Describing People and Appearance in Welsh

In Brief

Use Mae + person + yn + adjective for general qualities: Mae e'n dal means “He is tall.” For features such as hair and eyes, use Mae + feature + ganddo/ganddi or gyda fe/hi: Mae gwallt golau ganddi means “She has fair hair.” In a noun phrase, the adjective normally follows the noun: llygaid glas (“blue eyes”).

Overview

Describing a person at A2 brings together vocabulary and several patterns you may already know: the present tense of bod (“to be”), possession, adjective order, and soft mutation. With these tools, you can talk about height, build, hair, eyes, facial features, and visible items such as glasses.

Welsh does not map word for word onto English. English uses “be” for He is tall and “have” for She has blue eyes. Welsh likewise uses two broad patterns, but possession is commonly expressed as a feature being “with” someone: Mae llygaid glas ganddi—literally, “Blue eyes are with her.” Learning that whole frame is more useful than trying to find a single Welsh verb equivalent to English “have.”

Two kinds of mutation appear often in descriptions. A mutation is a change to the first consonant of a word caused by the grammar around it. The linking word yn causes soft mutation in an adjective, while a feminine singular noun can also soften an adjective that directly follows it. These changes are regular parts of Welsh, not optional pronunciation effects.

How It Works

1. Describing what someone is like

For height, build, and other general qualities, use the present tense of bod followed by yn and an adjective:

Mae + person + yn + adjective

With a pronoun, yn contracts after a vowel in writing:

• Mae e'n dal. — He is tall.
• Mae hi'n fyr. — She is short.
• Maen nhw'n denau. — They are thin.

An adjective is a describing word such as “tall,” “short,” or “thin.” After this linking yn, an adjective undergoes soft mutation when its first letter can change. The dictionary form is therefore not always the form you see in a sentence.

Dictionary form	Meaning	After yn	Example
tal	tall	dal	Mae hi'n dal.
byr	short	fyr	Mae e'n fyr.
tenau	thin	denau	Mae e'n denau.
crwn	round	grwn	Mae ei wyneb e'n grwn.
moel	bald	foel	Mae e'n foel.
golygus	good-looking	olygus	Mae e'n olygus.
hardd	beautiful; attractive	hardd	Mae hi'n hardd.

Some initial letters, including the h in hardd, do not change under soft mutation. Do not add a change where Welsh has none.

To join two qualities, use a (“and”). Before a vowel, use ac. If the second adjective has its own yn, that yn mutates it too:

• Mae e'n dal ac yn denau. — He is tall and thin.
• Mae hi'n fyr ac yn gryf. — She is short and strong.

Repeating yn is a clear and reliable beginner pattern. In natural coordination, Welsh can sometimes leave it understood, but keeping it before each adjective helps you produce the expected mutation.

2. Saying what features someone has

For hair, eyes, a beard, or similar features, a very useful pattern places the feature first:

Mae + feature + adjective + ganddo/ganddi

• Mae gwallt du ganddo. — He has black hair.
• Mae gwallt golau ganddi. — She has fair hair.
• Mae llygaid gwyrdd ganddo. — He has green eyes.

Here ganddo means “with him” and ganddi means “with her.” They are inflected forms of a preposition—a preposition whose form changes according to the person it refers to. You may also hear an echoing pronoun: ganddo fe or ganddi hi. The shorter forms are already complete, so the extra pronoun is not needed to identify the person.

Welsh also has a common gyda pattern, especially associated with southern speech:

• Mae llygaid glas gyda hi. — She has blue eyes.
• Mae mwstas gyda fe. — He has a moustache.

There is considerable regional variation in Welsh possession. For this topic, learn ganddo/ganddi and gyda fe/hi as usable sets rather than combining half of one pattern with half of the other. Neither construction changes according to the English gender of the feature: the ending refers to the person who has it.

A second possible word order brings the possessor phrase forward:

• Mae ganddi wallt golau. — She has fair hair.
• Mae ganddo farf. — He has a beard.

This is grammatical and common. Notice that the following noun may be soft-mutated: gwallt becomes wallt and barf becomes farf. The feature-first pattern—Mae gwallt golau ganddi—is easier for a beginner because the vocabulary remains more visible.

3. Putting adjectives after nouns

When an adjective belongs directly to a noun, it normally comes after that noun:

Welsh noun phrase	English
gwallt hir	long hair
gwallt byr	short hair
gwallt tywyll	dark hair
gwallt golau	fair/light hair
gwallt cyrliog	curly hair
gwallt syth	straight hair
llygaid glas	blue eyes
wyneb crwn	a round face

This order is the reverse of the usual English order. Think “hair dark” and “eyes blue” only as a reminder of Welsh structure; translate the completed phrase naturally into English.

