Welsh Tourist Board song on TV | If SSIW is helping you, why not help us? Get DAILY lessons: Become an SSIW Member!

[jampy]

The Welsh Tourist Board is currently running an advertisement to encourage viewers to make holiday bookings for Welsh holidays. A delightful female voice is either singing an already existing short song or something put specially together for this promotion. The trouble for me is that she seems to be using constructions with which I believe I am unfamiliar.

Can anyone enlighten me on the Welsh words of her song? Better still if that would come with English translation.

[essenbee]

From the BBC site:

Singer Cerys Matthews provided the music to accompany the TV advert, which is a modern interpretation of the traditional Welsh song 'Mil Harddach Wyt Na'r Rhosyn Gwyn'.

Mil Harddach wyt na’r rhosyn gwyn,
Na’r rhosyn coch ar ael y bryn
Na’r alarch balch yn nofio’r llyn,
Fy maban bach.

You are a thousand times more beautiful than the white rose,
Or the red rose on the brow of the hill,
Or the proud swan swimming the lake,
My little baby.


Hwyl,

Stu

[faithless78]

Last year they used a song called 'Red Handkerchiefs' by a band called Trwbador, who had only just been signed around the time the advert was released with their debut album being released only a couple of months later.

It's great that they're using a song with Welsh lyrics performed by a well-known Welsh artist this time around.

[jampy]

Thank you so much Stu for your very helpful reply. The use of Na threw me, having only yesterday met it for the first time in Lesson 7, Course 2, where it stands for "no" or "not". I will be singing along with Cerys and will even know what the song means.

A few more examples like this would also be great learning and speaking (singing) aids.

[essenbee]

Croeso Alun!

The na here is "than", as in comparative statements like: Ti'n dalach na fi - You're taller than me.

Hwyl,

Stu

[Dee]

A few more examples like this would also be great learning and speaking (singing) aids.

There is a channel on YouTube by DistantDreamer93 who generally loads Welsh songs with the lyrics in Welsh and English e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDRZDHLCSec

so there are lots for you to follow along

[jampy]

Thank you Dee. That's a goldmine! I haven't considered the possibility of finding such a link, or even wanting to while struggling to get on top of gaining familiarity with the language. The time is now right and I will get stuck into it straight away.