Fiendish phrase for Owlet

[muckefuck]

Just to be sure you don't lose your fabulous ability to pronounce the Welsh ll, you should say at least once a day:

Mae Llewellyn y llyfrgellydd o Llanelli wedi llyfu llawer o llyfaint.

(Be sure no one is standing in front of you when you do. Or, at least, make sure you have a towel to dry them off with afterwards.)

Edit: For those of you who would like to try this yourselves, here's a broad phonetic transcription into X-SAMPA (learn it, live it, love it):

['maeKE'weKIn@,Kiv@r'gEKIDoKa'neKi'wedi'KVv1'KawEro'KVvaint]

Notes: Word stress in Welsh is almost invariably on the penult. f is [v], dd is "soft th" (as in English bathe). u isn't quite [1], but that's as close as I can get. y can be [V], [@], [i], or [I] depending on various factors such as its position in word.

Comments

[bengt.livejournal.com]

It's not the ll that I have trouble with. It's all the other letters that I have trouble with

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

I reproduced that sound once and I've never been able to hit it again...

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Ow my tongue! What, exactly, am I saying (and probably with the stresses all wrong)?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"Llewellyn, the librarian of Llanelli, licked a lot of toads." Don't you love how it alliterates in English, too?

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Well, good heavens! That was very unwise of him.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Isn't that still safer than french kissing?

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

No way, man! Many toads are venomous! Country chil'ren out here in the west die each year from licking toads trying to get high.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Er, the chil'ren are trying to get high, not the toads.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Curse you!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better, I haven't been able to do it consistently yet either.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

I am crushed - my school's Medievalist, who teaches the Welsh and Irish reading classes, is leaving for Harvard. Fie on Cambridge, Fie!