Intro

Nouns usually belong to either one of two groups in Welsh: masculine or feminine. Note that's
not "male" and "female"; they're grammatical not biological categories. Nobody's saying shops
are for women and cars are for men. It's just the noun siop belongs one grammatical group
labelled "feminine" and car belongs to the other category called "masculine".
A few useful terms:
cenedl enw[au] gender of a noun / of nouns
enw gwrywaidd masculine noun; abbreviations include eg, g, masc., m
enw benywaidd feminine noun; abbreviations include eb, b, fem., f
I should point out too that noun gender only matters for singular nouns. In the plural, masculine
and feminine nouns behave in the same way and so essentially nullify gender. Having said that,
remember that plural usage can be different in Welsh and English e.g. in a phrase like "two red
strawberries" we use a plural in English, but in Welsh it's dwy fefusen goch using the singular
and so its gender is affecting the other words around it.
1. Why do you need to learn noun gender?
You can't get very far with Welsh without needing to know the gender of a noun at some point.
This is because noun gender may cause mutation of the noun itself, but also changes to the
words in the rest of the sentence or phrase. Here are different parts of speech that can be
affected.
Nouns
Masculine: No mutation after y (the): y bachgen (the boy), y ci (the dog), y dewis (the choice).
Feminine: Soft mutation after y (the): y ferch (the girl), y gath (the cat), y wefan (the website).
Exceptions are words starting with ll and rh, which don't mutate: y llywodraeth (the
government), y rhaw (the spade).
Adjectives
Masculine: No mutation of a following adjective: bachgen da (a good boy), ci bach (a little dog),
y dewis gorau (the best choice).
Feminine: Soft mutation of a following noun adjective: merch dda (a good girl), cath fach (a little
cat), y wefan orau (the best website). This continues to happen on all following adjectives that
describe that noun: cath Bersia fach bert (a pretty little Persian cat).
Pronouns
Masculine nouns are referred to as e/o/ef (he, it): Y tŷ? Ydy, mae e/o’n enfawr (The house?
Yeah, it’s huge). Feminine nouns are hi (she, it): Yr ysgol? Ydy, mae hi’n enfawr (The school?
Yes, it’s huge).
Ei/'i/'w (his, its) when referring to a masculine noun takes a soft mutation: Dyna'r ci? Dw i'n
nabod ei gynffon! (Is that the dog? I recognise its tail!), yr athro a'i blant (the (male) teacher
and his kids), Argraffais i'r adroddiad i'w ddarllen nes ymlaen (I printed the report to read
later on).
Ei/'i/'w (her, its) when referring to a feminine noun takes an aspirate mutation. So, essentially,
we use the same word as the masculine but with a different mutation follwing: Dyna'r gath? Dw
i'n nabod ei chynffon! (Is that the cat? I recognise its tail!), yr athrawes a'i phlant (the (female)
teacher and her kids), Argraffais i'r erthygl i'w darllen yn nes ymlaen (I printed the article to
read later on).
Numbers
1 - 4 are the only numbers you need to worry about when it comes to noun gender. Remember
we use singular nouns after numbers in Welsh.
1: No mutation with masculine: un mab (one son), un ci (one dog), un dewis (one choice). Soft
mutation with feminine: un ferch (one daughter/girl), un gath (one cat), un wefan (one website).
Like after y (the), feminine words starting with ll or rh don't mutate: un llaw (one hand), un
rhywogaeth (one species).
2: This number loves mutating everything. Just remember dau is masculine and dwy is feminine:
dau fab a dwy ferch (two sons and two daughers), dau gi a dwy gath (two dogs and two cats),
dau fardd a dwy gerdd (two poets and two poems). Unusually, dau and dwy both mutate after
y (the) too: y ddau fab a'r ddwy ferch (the two sons and the two daughters), y ddwy gân a'r
ddau ganwr (the two songs and the two singers), y ddau/ddwy (both).
3: Aspirate mutation with masculine tri: tri chi (three dogs), tri phlentyn (three kids), tri thŷ
mawr (three big houses). No mutation with feminine tair: tair cath (three cats), tair peren (three
pears), tair taran fawr (three big thunderclaps).
4: No mutations, just masculine and feminine forms of the word, pedwar and pedair
respectively: pedwar ci bach (four puppies), pedair cath fach (four kittens), pedwar castell
(four castles), pedair bryngaer (four hillforts), pedair mil, pedwar cant, pedwar deg (4,440).
Thankfully, [ordinal numbers]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number_(linguistics)) (first,
second, third etc.) are more regular and work like adjectives.
1st: Cyntaf just behaves like a normal adjective: y mab cyntaf (the first son), y ferch gyntaf (the
first daughter), yr ŵyr cyntaf (the first grandson), y ras gyntaf (the first race).
All other ordinals come before the noun, like in English.
2nd: Remember I said 2 likes to mutate everything? Well, ail is no exception: yr ail fab (the
second son), yr ail ferch (the second daughter), yr ail beth (the second thing), yr ail broblem
(the second problem).
The rest of the ordinals are regular in that with feminine nouns there's a soft mutation of a noun
after y (the), and no change with masculine: y pumed mab (the fifth son), y bumed ferch (the
fifth daughter), y degfed llawr (the tenth floor), y ddegfed flwyddyn (the tenth year). Remember
too that 3rd and 4th have separate masculine and feminine forms: y trydydd mab (the third son),
y drydedd ferch (the third daughter), y pedwerydd llawr (the fourth floor), y bedwaredd
flwyddyn (the fourth year).
2. How can you learn noun gender?
The big question! Welsh isn't like a lot of languages which have pretty obvious noun endings or
masculine and feminine articles, so we need to find some other ways to predict gender. Actually,
Welsh used to have masculine and feminine endings many moons ago, but rather than having to
invent a time machine and go back to simpler times, it's easier to just learn the following tips.
Categories
Lots of nouns in the same semantic categories share the same gender.

