43 civil servants unable to translate eight English words into Welsh after a day of trying

"According to a report in the Telegraph" So completely distorted and unreliable.

This is quite common - words in one language do not map exactly onto another. Moreover idioms are different. The skill in translation requires finding the same sense as in the language of origin. A good example of how not to translate is the translation of Tredegar House into Ty Tredegar. It would be better as Neuadd Tredegar or Plas Tredegar. The word house in English has different shades of meaning to ty in Welsh. One handicap is that the dictionary used is only one way (The Irish have done the same). This is a mistake - it is necessary to look a word up from both ends.

Why do people always insist that all languages have to function like English? Many languages would struggle to have direct translations for particular words as things are said slightly differently in all languages. There are ways to convey the terms mentioned above without the need of a direct translation. It sounds to me like those involved made the most of this task in order to avoid other work. Were these people even fluent Welsh speakers?!

Herein lies the problem with languages. Most will only align approximately with other languages and Cymraeg evolved as a living language, as in its words meanings can change according to context.

I remember when I was working on one Bill in the 1990s the last thing to be decided was how the word "Agency" would be translated into Welsh. So no, it's not just the Telegraph making things up. But also, as Aled Evan Bayton points out, it is perfectly normal for words in one language not to map perfectly onto those in another, especially abstract concepts. It can be extremely difficult to decide the best compromise. I went on to work in the European Commission, where the difficulties were many orders of magnitude greater. And no, Telegraph and others, the answer is not just to do everything, everywhere, worldwide in English.

So it didn't cost much, was a useful exercise, and the participants are not thick as the headline implies.

Fydd ein hiaith ni ddim yn bodoli cyn bo hir ond fel cyfieithiad o'r Saesneg.

I'd be fascinated to know how that erudite scholar of Cymraeg, Andrew RT Davies, would have translated them. Over to you Andrew.

Could they not just ask a Welsh speaker?

They wouldn't have jobs if they were unemployable.

What an absolutely disgusting and appealing attitude you have.

Says you in only one language.

How little you think of humanity if survival is all that matters.

Vibrant colours, a lifetime of chaos, a tranquil and monotonous evening. A pleasant uneventful day, followed by an annoying and eventful journey home Lliwiau bywiog, oes o anhrefn. Noson dawel ac undonog. Diwrnod dymunol a di-drafferth ac yna taith adref annifyr a llawn digwyddiadau. Google Docs translation. Only a 2 suggested correction di-drafferth -->di-ddigwyddiad. a llawn--> yn llawn 15 minutes one person and US AI

I'm not even a Welsh speaker but Andrew RT Davies' utter contempt for the language offends me on a quite visceral level. Welsh didn't fade away from a lack of interest. It was stamped out over hundreds of years by one aggressor after another using money, violence, humiliation, and deeply distorted "studies" to condemn the language purely as a means to subdue the population of a dominion that refused to behave themselves and accept their submission. Now that the language has, quite rightly, been given some legal protections and the public are showing more signs of wanting to reclaim the heritage that was stolen he is just DESPERATE to stomp his jackboot all over the face of any hint of Welsh pride or revival. If either the Tories or Reform get any real power the language will be the first thing that goes in the bin. They can hardly wait. :-(

Typical pot-stirring garbage from the Telegraph. Languages constantly grow and evolve. There are Welsh words that don't readily translate into a direct English word; Hwyl being an obvious one. Languages always take on new words and transliterations and it cuts both ways; Pont may be a quintessentially placename prefix, but it's of Latin origin (hence it occuring from the same root in Pontefract). Meanwhile, for example Cardiff, Abergavenny, Blaenavon and Varteg, are Welsh transliterated into English but Prestatyn, Mostyn, Fflint and Wrecsam are English transliterated into Welsh.