Swansea-born Heini Gruffudd has spent his life teaching Welsh to children and adults, has for many years been at the forefront of the campaign for Welsh-language education, and is a prolific author of successful and popular materials for Welsh learners. The original version of 'Welcome to Welsh' has sold 70,000 copies since it was first published in 1984 and his 'Welsh is Fun' has sold over 200,000 copies. His other Welsh-learners' titles include 'The Welsh Learner's Dictionary', 'Welsh Rules' and 'Talk Welsh'. His account of his Jewish mother fleeing to Britain to escape the Nazis, 'Yr Erlid', won the Wales Book of the Year Creative Non-Fiction award in 2013 and has been translated into English as 'A Haven from Hitler'.
The Welsh Learners Dictionary is a very welcome arrival. With its
advent, learners should be spared the confusion and frustration I
experienced when first using a Welsh dictionary. It is helpful to
remind the learner that the Welsh and English alphabets are
different, because learners tend to forget this fundamental fact in
the excitement of reading Welsh for the first time. Similarly, it
is helpful to provide warnings about the potential for spelling
change when words are subject to mutation. The Welsh Learners
Dictionary does so by providing information at the start of each
letter section in the Welsh to English dictionary. The usefulness
of this convention will depend on the individual learners
willingness to return to the head of the relevant letter section
for information. Users need to become perusers if they are to get
maximum benefit. This is true, of course, of any dictionary and any
dictionary user. The contextualised explanations and generous
examples are helpful; grammatical examples accompany
straightforward lexical information. An additional bonus for the
learner is the inclusion of common phrases alongside word
definitions, rather than in an indigestible lump somewhere at the
end of the dictionary. The grammar summary at the beginning of the
dictionary is helpful, although I feel that the literary Welsh
forms are out of place here. Given the limitations that govern a
dictionary of this size, it seems to me that this is information
unlikely to be of immediate use to the novice, and that the space
could have been used more profitably. It might have been more of a
comfort to learners to find the more colloquial contractions, e.g.
ron i, alongside the fuller form roeddwn i. By the time they are
ready to tackle the find of text, which uses literary Welsh,
learners, surely, will have outgrown a dictionary of this scope. I
am also undecided about the ubiquitous use of m and f in both Welsh
and English sections. I can see the logic of alerting the learner
quickly and straightforwardly to gender, but wonder whether it
might have been possible to include the Welsh forms, g and b, at
least in the Welsh to English dictionary, alongside their English
equivalents. It could be argued that it is part of the job of a
learners dictionary to teach lexicographical terminology. I dont
want to appear churlish by criticising omissions of vocabulary.
What to include and what to leave out must be relatively arbitrary
decisions. If learners find omissions, then this is the price they
pay for mercifully clear type, reasonable spacing and satisfying
paper thickness. (These things matter!) I am happy to recommend The
Welsh Learners Dictionary. I wish it had been available when I
needed it most.
*Vivienne Sayer @ www.gwales.com*
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