Welsh alphabet and pronunciation guide

Consonants

There are 29 consonants in the Welsh language. 

They are:  a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, F, ff, g, ng, h, I, j, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y.

The letters b, d, j, l, m, n, p, s, t, and th are pronounced as In English. 

The letters which are pronounced differently from English are:

Letter c         Always a hard sound, pronounced as in the English word ‘car’

                    Example coleg (college)

Letter ch       As in the Scottish ‘loch’

                    Example chwech (six)

Letter dd       As in the English word ‘the’

                    Example ddoe (yesterday)

Letter f          As in the English word ‘violin’

                    Example fel (like)

Letter ff         As in the English word ‘off’

                    Example ffa (beans)

Letter g         As in the English word ‘grand’

                    Example gwaith (work)

Letter ng       As in the English word ‘gang’

                    Example rhwng (between)

Letter ll         Place tongue to say the l in the English word ‘land’ and then blow

                    Example llaeth (milk)

Letter ph       As in the English word ‘physical’

                    Example ei phen (her head)

Letter r          As in the English word ‘red’ but rolled more

                    Example roced (rocket)

Letter rh       Place tongue to say ‘r’ in the English word ‘red’ and then blow

                    Example rhif (number)

 Vowels

There are 7 vowels in Welsh – a, e, I, o, u, w, y.

You will note that w and y can be either a vowel or a consonant.

The vowels can be long or short.

Vowel a         Short as in the English word ‘cat’

                    Long as in the English word ‘car’

Vowel e         Short as in the English word ‘met’

                    Long as in the English word ‘pear’        

Vowel i         Short as in the English word ‘bit’

                    Long as in the English word ‘feel’

Vowel o         Short as in the English word ‘hot’

                    Long as in the English word ‘bore’

Vowel u        Short as in the English word ‘bin’

                    Long as in tee e in the English word ‘seen’

Vowel w        Usually pronounced as the English word ‘moon’

                    Following g it is usually pronounced as in the English word ‘went’

Vowel y        It has two sounds ‘ee’ or ‘I’ in the final syllable or in words of one syllable.

                    Example dyn (man) pronounced ‘deen’

                    or mynydd (mountain) pronounced muhnithe and

                    Dynion (men) pronounced duhneeon.

Practice with:

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