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CROESO · WELCOME

Mountains, castles
and a language.
Come learn it.

Say Bore da, count to twenty two different ways and find the Welsh name of your favourite town. Every word here is copied from BBC Wales and BBC Cymru learner pages, Visit Wales, Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru or the Welsh Language Commissioner’s list of Standard Welsh Place-names, and linked so you can check it.

Start with hello Two ways to count
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SCROLL TO EXPLORE FIRST WORDS, EVERY ONE SOURCED
✳ A LITTLE WELSH FOR TODAY
Bore daGood morning
WHY START HERE?

A few words can
open a whole world.

Welsh is Cymraeg, and Wales is Cymru. Visit Wales calls Welsh “Britain’s oldest tongue”, with roots “in Celtic languages spoken on these isles two and a half thousand years ago”. Visit Wales: Poetry in motion: discover the language of Wales ↗

Census 2021: an estimated 538,000 usual residents of Wales aged three and over (17.8%) reported being able to speak Welsh, down from 562,000 (19.0%) in 2011. Office for National Statistics: Welsh language, Wales: Census 2021 (statistical bulletin) ↗

The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, section 1: “The Welsh language has official status in Wales.” Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, section 1: Official status of the Welsh language (legislation.gov.uk) ↗

Visit Wales says to look out for the orange Cymraeg speech-bubble badges worn by staff in shops, public buildings and businesses: they show that someone speaks Welsh and that others are welcome to speak Welsh with them. Visit Wales: Poetry in motion: discover the language of Wales ↗

Read the story
13BEGINNER LESSONS
146WORDS & PHRASES
538,000ABLE TO SPEAK WELSH, CENSUS 2021
24TOWNS IN WELSH
LEARN

Your first words
in Welsh.

YOUR JOURNEY0 of 13 lessons
Progress stays on this device.

Short lessons with flip cards and a quick check of what you’ve learned. Each card links to the source it came from. We don’t write our own “sounds like” spellings: to hear Welsh, ask a Welsh speaker, or try Learn Welsh, which offers a free Welsh taster course.

Loading the lessons… If they do not appear, reload this page or open BBC Cymru’s list of Welsh phrases.

✦ New to Welsh? Start with hello and work your way along.
WORDS & PHRASES · PHRASEBOOK

Something to say.

Search the English or the Welsh, then tap a card to turn it over.

NORTH · SOUTH · FORMAL · INFORMAL

Two ways to say it.

BBC Cymru’s list of Welsh phrases gives some phrases in a Northern and a Southern form, and please in a formal and an informal form. BBC Cymru: Welsh phrases ↗

BBC CYMRU: NORTH

In the North

How are you? (North)
Sut mae?
Sorry (North)
Mae’n ddrwg gen i

Marked “North” on BBC Cymru’s list.

BBC CYMRU: SOUTH

In the South

How are you? (South)
Shw’mae?
Sorry (South)
Mae’n flin gyda fi

Marked “South” on BBC Cymru’s list.

BBC CYMRU: PLEASE

Formal and informal

Please (formal)
Os gwelwch yn dda
Please (informal)
Os gweli di’n dda

BBC Cymru’s list gives both.

A LITTLE PRACTICE

Ready to put your
Welsh to the test?

Twelve quick questions from all the lessons. No pressure, no scores shared.

RHIFAU · 11 TO 20

Two ways
to count.

BBC Wales: there are two counting systems in Welsh. The traditional system is always used when telling the time, and very often for people’s ages. The simpler modern system was developed for teaching maths in Welsh, and it is now the more common of the two, especially among younger people. BBC Wales: Welsh at home (South, Entry): Time (1) ↗

THE NUMBER MACHINE

Slide from 11 to 20

11
MODERNun deg un
TRADITIONALun ar ddeg

Both columns are copied from BBC Wales: Welsh at home, Time (1) ↗. The modern column matches BBC Wales: Colin and Cumberland word bank, Numbers ↗.

QUICK GAME

Modern or traditional?

Here’s a Welsh number. Which way of counting is it from?

…

0 of 0 right

In the modern way, eleven is un deg un and twenty is dau ddeg. In the traditional way, eleven is un ar ddeg and twenty is ugain.

Numbers one to ten: un, dau, tri, pedwar, pump, chwech, saith, wyth, naw, deg. BBC Cymru’s list of Welsh phrases ↗

THE STORY OF WELSH

An old language,
a living one.

Culture Vannin’s Learn Manx: “Other Brittonic Celtic languages still survive – Welsh, Breton and Cornish. They are similar to each other but are quite different to the Gaelic languages.” Learn Manx (Culture Vannin): Discover the story of Manx ↗

Learn Manx also says that Anglo-Saxons pushed Brythonic Celtic speakers to the most western regions of Britain, and that their descendants still speak Breton, Cornish and Welsh. Learn Manx (Culture Vannin): Discover the story of Manx ↗

THE CELTIC LANGUAGE FAMILY

Welsh and its cousins.

