Colloquial Welsh – which is used in informal writing as well as speech – is the form used in Linguata Welsh. It will be referred to simply as ‘Welsh’ for the purpose of these notes.

Welsh has two genders (masculine and feminine), nouns which change in the plural, adjectives which sometimes change and usually follow the noun, a definite but no indefinite article, verbs which modify according to tense, subject and mood, and mutation, where the first consonant of a word is changed.

Genders are sometimes obvious: merch (girl) is feminine; bachgen (boy) is masculine. Once you move away from nouns of this kind gender can seem arbitrary. There are some broad guidelines, such as food and drink words are often masculine, whereas words to do with money are often feminine. However it is best to learn the gender with the noun if you want to increase your Welsh vocabulary – make a point of associating a noun with the definite article. If it is feminine its first consonant will mutate (see below) e.g. remember merch as y ferch (mutated) and bachgen as y bachgen (no mutation).

Because objects as well as beings have gender in Welsh, when they are referred to by pronouns these are also masculine or feminine i.e. e (he) or hi (she). There is no separate word for ‘it’.

There are also some gender effects on adjectives (see below).

Plurals are most frequently created by adding an ending, most commonly –au or –iau, to the singular form of the noun:

afal/afalau (apple/s), mam/mamau (mother/s), llyfr/llyfrau (book/s), cap/capiau (cap/s)

Other endings are –ion –ydd –i and –od:

ysgol/ysgolion (man/men), afon/afonydd (river/s), ffenestr/ffenestri (window/s), cath/cathod (cats)

Some words form plurals without adding an ending, but change a vowel or vowels:

bachgen/bechgyn (boy/s), bard/beirdd (poet/s), fford/ffyrd (road/s)

Some change vowels and add an ending:

gardd/gerddi (garden/s), cadair/cadeiriau (chair/s), athro/athrawon (teacher);

Some change vowels sounds and add an ending:

bryn/bryniau (hill/s), dyn/dynion (man/men), dydd/dyddiau (day/s), llyn/llynoedd (lake/s), meddyg/meddygon (doctor/s) – in these examples a short ‘y’ is lengthened in the plural.

Welsh verbs introduces Welsh verbs, in particlar the verb bod (to be).