always look alike. "Pys" are peas. "Gwyrdd" is green, and is pronounced (quite tricky this one) gw-i-rrth with a hard 'th' sound as in 'this' or 'that'.
melyn. Many English words have been incorporated into the Welsh language as banana has here. The word 'melyn' means yellow, and is pronounced mel-in. "Dyma" (here is) sounds like 'dumber', and the phrase "Pa liw ydy hwn" (What colour is it?) is pronounced 'pa lew uddy hoon'.
| Penblwydd hapus. This would be commonly heard on birthdays up and down Wales. It translates as happy birthday. It is the twelfth birthday of a boy in the predominantly Welsh speaking area of Carmarthen. What is the number 12 in Welsh? | Welsh Translations
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Deuddeg. The birthday boy would be celebrating reaching the age of deuddeg. Un ar ddeg is just one less, 11 with un deg wyth being 18. If you reach cant, then you have achieved a long life spanning 100 years.
I hope you enjoyed the quiz and maybe even picked up a word or two. Thanks for playing!
| Aren't we lucky, it does on the odd occasion snow here during the Christmas period. What is the Welsh word for snow? | Welsh Translations
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Eira. On Welsh weather forecasts during the prediction of snow, the word eira would be heard. Bwrw glaw is that ever dreaded rain, cymylog means cloudy and heulog means sunny.
| Nadolig llawen is a common greeting around the Christmas period which means merry Christmas. Everybody knows that this is a December festival. However, what some may not know is the translation for the month of December. What is it? | Welsh Translations
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Rhagfyr. Rhagfyr would be the correct answer. For those interested in the other three words, Ionawr means January, Hydref means October and Gorffennaf means the summer month of July.
| In a traditional Welsh market you pass a fruit stall and as you pass you are enticed by an appetising orange! Now of course, in English an orange is coloured orange. In Welsh, orange is what? | Welsh Translations
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Oren. Oren is the translation for orange. You could most probably guess that if you weren't sure. Porffor is purple and gwyn means white. Awst isn't even a colour but is the word for the month of August. It seems to have a close connection with the French word for the same month, Août.
| The visitor reaches the correct house and is met by an unusual yellow door. What is the translation for yellow? | Welsh Translations
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Melyn. Melyn is the correct translation. The other three, coch means red, glas means blue and du means black. In Wales, the colours are often taught in an adaptation of the English spoken nursery rhyme relating to the colours of the rainbow. Coch a melyn a pinc a glas and so on and so forth. The things you remember!
| A visitor to Wales wishes to find the home of his friend. The friend in question has been awkward and has the number on her door written in Welsh. The visitor can't understand a word of Welsh but knows the number on her door is 20. He decides to ask a local who willingly gives him the answer. What would be the local's response? | Welsh Translations
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Ugain. Ugain would be the response. It would be pronounced as,'ee-gyne'. The other numbers, deg means 10, wyth means 8 and chwech means 6.
| Another school subject coming right up. A student walks to the language corridor in his school and is looking for the French classroom. What would he see? | Welsh Translations
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Ffrangeg. Ffrangeg is the Welsh for the language of French and would be spoken in Ffrainc, which is the Welsh for the country of France.
Cymraeg is the name for one of the mother tongues here in Wales which of course is Welsh. Sbaeneg means Spanish and cemeg means chemistry.
| This subject is classed as a humanities subject within most schools. The Welsh call it daearyddiaeth but what do the English call it? | Welsh Translations
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Geography. Daearyddiaeth is the word for geography, you will most probably agree that this is quite a mouthful. The pronunciation of this word is quite difficult especially to those with no knowledge of the language, with tricky combinations such as the,'dd', which is pronounced as a,'th' sound, similar to that of the beginning of the English word,'the'.
Sboncen. Sboncen is the translation for squash. Not a hugely popular game in Wales and had it not been for secondary school education in Welsh, the word for this sport would be relatively unknown amongst those who only speak enough to get by within the Welsh speaking communities.
For those interested in what the other three mean, they are all numbers. Pedwar is four, pump is five and saith is seven.
| There are a few sports in the Welsh language which begin with the word 'pêl'. That being known, what is the word for football? | Welsh Translations
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Pêl-droed. Only two of the above make sense and incidentally they are the two that you would be forgiven for confusing. Pêl-droed means football and pêl-rwyd translates as netball. From this you can gather that the word pêl indeed means ball. Lloegr is the name for England and cerddoriaeth is Welsh for music.
Monasteries. Monks ('mynachod') live in monasteries.
| Which animal is NOT in the following list? Ceffyl, cath, broga, madfall, pysgodyn. | Can YOU speak Welsh?
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Gerbil. Horse - Ceffyl
Cat - Cath
Frog - Broga
Lizard - Madfall
Fish - Pysgodyn
Caerdydd. Caerdydd (Cardiff) is Wales's Capital City ('prifddinas').
Eating. Caru - Love
Bwyta - Eating
Apple trees. Trees - Coed
Apple - Afal
Sandwich with cheese. Brechdan - Sandwich
Caws - Cheese
Sglodion - Chips
Banana - Banana!
Cathod - Cats
Beans - Ffa
February. Chwefror is February.
Dog. Woof! meddai'r ci!
(woof! the dog said)
| And finally, a Welsh name which bears absolutely no direct modern similarity to its English translation What, in English, is the mid Wales town of "Y Trallwng"? | Welsh place names
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Welshpool. "Trallwng" means, in Old Welsh, a "dirty pool". Hence, when it was Anglicized in the Middle Ages, it became known as Pool - in 1835, the prefix "Welsh" was added to it, to distinguish it from the "Poole" in Dorset, England.
| The north Wales coastal town of Colwyn Bay is known as what in Welsh? | Welsh place names
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Bae Colwyn. The river Colwyn is in north Wales, but doesn't run anywhere near Colwyn Bay - so it must have been another Colwyn altogether who gave his name to the lovely seaside town of Colwyn Bay, who boast Monty Python's Terry Jones and erstwhile 007 actor Timothy Dalton amongst its famous former inhabitants.
| This north Wales coastal village was also known as Port Dinorwic, or Port Dinorwig, for a long time, but local usage is reverting back now to it's original, Welsh only name. What is this name? | Welsh place names
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Y Felinheli. Y Felinheli is a gorgeous little village on the foothills of Snowdonia, in between Bangor and Caernarfon. For a while, it became known as Port Dinorwig, in the heyday of the flint industry in north Wales, but it's now known almost exclusively by its original, Welsh name. "Melin" is mill, and "Heli" is the stream that powered the mill.
Aberystwyth is in mid Wales, Llancaiach Fawr is in southeast Wales, and Llanelli is in southwest Wales.
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