A feminine singular noun normally causes soft mutation in a following adjective. A noun is a word for a person, object, place, or idea. Compare:

• dyn tal — a tall man
• merch dal — a tall girl/woman

The adjective tal changes to dal after the feminine singular noun merch. Plural nouns do not trigger this gender-based mutation, which is why the familiar phrase is llygaid glas. This noun-phrase rule and the mutation after linking yn are separate rules, even when they produce the same changed form.

4. Describing a specific body feature

Instead of saying that someone “has” a feature, you can make the feature the subject—the person or thing being described:

• Mae ei wallt hi'n hir. — Her hair is long.
• Mae ei lygaid hi'n las. — Her eyes are blue.
• Mae ei wyneb e'n grwn. — His face is round.

In each sentence, the adjective after yn is predicative: it tells you something about the subject rather than sitting directly beside the noun. That is why glas becomes las and crwn becomes grwn.

Welsh possessive forms such as ei... e (“his”) and ei... hi (“her”) bring their own mutation rules. At A2, it is enough to learn complete phrases such as ei wallt e (“his hair”), ei gwallt hi (“her hair”), and ei llygaid hi (“her eyes”). The advanced section below explains why some of them look different.

5. Glasses, clothing, and visible appearance

Use gwisgo for “wear” or “be wearing”:

Mae + person + yn gwisgo + item

• Mae e'n gwisgo sbectol. — He wears glasses / He is wearing glasses.
• Mae hi'n gwisgo cot goch. — She is wearing a red coat.

The Welsh present construction can describe either a current action or a habit; context supplies the difference. Mae e'n gwisgo sbectol can therefore mean that he normally wears glasses, not only that he has them on at this moment.

Examples in Context

Welsh	English	Note
Mae gwallt golau ganddi.	She has fair hair.	Feature-first possession
Mae e'n dal ac yn denau.	He is tall and thin.	tal → dal; tenau → denau
Mae llygaid glas gyda hi.	She has blue eyes.	Common gyda pattern
Mae e'n gwisgo sbectol.	He wears glasses.	gwisgo describes wearing
Mae hi'n fyr ac yn gryf.	She is short and strong.	Two linked qualities
Mae gwallt hir a chyrliog ganddo.	He has long, curly hair.	Adjectives follow gwallt
Mae gwallt syth gyda fe.	He has straight hair.	Southern-style possession
Mae llygaid brown ganddi.	She has brown eyes.	The colour follows llygaid
Mae ganddo farf fer.	He has a short beard.	Fronted ganddo; barf → farf
Mae ei wallt hi'n dywyll.	Her hair is dark.	The feature is the subject
Mae ei llygaid hi'n las.	Her eyes are blue.	glas loses g after yn
Mae ei wyneb e'n grwn.	His face is round.	crwn → grwn after yn
Mae'r dyn yn foel.	The man is bald.	moel → foel after yn
Mae'r ferch dal yn gwisgo cot goch.	The tall woman is wearing a red coat.	Feminine adjective mutations
Mae hi'n debyg i'w mam.	She looks like her mother.	tebyg i means “similar to”

Common Mistakes

1. Leaving the adjective unmutated after yn

• Wrong: Mae e'n tal ac yn tenau.
• Right: Mae e'n dal ac yn denau.
• Why: Linking yn causes soft mutation: t becomes d. The apostrophe in e'n does not remove that rule.

2. Copying English adjective order

• Wrong: Mae glas llygaid ganddi.
• Right: Mae llygaid glas ganddi.
• Why: A Welsh adjective normally follows its noun. Say llygaid glas, literally “eyes blue.”

3. Using ganddo and ganddi for the feature's gender

• Wrong: Mae llygaid glas ganddo when the owner is a woman.
• Right: Mae llygaid glas ganddi.
• Why: The ending refers to the owner: ganddo is “with him,” while ganddi is “with her.” Llygaid does not decide the ending.

4. Treating yn before an adjective as optional

• Wrong: Mae hi dal.
• Right: Mae hi'n dal.
• Why: In this neutral descriptive pattern, yn links the form of bod to the adjective. English has no matching word, but Welsh requires it.

5. Confusing owning glasses with wearing them

• Awkward for appearance: Mae sbectol ganddo.
• Natural description: Mae e'n gwisgo sbectol.
• Why: The first sentence says that he has or owns glasses. Use gwisgo when the point is that glasses are part of his visible appearance.