CELTIC LANGUAGES
GOIDELIC / GAELIC
IrishScottish GaelicManx
BRYTHONIC
WelshBretonCornish
Introductory highlights only, each from the source linked with it.

Visit Wales says the language is “firmly woven into public life, with legislation protecting its status and all schools teaching it to pupils”.

Visit Wales: Poetry in motion: discover the language of Wales ↗

Visit Wales calls Eisteddfod yr Urdd, the National Eisteddfod’s youth counterpart, “Europe’s largest festival for young people”.

Visit Wales: Poetry in motion: discover the language of Wales ↗

Visit Wales: Dydd Miwsig Cymru is a celebration of all kinds of Welsh language music, held on a specific date every February. Visit Wales: Gŵyl is the Welsh word for festival.

Visit Wales: Poetry in motion: discover the language of Wales ↗

Welsh, Cornish and Breton are Brythonic languages; Manx, Irish and Scottish Gaelic are Goidelic. Visit our other Celtic language sites:

PLACE NAMES

The map
in Welsh.

16 towns with a different English form, and 8 that are the same in both, from the Welsh Language Commissioner’s list of Standard Welsh Place-names. Pick one to see its standard Welsh form.

CHOOSE A PLACECaerdyddCardiff

Every name comes from the list linked with it.

WORD SPOTTER

Pick a word and see which names on this list contain its letters.

Pick a word to spot it in the names.

The meanings are the dictionary’s meanings for each word on its own (aber, caer, llan, pont, castell, tref, pen). Finding the letters inside a name doesn’t tell you what the name means, and we don’t give place-name meanings here.

For each place, the Welsh Language Commissioner’s list gives a standard Welsh form and an English form, which it describes as “the standard form to be used in English”. Welsh Language Commissioner: Standard Welsh Place-names (one page per name; the list is licensed under the Open Government Licence 3.0) ↗

Visit Wales: Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch on Ynys Môn (Anglesey) is “often claimed to be the longest place name in Europe, and the second longest in the world”. Visit Wales: Poetry in motion: discover the language of Wales ↗

Explore the Standard Welsh Place-names
TOWNS

We don’t give place-name meanings here, only the names.

CONTINUE THE JOURNEY

Learn from the
people who know.

welsh.languages.im is an independent introduction, not a replacement for teachers or the organisations below. Go to them for real voices and for anything beyond first words.

01 · LEARN

Learn Welsh · learnwelsh.cymru

The Learn Welsh website (learnwelsh.cymru) offers a free Welsh taster course, and says that people aged 16 to 25 can learn Welsh for free.

Visit Learn Welsh ↗ 02 · PHRASES

BBC Cymru · Welsh phrases

BBC Cymru’s archived list of Welsh phrases is “Derek Brockway, BBC Wales’ weatherman’s 40 Welsh phrases”. Many of the greetings here come from it.

Read the list ↗ 03 · AT HOME

BBC Wales · Welsh at home

BBC Wales’s Welsh at home pages. We used them for the days, months, seasons, weather, counting, food and animals.

Open Welsh at home ↗ 04 · WORD BANK

BBC Wales · Colin and Cumberland

A BBC Wales word bank. We used it for names, answers, numbers and colours.

Open the word bank ↗ 05 · LOOK UP

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru

The University of Wales Dictionary of the Welsh Language, online.

Open the dictionary ↗ 06 · PLACE NAMES

Welsh Language Commissioner · Standard Welsh Place-names

The list notes that “very occasionally there are multiple forms which may be considered standard on the basis of use and historical evidence”.

Explore the list ↗ 07 · VISITING

Visit Wales · The language of Wales

Music, festivals, the Eisteddfod and a few phrases to try on a visit.

Read more ↗ 08 · FIGURES

Census 2021 · Welsh language, Wales

The Office for National Statistics bulletin on Welsh language skills in Wales.

See the bulletin ↗

Our promise: every Welsh word on this site is copied from a source linked beside it (checked 31 October 2026), and words we couldn’t source were left out. For pronunciation, please listen to real voices. We don’t offer our own audio or invented sound-alike spellings. See all sources.

PRINTABLES · SUPPORT

Take a little Welsh off the screen.

welsh.languages.im is free, with no adverts. Our Welsh printables (worksheets, puzzles and colouring in A4 and US Letter) help keep it going, and there’s a free sample to try first. Every Welsh word in them comes from the same sources as this site.

Visit the shop
Free sample

Free Welsh printables sample, 7 pages. Pick your paper size:

A4 276 KBUS Letter 275 KB
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