Google Translate has already accelerated my Welsh learning. It helps to decipher a daunting piece of text. Now Google Translate is instant. They changed the interface slightly and it flashes up the equivalent translation as you type. Boy. In other words you get the same flawed “translations”, now even faster! Try it for Welsh to [...]
So when I was learning to write English, back in the eighties, I used to mix up the symbols b and d. It’s an easy mistake to make – they’re mirror images and I had 24 other squiggles to learn. Somebody (pretty sure it was my sister or possibly a teacher) helpfully pointed out that [...]
Language is important. Recently I found George Orwell’s seminal essay Politics and the English Language online, originally written in 1946. I’d heard of it before but never thought to track it down. Here’s some of the intro: Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it [...]
You should have seen the Scrabble board tonight. It was violence, pure violence. Sheer lexical brutality. Above this paragraph could be a photo to illustrate my glorious victory – either a snapshot of tonight’s board or something from Flickr maybe, with a classic edition of the board in all its distinctive colours. But I refuse [...]
There’s a scene in Alan Bennett‘s semi-autobiographical play The History Boys where two teachers are discussing the English language. Hector, played by Richard Griffiths, remarks to his colleague that he loves language. Not merely “words”, he says. “That would be so… Welsh!”. They both chuckle. I wasn’t able to quote that one exactly as I [...]
I was reading about the history of these islands last week. It set off a whole chain of thoughts, memories and some unexpected laughs. I’m particularly enjoying this page. http://cym.englishriviera.co.uk Open the link “Listen using ReadSpeaker” in a new window and marvel at the cut glass computer voice making a total hash of the Welsh. [...]
My name's Carl Morris and this is my blog. It's about language, music, art, business and other stuff I care about.
Hacio’r Iaith, papur rhithfro
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