The Welsh and English alphabets are very similar and most letters are pronounced the same.

Welsh is quite easy to read as you generally just say what you see.

The Welsh alphabet contains ‘double’ letters that count as one letter. These are ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th. So the place name Llanelli only has 6 letters as ll counts as a single letter.

Welsh has some sounds that are not found in English:

ch as in Scottish loch / Johann Sebastian Bach / Loughor / ych a fi

ll as in Llangrannog and many other Welsh place names

rh as in Rhys / Rhodri / Rhyl

In the Welsh Alphabet some sounds are written differently:

f in Welsh is a v sound as in Volvo

ff in Welsh is an f sound as in farmer

dd is the sound th as in although

th is the sound th as in theatre

si is the sound sh as in the girl’s name Siân

u is pronounced ee as in fee

c is always pronounced as in cat and never as in centre, and g is always pronounced as in garden and never as in age

w and y are vowels in Welsh, so there are 7 vowels altogether: a e i o u w y

y is possibly the most difficult letter as it can be pronounced in different ways: an uh sound as in Cymru, an ee sound as in Llanboidy, an ih sound as in Glynneath