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The usual pattern in Welsh is for the adjective(s) to follow the noun. There are a small number of exceptions to this rule which will be dealt with later. Adjectives that follow a singular feminine noun will lenite.
| y gwr mawr | the big man |
| y wreig vawr | the big woman |
This can be a useful tool in learning noun gender. When you learn a new feminine noun, try to think of it in a phrase with an adjective that shows lenition (such as "mawr"). If you fix the phrase in your memory, you will always remember the gender.
There are a number of adjectives that have different masculine and feminine forms. These are mostly one-syllable words (or compounds where the adjectival root has one syllable) and the difference is indicated by a change in the vowel. In one group, masculine adjectives have "y" while feminine ones have "e", e.g. "gwynn" (m. white) and "gwenn" (f. white). In the other major group, masculine forms have "w" while feminine ones have "o", e.g. "crwnn" (m. round) and "cronn" (f. round). Rarely, the correspondence is obscured by a diphthong, e.g. "brith" (m. speckled) and "breith" (f. speckled).
| masculine | feminine |
| y | e |
| gwynn | gwenn |
| w | o |
| crwnn | cronn |
| other | |
| brith | breith |
Given the following adjectives, if you were told that this word had gender specific forms, which gender would the given form be, and what would the other form be?
| bront | dirty |
| bwlch | gapped, cut |
| byrr | short |
| cotta | short |
| crech | curly |
| creg | hoarse |
| crwm | bent |
| cryv | strong |
| trom | heavy |
Make phrases of the form "the <adjective> <noun>" using all possible combinations of the following words (if you have not had them previously, the Welsh word is supplied):
nouns:
adjectives: