The Geirfan wordlist: a vocabulary list for adult learners of Welsh

The Geirfan wordlist is a curated list of 500 of the most frequent words in the Welsh language, designed for use by learners at A1/A21 levels of proficiency. This vocabulary list was developed using an innovative symbiosis of corpus-based methods (using data from the CorCenCC corpus, The National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh) and expert-led introspection and reflection; an approach which can be replicated and adapted for use in any other language context. For each lemma, the following information is also given:

• Geirfa Graidd? This indicates whether or not this word is included in the Geirfa Graidd vocabulary list (Morris and Meara, 2019). This is the principal list used for all A1 and A2 assessment and therefore an important point of cross-reference and comparison
• Additions? These are items added to the enhanced vocabulary list. These extra words were determined to be necessary additions to complement the item to which they are attached. For example, since Christian places of worship (“capel” (chapel) and “eglwys” (church)) were on the list, we also added “mosg” (mosque), “synagog” (synagogue) and “teml” (temple). The list included some, but not all, basic colour terms, so words such as “oren” (orange) and “porffor” (purple) were added.
• Tutors’ survey average: This is the result of an informal survey of 27 tutors of Welsh for adults, who were asked to rate words according to their suitability for learners at level A1, A2, B1, and B2 or higher. A response of 1 would indicate that respondents largely agreed that the word was suitable at level A1. A response of 2 indicates level A2, 3 indicates B1, and 4 indicates B2 or above.