Language/Welsh/Grammar/The-article

The Article in Welsh

There is no indefinite article (a / an) in Welsh.

e.g.

cath	a cat
afal	an apple
merch	a girl
ysgol	school

There are three forms of the definite article (the) in Welsh

i

‘y’ is used in front of a consonant. Singular, feminine nouns will undergo a Soft Mutation after ‘y’ (except those beginning with ‘ll’ and ‘rh’). See S.M. rule 1.

e.g.

ci	y ci	the dog
cath	y gath	the cat
bachgen	y bachgen	the boy
merch	y ferch	the girl

ii

‘yr’ is used in front of a vowel and in front of h. Remember that ‘w’ and ‘y’ are vowels in Welsh.

e.g.

ysgol	yr ysgol	the school
enw	yr enw	the name
afal	yr afal	the apple
het	yr het	the hat

iii

‘r’ is used after a word ending in a vowel, no matter whether the word which follows begins with a vowel or with a consonant.

e.g.

Mae’r plant	The children are
Mae’r ysgol	The school is
Dyma‘r llyfr	Here’s the book
Dacw‘r afon	There’s the river

Sources

https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh/pdf/welshgrammar_allrules.pdf

Related Lessons

• Questions
• Future Tense
• Adjectives
• Conditional Mood
• Negation
• Pronouns
• Plurals