All you beginners out there will be thinking ... " What could possibly go wrong?"
Ha! You poor deluded numpties are in for a shock...... the Welsh language is especially designed to make it almost impenetrable to all outsiders, and trying to look words up in what they laughingly refer to as a dictionary can be, to say the least, trying.
For your delectation, I am going to try to recreate that terrific article, but with the added experience I have gained since .... negotiating that eponymous Rocky Road to Welsh! Here we go ....
Here's the scenario ..... you've got a Welsh word and you want to find out what it means.
The clever-arses always advise you to try to work out what it means from the context. Yeah, right! And I'm a spurgulent rimpletinker. So .....
You turn to your trusted dictionary ,and the bloody thing isn't in it. Here's a simple guide to what might have gone wrong......
[a] Maybe it's an obscure word .....try a succession of larger and larger dictionaries.
[b] If it starts with ch- you might be looking for it under c- which would be the wrong place.
[c] This also applies to rh- , ll- , ff- .
[d] Don't forget that a word with -ng- in it could have you looking in the wrong place.
[e] The word might have to have any possible mutation undone first.
[f] This is doubly tricky for some words beginning with f- which might begin with m- or b-
[g] This is easy to miss also when an invisible g- has to be restored to its rightful place.
[h] An "h" at the start might have been put there for a laugh ... especially after a vowel.
[h2] Sometimes adding -ach and -a in comparatives can change the spelling of the word.
[i] Maybe it's a bit of obscure Wenglish.
[j] Sometimes they like to miss the ys- off a word to keep you thinking.
[k] Maybe you're looking at some wild and wonderful part of a verb.
[l] Or perhaps you've forgotten that verbs-with-endings will tend to SM.
[m] It could be you are looking at one of those peculiar plurals they are so fond of. [n] In colloquial Welsh in books, deliberate mis- spelling is another source of amusement.
[o] Could be you have a conjugated preposition .... lovely!
[p] One of the best tricks in the "frontal apostrophe." [ or 'tal 'phe ]
[q] Of course, it might be a rude word, or too slangy. Yes, there are rude words in Welsh.
[r] You can pull some words apart and find out what the bits mean..... oh yes!
[s] If it has a prefix, you can remove it and try to find what's left ( remove SM first)
[t] Could it be a proper name or a place-name?
[u] If it's a group of words you don't get, maybe it's a an idiomatic usage.
[t] Some words have different male and female versions ....
[u] Sometimes a tricky word might combine several of these difficulties.
[v] There can be unfamiliar literary Welsh endings.
[w] Sometimes you think a word is obviously Wenglish but it isn't !
[x ] You can always try ...
[a] Putting it into Google Translate
[b] Having a guess and looking it up in the English to Welsh section. ... it can work.
[c] Asking an actual Welsh speaker !
[d] Taking up a nice logical language like Spanish.
There's more to add to this ..... lots of tricky words for you to look up .... but that will come in part 2 .... and after that harrowing list of possible heffalump traps we will have some music to calm you down .... here's Dafydd Iwan yn y Glaw ( Datblygu) featuring a remarkably apposite video ...