Masculine Examples

male humans & gŵr (husband), athro (male teacher), tarw (bull), ceiliog (cockerel,
animals rooster)

days of the week dydd Llun (Monday), dydd Gwener (Friday)

months Ionawr (January), Chwefror (February), Mawrth (March)

seasons yr haf (the summer), y gaeaf (the winter)

major traditional
y Nadolig (Christmas), y Pasg (Easter)
festivals

compass points gogledd (north), gorllewin (west), de (south)

 materials cotwm (cotwm), lledr (leather), neilon (nylon)

metals and minerals aur (gold), arian (silver), plwm (lead)

natural elements glaw (rain), eira (snow), tân (fire), nwy (gas)

liquids coffi (coffee), cwrw (beer), petrol (petrol, gas)

verbnouns canu (singing), dawnsio (dancing), adrodd (reciting)

Feminine Examples

female humans & gwraig (wife), athrawes (female teacher), buwch (cow), iâr
animals (chicken, hen)

rivers Taf (the Taff), Dyfrdwy (the Dee), Nil (the Nile)

trees derwen (oak), bedwen (birch), celynnen (holly)

cities, towns, villages Y Gelli (Hay-on-Wye), Tyddewi (St David's), Stockholm

mountains Yr Wyddfa (Snowden), Cadair Idris, Everest

types of road1 ffordd (road), heol (road), lôn (lane)

clothes2 esgid (shoe), ffrog (dress), maneg (glove)

lots of collective nouns torf (crowd), byddin (army), haid (flock)

