Study at Cardiff | International

Welsh language

Welsh books 500x280

The Welsh language is one of Europe's oldest living languages. You don't have to learn Welsh to study here but it can be fun!

Welsh is a Celtic language which is similar to Cornish and Breton and is regular and phonetic (though unless you can speak some Welsh you won't know how to pronounce a word just by looking at it).

You may have already heard of the village on the island of Anglesey, North Wales with one of the longest place names in the world: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

Common places you will see Welsh is on road signs and in printed information and it is spoken by about 20% of the population of Wales. There is also a small population in Patagonia, Argentina that speak Welsh and some parts of Canada.

Here are a few Welsh basics to get you started:

Welsh	English phonetic	Meaning
Bore da	Boreh dah	Good morning
Sut wyt ti?	Sit oi tee	How are you?
Diolch	Deolc	Thank you
Hwyl	Hooyel	Bye

The Welsh alphabet contains 28 letters including some which have two characters: ch, dd, ff, ll, ng, ph, rh & th. However, it does not contain the letters k, q, v, x and z.