Colloquial Welsh (Colloquial Series) [Audio Cassette]

Gary King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 10, 1995 | Series: Colloquial Series

Colloquial Welsh is easy to use and no prior knowledge of the language is required. These CDs are recorded by native Welsh speakers and will play on any audio system. The material can be used on its own or to accompany the book, helping you with pronunciation and listening skills.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Gareth King, an experienced teacher of Welsh to adults, has in the short space of three years published a comprehensive reference grammar of spoken Welsh; a lively, up-to-date introductory language course; and now two further 'grammar-workbooks'. This impressive opus constitutes a solid, much-needed and most welcome contribution to the descriptive grammar literature on modern colloquial Welsh and a considerable achievement....For more than one reason, both the beginner and the professional linguist alike who approaches spoken Welsh with books such as these to hand is a far luckier student than were those of my own generation, and Gareth King is to be thanked....I am sure that for many people these books will have had the effect of putting modern spoken Welsh firmly on the map; let no one underestimate the importance of that.
–Alan R. King, LINGUIST

For self-study in particular, [Colloquial Welsh] is as good an introduction as can be found to the spoken language following modern teaching principles.... it presents an authentic picture of colloquial usage. Serious students will also benefit from the accompanying cassettes which provide a full three hours of listening and practice material. The units of Colloquial Welsh contain useful comments on salient aspects of Welsh culture, and the dialogues incorporate some typically Welsh humour too.
–Alan R. King, LINGUIST --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Routledge; Pap/Com/Ca edition (March 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415107857
• ISBN-13: 978-0415107853
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,561,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gareth King is the author of numerous books on language, including a range of well-known and popular titles written for learners of Welsh, language of the future. His latest book, published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis in December 2010, is an extensive revision and expansion of George Campbell's well-known Concise Compendium of the World's Languages, and he is now working on a similar updating of the original 2-volume edition. In addition, after a pause of some years, he has finally bowed to public clamour and has embarked on the writing of a new book on Welsh, scheduled for publication in 2013.
Away from the writing shed, he acts as Series Advisor and linguistic consultant for Routledge's Colloquial... range of language learning titles (now extending to over sixty languages of the world), all of which are easy to find and purchase on Amazon. Two of them were actually written by him, and are consequently especially sought after by connoisseurs, with first editions commanding frankly absurd prices on "e-Bay" and across the modern marvel that is the electrical interweb.
He did his first degree during the Cold War, emerging from Cambridge University with a useful degree in Slavonic (involving some of the most dangerous languages known to modern science), and sensibly went on some years later to do an MA in Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic at Aberystwyth, learning Welsh in the process by the simple but effective expedient of sharing a flat with a bunch of girls from North Wales - this, perhaps, was the fateful turn in his life that was to bring about the publishing sensation that his books on Welsh were to become in Wales, and which propelled him inexorably on the road to legendary status in that small but perfectly-formed land. He is markedly less well-known in Scandinavia and the Caribbean, and maintains residences there for this very reason.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for learning spoken Welsh!, January 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Colloquial Welsh (Colloquial Series) (Audio Cassette)

This is THE outstanding book for anyone who whants to learn Welsh. It consists of 16 chapters, each one of them containing dialouges, readings, grammar, excersices, vocabularies and descriptions of Wales and of Welsh culture. It is easy to follow, and by the end of it you will be able to converse for hours with Welsh-speakers. (I dear to say this since I myself went to Wales after completing this course and spoke no English for three weeks...) The emphasis is, of course, on the spoken language, and within this area it is beyond doubt the best Welsh course available. I highly recommend it.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much better than "Teach Yourself Welsh", and here's why:, February 6, 2007

By 

Erica (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Welsh (Colloquial Series) (Audio Cassette)

I would say that this is the best package on the market, but I have only tried this one and Teach Yourself; I found this one to be far superior. I first started learning Welsh with the Teach Yourself progam, and I was very happy with it, bu then I reached a point in my learning where I needed to have a larger amount of (more advanced) resources at my disposal. I had heard many good things about this program, so I decided to buy it. It has proved to be an invaluable resource to me.

