All About Wales
Dafydd Morse kindly joined me on the show this week to introduce us to Wales – his home country on the west side of Britain. I feel like the Welsh culture (people, language, etc.) is often overlooked on a global scale, and perhaps some of you are hearing about it for the first time today! Whether that’s true, or you know a bit already, I’m sure you’ll enjoy what Dafydd has to say in this episode.
Things Mentioned
Timestamps
- 0:00 – Intro
- 3:23 – About Dafydd
- 4:57 – Why is Wales less popular than Scotland?
- 6:42 – The Fluent Show
- 9:11 – Is Wales a Country?
- 14:05 – British? Welsh? English??
- 18:45 – The Welsh Language
- 22:20 – Welsh Phrases
- 26:22 – How many people speak Welsh?
- 27:46 – Is Welsh growing or shrinking?
- 32:15 – Wales Travel Tips
- 36:43 – Does Wales look different to England?
- 42:43 – Should you greet people in Welsh?
- 46:16 – Where to find Dafydd
Where to Find Dafydd
Vocabulary & Expressions
- To butcher (03:38) – To mispronounce something really badly
- To shed light on something (04:39) – To bring more attention to something
- Entity (10:06) – Something with independent existence
- Sovereign (10:12) – A nation acting independently (without anyone else giving them rules)
- Devolved (11:04) – Power transferred to a lower level from a central government (ie. Westminster to Wales)
- Contrary (12:22) – Opposite to
- Evident (13:40) – Obvious, clear
- Through and through (14:26) – in every aspect; thoroughly or completely
- To opt for (16:11) – To choose one thing over another thing (one option)
- To delve (deep) (17:36) – To explore a topic in detail
- To strike oneself as… (18:05) – To cause someone to think about something in a particular way
- Sheer (18:10) – A large number (used for emphasis)
- Incomprehensible (22:11) – Unable to be understood
- What have you (26:51) – Things like that (at the end of a sentence)
- Census (27:38) –an official count or survey, especially of a population
- Dwindling (28:37) –gradually diminishing in size, amount, or strength
- Bursting at the seams (28:40) –(of a place) full to overflowing.
- To gear up (31:39) – To prepare
- Barren (37:13) – Empty with no life
- To make a living (37:30) – To make money to survive
- I can’t put my finger on it (38:42) – I can’t say exactly why because I’m not sure why
- Rugged (39:31) – having a broken, rocky, and uneven surface
- Animosity (41:32) – strong hostility
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Interesting episode! I’m feeling that Welsh people tend to have a slighter accent than Scottish people when speaking English. Am I right about it? I’m just curious haha
Thanks for listening, Robin! I’m not exactly sure what you mean by ‘slighter’, but from my point of view it’s definitely easier to understand than most Scottish accents. It might be harder for someone to recognise the Welsh accent I suppose. But I think it’s all relative to what you’re used to
I see.
I guess it’s the influence of my mother tongue. In Chinese we use words like “slight” and “heavy” to describe a person’s accent 😂
Hello to your fine and slow and clear voice , I like your podcast , I have a suggestion to your future topics , there is a lot of episode talking about learning English , it is little boring , so I hope from you to make less of recording about that , there is topics about life and personality and so on , and again I thank you a lot for your great work .
Hi Yazeed, thanks for your feedback. I think that’s what I’m already doing, right? It depends on what episodes you’ve listened to.
For the first 100 episodes, many of the episodes were about the topic of language learning. But since #100, many of the topics have been general ones. More recently, they’ve been pretty much 100% general topics (Minimalism, mysteries, ageing, driving, making friends, etc). I’ll still do English topics from time to time when a listener requests one though.
Is this what you mean?