13 Comments
1409
The TTS sounds odd to me for this particular word. Anyone else think so? It seems to almost halt in the middle.
Update: it seems OK now, here (above) at least. I have no idea as to its accuracy though.
This word is, to my eyes, odd, so I went on to have a look at pronunciation of this and came across this thread: http://www.forumwales.com/fwforum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=8268
People there suggested "pet-REE-al", which makes sense when it seems that at various points in history it has also been written as 'pedrual' or 'petrual', among other things.
Caution - geeky rambling to follow: However, there actually seem to be many other ways of translating 'rectangle'. At least three dictionaries from between 1770-1860 seem to go with 'union-ongl', but this seems to apply to a possible old meaning of rectangle as 'right angle' (I'm thinking of the German 'recht'). I've also come across the rather more recent 'hirsgwâr' (long square - very apt!) on Y Geiriadur Bangor. It seems that the origin of the decidedly weird 'petryal' is a corruption of the Middle Welsh and Early Modern Welsh 'pedryfal' (which has various uses between the 13th century right up to the start of the 19th - see Y Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru - including the Red Book of Hergest and the Black Book of Carmarthen).
Lots of words sound odd in Duolingo Welsh. I wonder if it is a good thing to use an artificial voice. Why not have an authentic native speaker? Or better still at least two native speakers from different regions?
I find the Welsh robot quite good, and it almost sounds like a real person. It's far better than DL Russian. Perhaps it's actually a dragon?
- 1409
I agree; normally it seems very good. It was just odd with this specific word. I now realise I didn't make that clear with my initial remark. I'll edit it.
Actually, my GF is a Russian native speaker and she says that the Russian course, which I'm doing, provides with quite a good reflection of what the Russian pronunciation and accents are all about. :P
On the other hand, she said that Ukrainian is quite bad here.
Sort of weird to be taught geometrical shapes that early in the course, before e.g. possession, which is the next skill. I don't even know in how many languages I know the word "rectangle", but it's not in many for sure ^_^
There seems to be some uncertainty about the meaning of the word "petryal." Y Geiriadur Bach translates it as "square". So does the Modern Welsh Dictionary/Geiriadur Cymraeg Cyfoes (Oxfrd University Press), which is generally considered to be a very good dictionary. Both these dictionaries gives it as a masculine noun and as an adjective. "Rectangle" is translated by "pedrongl", plural "pedronglau", feminine. Neither of these dictionaries includes "pedrongl" in the Welsh-to-English section. This would seem to indicate that this is a word which is uncommon in day-to-day speech and is mainly restricted to the language of geometry. Is Duolingo's translation of "petryal" as "rectangle" a mistake? Or is this word commonly used to mean "rectangle"?
The authors of Y Termiadur Addysg, an authoritative set of Welsh-language terms for use in Welsh educational establishments, plumped for petryal for oblong/rectangle (and for oblong/rectangular). (http://www.termiaduraddysg.org)
Yes, unfortunately this is one of the TTS with partly wrong pronunciation.
It should be PET-REE-AL