This program goes far more in depth that Teach Yourself did. It gives you a much greater vocabulary, more phrases and idiomatic expressions (I learned how to say "Shut up" in Welsh today), and explains many more grammar points (I'd say twice as many) as T.Y. did. The dialogues are also far more entertaining (Gareth King has a very good sense of humor) and the speaker's voices are far more engaging (dare I say the male voices are pretty sexy). The speakers in Colloquial Welsh have a variety of accents from all over Wales, where those in T.Y.W. have the same accent. Also, the Northern and Southern ways of speaking are introduced and practiced simultaneously in Colloquial Welsh, giving you greater versatility in the language. T.Y.W. uses (pretty much wholly) the Southern way of speaking; I remember it glossing over the Northern way of forming the posessive (gen i, gynnoch chi, etc.) in the beginning of the book but preceding to use the Southern construction (gyda fi/ 'da fi, etc.) in all of the dialouges. I got accustomed to this so I'm kind of uncomfortable with the N. way. [but then again I haven't really bothered to learn it because that would confuse me right now]) Also, this program offers interactive audio excercises, something that I have found very useful.

One major difference between C.W. and T.Y.W. is that the former introduces both colloquial and literary forms of speaking, where the latter gives you only the literary forms. Among other things, I would have never known that "roeddwn" and "roedden" are abbreviated to "o'n" is speech (well, I've never been to Wales so I'll have to take their word for it).

I came back to my T.Y.W. tapes tonight after about a month or two, and I didn't realise it until after I used the Colloquial program - the speakers in T.Y.W. slow down their speech for ease of comprehension, which doesn't help in the long run if you want to be able to speak and comprehend at a level of complete fluency (which I'd like to get as close to as possible). After listeneing to the normal cadence and speed of spoken Welsh with the Colloquial program, I realised that, if I were to get into a conversation with a Welshman/Welshwoman and the Teach Yourself CDs were the only Welsh audio I had ever heard, I would be very ill-prepared for conversation for several reasons - those being speed and the variations in accent, grammar, and vocabulary. The book is a little better-constructed too; my Teach Yourself book started falling apart after three weeks of (albeit pretty heavy) use. I'm pretty sure Colloquial Welsh is printed on acid-free paper, and it's a bound a bit better.

I'm not knocking T.Y.W. at all; it's a good program and I did learn a great deal from it - I'm just heavily praising this one. If you're looking to spend money on only one teach-yourself Welsh audio program, let this be it. If you're going to buy both anyway, I would get T.Y.W. first, and then get this one later on, as T.Y.W. does a bit of a better job introsucing and easing you into the language. I can see how one might get a bit confused with the way Gareth King introduces you to Welsh. I'm currently also studying from the grammar workbooks "Basic Welsh" and "Intermediate Welsh" by Gareth King - these have helped me out immensly and I do highly reccommend them to anyone who wants to build a solid foundation in Welsh. The only thing I lack is firsthand practice of the language (I live in the U.S.), but I'm planning on going to Wales in the next few years to see the country and practice Welsh, and I'd like to get as fluent as I can before I go. Even if I don't go, I'm still having fun learning all the same.

One more thing: Welsh is a confusing language, at first. You're going to start off (with both of the aforementioned programs) learning some canned phrases, and you're just going to have to trust them because, as a complete beginner, it would launch you into overload if they threw all the literal interpretations and grammatical reasoning at you in the beginning. If Gareth King tells you that "Mae'n dda gen i gwrdd a chi" means "Nice to meet you" in the first chapter then just roll with it because it'll all make sense to you soon enough. Persistence is key.

Pob hwyl!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best foundation for learning Welsh, May 13, 2001

By 

Verena Blackburn (Kennewick, Washington United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Welsh (Colloquial Series) (Audio Cassette)

So, where do you start to learn an ancient language? We acquired our own language by listening, and we began a second language in school by study of the written word. The second language never takes full seed until we have the opportunity to hear it and use it. This book and cassette combination is an ideal way begin learning a second language to the same degree that we each speak our native tongue. Gareth King has nailed the foundation beautifully. Admittedly, he makes few allowances for the slow, but in fact he plunges the student into a listening situation, through the cassettes, that would be similar to immersion in Wales itself. When backed up by the analytical approach in the book, this is a sure-fire course for the serious student.