6. Mutating every adjective after every noun

• Wrong: llygaid las
• Right: llygaid glas
• Why: The feminine-noun adjective mutation applies to feminine singular nouns, not to a plural such as llygaid. Do not confuse that rule with Mae ei llygaid hi'n las, where glas mutates because it follows linking yn.

Usage Notes

Regional choices

Spoken Welsh varies substantially by region. Ganddo/ganddi belongs to the conjugated gan possession system and is widely understood. Forms with gyda fe/hi are especially familiar in the south; northern speech has its own strong preferences and colloquial forms. There is no need to force every regional option into one sentence. Choose one model used by your course or community, but learn to recognise the others.

Pronouns also vary: you may hear e or fe for “he,” and fo is common in the north. Thus ganddo fe, ganddo fo, and the standalone ganddo can point to the same male owner in different speech patterns.

Neutral and respectful descriptions

Words for height, hair, clothing, and distinctive visible features are usually the most useful when identifying someone: “the tall woman with curly hair” is clearer than a personal judgement about attractiveness. Golygus can mean “good-looking” and hardd can mean “beautiful” or “attractive,” but their use depends on context and tone, just as the English words do.

Avoid confusing appearance with character. Mae e'n denau describes build (“He is thin”), while qualities such as “kind” or “friendly” describe personality and require different vocabulary. When speaking about age, a neutral factual description is often better than applying labels to someone unnecessarily.

Hair and eye vocabulary

Gwallt is normally treated as a singular mass noun, so use Mae gwallt hir ganddi, not an invented plural corresponding to English “hairs.” Llygad means “eye” and llygaid means “eyes.” Because descriptions normally concern both eyes, llygaid is the form you will use most often.

Colour vocabulary can vary in everyday use, especially for shades between blue, green, grey, fair, and brown. Learn the speaker's chosen colour word rather than expecting categories to line up perfectly across languages. The basic grammar remains stable: llygaid glas, gwallt tywyll, and gwallt golau.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

You do not need to master this section at A2, but it explains forms you will meet later.

Welsh possession can describe a feature in at least three ways, each with a slightly different focus:

Pattern	Example	Focus
Feature + possessor	Mae gwallt du ganddo.	Neutral statement about what he has
Possessor + feature	Mae ganddo wallt du.	Possession is introduced first
Possessive noun phrase	Mae ei wallt e'n ddu.	His hair itself is the topic

The third pattern exposes another layer of mutation. Possessive ei meaning “his” causes soft mutation, so ei wallt e comes from gwallt. Possessive ei meaning “her” causes aspirate mutation, but g has no aspirate-mutated form, so ei gwallt hi keeps the initial g. The echoing e or hi makes the meaning clear. With llygaid, “his eyes” may appear as ei lygaid e, while “her eyes” is ei llygaid hi.

Descriptions can also be packed into a noun phrase or a relative clause. A relative clause is a part of a sentence that identifies a person with information such as “who is wearing glasses”:

• y dyn tal â gwallt tywyll — the tall man with dark hair
• y ferch sy'n gwisgo sbectol — the girl/woman who is wearing glasses
• y dyn sydd â barf — the man who has a beard

The form sy or sydd means “who/that is” in this kind of affirmative present description. The expression sydd â is a compact written and spoken way to say “who has,” though the basic Mae... ganddo/ganddi pattern is easier to build at A2.

At B1, comparisons make these descriptions more precise: Mae hi'n dalach na fi (“She is taller than me”) and Mae e mor dal â'i frawd (“He is as tall as his brother”). Comparative endings and the pattern mor... â have their own mutation rules, so learn them as the next stage rather than guessing from the basic adjective.

Practice Tips

1. Build descriptions in three passes. Choose a person, add one quality with Mae... yn..., then add hair or eyes with ganddo/ganddi: Mae hi'n dal. Mae gwallt cyrliog ganddi. Mae llygaid brown ganddi. This keeps the structures separate while they become automatic.
2. Keep dictionary and sentence forms together. Make pairs such as tal → Mae e'n dal, byr → Mae hi'n fyr, and glas → Mae ei llygaid hi'n las. Saying both forms aloud helps you hear mutation as part of the construction.
3. Describe real people without naming them. Use a photo, a film scene, or people in a public setting. Give three neutral clues using gwallt, llygaid, height, clothing, or sbectol, then see whether a study partner can identify the person.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Basic Adjectives — covers normal adjective order and soft mutation after feminine singular nouns.
• Useful support: Possession — develops the gan and gyda patterns used for hair, eyes, and other features.
• Useful support: Colours — expands colour vocabulary and its mutation patterns.
• Next step: Comparatives and Superlatives — lets you say “taller,” “shorter,” and “as tall as.”