Dwedodd e wratha’i fod e ar y teledu
This is introduced as “He told me that it was on the television”, but I’m confused by the translation of “fod e ar y teledu” as “was on the television” i.e. the past tense.
I remember learning “…ddwedodd e fod e’n nabod dy chwaer di” in an earlier challenge, and “fod e’n” was used in the present tense in this context.
I am 100% a beginner, so I could be getting this all wrong, but I’d greatly appreciate any input!
‘bod’ can indicate both past and present tense in these situations - some say that this is the ‘correct’ way to use bod. In practice, you hear quite a few people use ‘oedd’ to indicate the past, so ‘dwedodd e wrtha fi oedd e ar y teledu’.
Thank you very much for your explanation Louis.
I was also confused by this. If you heard this in a conversation how would you be able to tell if it meant “he said it was on the tv” or “he said he was on the tv”? Would it be merely context that would show you the difference?
Yes, it would be context. If he was referring to “it”, presumably what “it” was, would already have been mentioned or discussed.
A lot of Welsh seems to be contextual (English might be too; I’m too close to it to say!)
A Welsh-speaking friend at work gave me a word early in my SSIW time, and listed off at least five different meanings for the word depending on the context (I forget what the word was now). I imagine that’s something which probably just takes practice (I hope!)