Recently I started learning welsh by myself (Brazilian here, not many options for that, you know?), one thing that is getting me is the grammatical gender of Welsh. So I wanted tips, how to memorize better the genders and how did you who learn do to memorize it?
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Something I've noticed first-language Welsh speakers do a lot if asked what gender a word is is to say the word out loud in a short sentence including the definite article and an adjective, and then say it again with the gender switched. So, something like:
"Y gath wen"
"Y cath gwyn"
You can use the same approach as a way to help memorise the gender when learning new words. Just say it the correct way out loud a few times, it should help you recall it.
Nouns ending in:
-ach
-aeth
-as
-eb
-eg
-ell
-en
-es
-fa
are feminine.
So, for example, cerddoriaeth, llyfrgell and meddygfa are feminine.
Honestly, due to Welsh and Portuguese being related western Indo-European languages, you won't actually go badly wrong if you assume that if a word is feminine in Portuguese, it will also be feminine in Welsh. Seriously, it'll get you about 90% of the way there - I did it the other way round with French. The only things to remember are stuff like if it ends in -ão in Portuguese, but -ad in Welsh, it's masculine rather than feminine.
That might work with Welsh nouns borrowed from Latin or even with direct cognates - but even then, Cath (Vulgar Latin Cattus) is feminine.
Welsh can be unstable wrt gender - Tafarn < Tabernus is masc in some regions and fem in others.
Essentially, every time you learn a noun you have to learn the gender and plural with it. The Dysgu Cymraeg course material has them printed on blue and pink backgrounds to help with the gender.
There are some useful shortcuts. All languages are feminine, and all body parts are masculine if you have one of them (nose, mouth, heart) and feminine if you have two of them (lungs, hands, feet). There are two exceptions to this - ceiliau (testicles) are masculine, even though there are two, and chroth (womb) is feminine.
The tip that someone else has given is to learn them with an adjective that mutates.
And finally, there are some words which are considered masculine in some parts of Wales and feminine in others. Tafarn is one example - I learned it was a feminine word, but have subsequently seen ‘real life’ Welsh where it’s ’tafarn mawr’ for a large pub - no mutation.
There are also patterns to some plural. -od for many animals (cathod, siarcod) -oedd for geographical features (ynysoedd, mynyddoedd). Words with dy as a suffix (mutated from tŷ) will always change to dai (e.g, workshops - gwaithdai). And similarly words that are formed taking ‘fa as a suffix (e.g., derbynfa for a reception or literally a receiving place) will use -feydd as the plural suffix. Equally there’s hundreds of irregular versions - cwn is the plural of ci, and dwylo is the plural of llaw. The last one kind of makes sense - two hands is dwy law in Welsh, so it’s not that much of a stretch.
Maybe this is helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnwelsh/s/sdLi4BL8X3
The worst advice is that there is no way of knowing and you 'just have to learn the gender of each word you learn'. It's both wrong and demoralising for learners.
Gweiadur has them colour-coded. There are some endings that are always one or the other, but most nouns are masculine so it's a question of learning whichones are femine.
You just have to learn the gender at the same time as you learn the noun, I'm afraid.
Memorize the singular form with an adjective that can mutate (like "mawr"). Feminine nouns cause a soft mutation in adjectives, masculine nouns do not.
ci - a dog -> ci mawr - a big dog (no soft mutation, so masculine)
cath - a cat -> cath fawr - a big cat (soft mutation, so feminine)
Plural forms don't mutate, so just memorize those (and plurals are a bit random in Welsh, too)
ci -> cŵn - dogs -> cŵn mawr - big dogs
cath -> cathod - cats -> cathod mawr - big cats
I'm going to add that the wiki for this subreddit lists a lot of resources for learning Welsh, and many of them work for folks overseas (I'm in the US). I will put in a special recommendation for the online classes from Dysgu Cymraeg, if/when you are interested in actual classes. But their textbooks are also free to download, even if you aren't taking a course, and they go over a lot of the grammar that apps and videos and such don't cover.
Unusual-Biscotti687 6 points · 11d ago
/tangent Ci and Cath are fascinating words in this regard. The soft mutation of adjectives following feminine nouns arose in late Brittonic because most feminine nouns ended in a vowel -a and most masculine nouns in a consonant, -s.
*Ki probably did cause a soft mutation because it ends in a vowel, but when final syllables were lost (c. 6th C) and the mutation was reanalysed to be a marker of gender, then by analogy Ci was not followed by SM as it was masculine.
Cath on the other hand comes from *Kattos which was masculine and had no following mutation. When final syllables were lost, *Katt > Cath happened to be subject to gender change and so acquired a following soft mutation. /tangent
SnarkyBeanBroth 2 points · 11d ago · Canolradd - Intermediate
Thank you for adding interesting extra info!
I love learning the etymology of words.