letters of the alphabet B, Ch, F, Ff, Ng

1 An exception is llwybr (path).

2 Exceptions are cap (cap), crys (shirt), trowsus (trousers) and sometimes tei (tie).
Ok, so that covers some nouns but an even better way, especially as your Welsh vocab
increases is:
Suffixes
Suffixes are endings we add to one word to make it into a new one. English suffixes are things
like "-er" (run > runner) or "-ism" (secret > secretism). If you can learn the gender of the following
Welsh suffixes (with examples to help you), you're away!
Masculine: -ad, -adur, -ai, -aint, -awd, -awdwr, -cyn, -deb, -der, -did, -dod, -dra, -dwr, -edd,
-fel, -i, -iant, -id, -ineb, -mon, -od, -ol, -rwydd, -wch, -wr, -ych, -yd, -ydd, -yn
Masculine examples: penderfyniad (decision), cyfrifiadur (computer), deuawd (duet), plentyndod
(childhood), oerfel (the cold), pwysigrwydd (importance), tawelwch (silence), rhedwr (runner),
cyfieithydd (translator), pysgodyn (a fish)
Feminine: -ach, -aeth3, -as, -eb, -eg, -ell, -en, -es, -fa, -in, -oedd, -red, -wraig
Feminine examples: cyfrinach (secret), Cristnogaeth (Christianity), priodas (wedding),
derbynneb (receipt), daeareg (geology), llygoden (mouse), swyddfa (office), gweithred (action),
gofalwraig (female carer or caretaker/janitor)
3 Exceptions are gwahaniaeth (difference), gwasanaeth (service), hiraeth (longing), lluniaeth
(refreshments).
Note a suffix doesn't mean the same as "the last few letters of a word". The word coeden (tree)
is made up of coed (trees) and the feminine suffix -en. But the word bachgen (boy) isn't made
up of bachg (there's no such word) and -en. Bachgen is unsplittable and so isn't necessarily
feminine (it's masculine obviously!).
Phrases
This is a really powerful tool. What you do is you learn a simple phrase like Ga i fynd i'r tŷ
bach? (Can I go to the toilet?). You know "toilet" is tŷ bach here, literally "small house". You've
never seen or heard y dŷ fach - that's just wrong, right?
Now apply your grammatical knowlege to that phrase: Ga i fynd i'r tŷ bach?. No mutation after
'r (the)? Must be masculine. No mutation of the adjective bach? Must be mascline. Tŷ is
masculine!
Learning phrases and chunks of lanuguage is way more better than learning individual words.
When you make flashcards4, always put a sentence or phrase in, rather than individual words.
That way you're learning natural patterns and lots of grammatical information e.g. Ga i fynd i'r tŷ
bach? tells you lots of other things too - word order, mutations of verbs and objects, contractions
etc. - all from one little phrase.
Don't learn "fire is masculine", learn Gwelais i'r tân gwyllt neithiwr (I saw the fireworks last
night). Don't learn "cat is feminine", learn Mae gen i gath fach ddu / Mae cath fach ddu 'da fi (I
have a little black cat). Don't learn "dog is masculine", learn to sing the song Dau gi bach off by
heart. You get me.
You can then extend the tŷ (house) is masculine example above to compounds. So if tŷ is
masculine, so are gwesty (hotel), plasty (mansion), ysbyty (hospital), bragdy (brewery),
gweithdy (workshop). (Ok so I know for some people in the north ysbyty is feminine, but hey,
exceptions are cool.) Gwydden (and old feminine word for "tree") gives you feminine
castanwydden (horse chestnut), olewydden (olive tree), palmwydden (palm tree),
gwinwydden (vine). Masculine ci (dog) means masculine milgi (greyhound), dyfrgi/dwrgi
(otter), drewgi (skunk), llwfrgi (coward), bolgi (glutton), celwyddgi (liar).
4 If you're not making flashcards to learn vocab, what are you doing with yourself?! Paper gets
unwieldy so download a flashcard app and make your own, which is better than just going
through one someone else made as the actually process of making the cards helps you recall the
words. Also colours! Colour masculine nouns blue and feminine red or whatever and you'll be
surprised how much it helps.
3. What about mixed gender nouns?
Yeah, remember I said nouns are usually either masculine or feminine? Well some of them just
can't decide.
Some vary geographically. Take munud (minute). In the north is masculine: dau funud (two
minutes), but in the south it's definitely feminine: dwy funud. I'm a southerner and for me trên
(train) and angladd (funeral) are masculine and feminine respectively, but I know some of my
northern friends would think otherwise.
Languages are funny ones (that's why we love 'em, right?). After the article y (the), they're like
feminine nouns becuas they mutate: y Gymraeg (the Welsh language), y Wyddeleg (the Irish
language), y Goreeg (the Korean language). But when qualified by an adjective, they behave
like masculine nouns in that there's no adjective mutation: Cymraeg da (good Welsh),
Gwyddeleg gwael (poor Irish), Coreeg rhugl (fluent Korean).
And then some seem to vary from individual to individual: arwydd (sign), fersiwn (version),
rhyfel (war), tudalen (page). Different people will tell you different things about these.
Some cool ones, however, are ones that change meaning when they change gender: ewyllys
(masculine: "will" the ability to choose; feminine: the "will" you make before you die), gwaith
(masculine: "work": mynd i'r gwaith "go to work"; feminine: "time": dwywaith "twice"), mil
(masculine: old word for "animal", so morfil "whale" is masculine; feminine: thousand: tair mil
"3,000"), ton (masculine: "fallow land": Tonteg; feminine: wave dan y don poetic way to say
"under the sea").
Conclusion
So in summary, I should say knowing noun gender is important but shouldn't stop you speaking if
you can't remember a gender (it's roughly two thirds masculine nouns, one third feminine in
Welsh, so go with masculine if you're stuck!). I'm not pretending learning gender is easy but it is
perfectly possible if you apply some of the above short-cuts. And above all, nothing beats
increasing both your input and output in this regard. Follow a good course and listen to and read
Welsh, write and speak it. Do these things as much as possible. Oh, and please ask if any of the
above in unclear. Pob hwyl gyda’r dysgu!