A Welsh girl has put her American friend’s intuition to the test by challenging him to translate words from Welsh to English. Mari, 18, from Gwynedd, videoed herself and 19-year-old Tyler from New York translating the words back to each other.
The light-hearted video starts with Mari asking Tyler what ‘gwin’ meant. While Welsh speakers will know that translates to 'wine' Tyler however thought this meant a ‘tall person’.
Next she hit Tyler with ‘ceffyl’ which Tyler he might be coffee, but of course, the coffee translation is much simpler and this actually means horse. Later on, when challenged by ‘cath’, Tyler once again guessed a toss-up of car or coffee.
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Tyler thought he caught out his friend when she asked him to translate ‘eira’. He said “That one is an idiot, I think. I’m not going to call myself it because of the last time. I think it’s an idiot.” Sadly Tyler wasn’t quite right and as eira in fact means 'snow'.
Another good guess came from ‘traeth’, which anyone who has seen a sign along the coast, whether they are a Welsh speaker or not, knows is 'beach'. Tyler, again going with the phonetic similarities, thought this could be “your pearly whites, teeth” before producing a large grin. His worst guess came in the form of ‘cacan’ however, which is, of course, cake. Tyler however sadly thought this meant 'yucky'.
Mari’s video proved popular among Welsh viewers on TikTok who wanted to see what else Tyler would make of Welsh words. When posed with perhaps the most important of all, ‘Cymru’, Tyler decided to have some fun. “I’m going to have to say cucumber,” he responded, before adding: “You live in a cucumber.”
Since then Tyler has even considered the existence of witchcraft in Wales after Mari asked him to translate ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’, simply responding: “Did you just cast a spell on me?”. Tyler’s closest guess has come from ‘sgio’, which he guessed ‘skis’, which Mari happily told him was almost correct. We hope he takes this newfound language knowledge back to his friends on the other side of the Atlantic.
