Ask your FIRST question about SSiW in here...:-)

Thank you. I will have to revisit all those words where I have been hearing v and be sure to change my pronunciation to th!

Helo, pawb! I learnt basic Welsh when I lived in mid-Wales several years ago and having been told it was closest to north Welsh so that’s the course I’m following and really enjoying ~ diolch yn fawr, Aran a Catrin! :slightly_smiling_face: Obviously, there’s some overlap with south Welsh which I’m finding an interesting part of language learning but I have a question from Challenge 4 about using efo chdi. I learnt gyda ti (singular familiar) and gyda chi (singular formal/plural) and I’m wondering whether there are two equivalent forms of efo chdi or does it cover all situations? I know Aran said you sometimes hear efo ti but I’m not sure whether that is a different pronoun or just pronunciation. Also (if I can squeeze in a cheeky second question :wink:), what is the general consensus over use of informal and formal pronouns these days? I currently live in France where it’s still an important common courtesy to use the correct forms but I’m wondering if things are more relaxed in Wales?

Welcome!

I won’t answer the question about the relationship between chdi and ti because it’s not something that goes on in my region. My daughter lives in Bangor and chdi is a word she uses, but I consider it to be something unfathomably exotic.

However, I will say that modern Welsh is much more casual when it comes to the use of ti over chi. You’ll even hear children using ti when talking to teachers for example. For me to use chi with someone, they would have to be either a high court judge or someone maybe two generations older.

3 Likes

Diolch, that’s very helpful. As the only people I spoke Welsh with were friends, family and the children I taught, I never really needed formal chi so wasn’t sure how much it’s used (or not). Hopefully, I won’t need to speak to too many high court judges! :rofl: I’ve never come across chdi before but I have to admit I love saying it!

2 Likes

My partner’s from Bangor, and tends to use chdi with people who are close - so it’s an either/or with ti, and both would be fine as the informal pronoun. I would say that it is particularly marked as northern (north-west, even?) usage. I think it’s lovely :slight_smile:

I’m finding now that I get older, particularly in work, younger people are calling me “chi”, which horrifies me slightly! I tend to use ti with almost everyone, and have to make a conscious effort to use chi if I think I will need to.

2 Likes

Diolch, Sara. One of my sons-in-law is from Caernarfon so I must ask him if chdi is what he uses, it’s fascinating having family from different parts of Wales but not always easy to make sense of the different versions of Welsh they speak. It sounds like you are officially a ‘wise elder’ now! :wink:

1 Like

If by that you mean “old”, then … yes I suppose I am! :rofl:

1 Like

I’m a little confused about when to use “pan” vs. “pryd” for “when”. Apparently “pan” is for statements involving the word and “pryd” is for questions, but I’ve seen statements with the word “when” translated as “pryd”.

An example of what I mean can be found at 18:23 in Northern Level 1, Challenge 8. The sentence “I want to remember when you started.” is translated as “Dw i isio cofio pryd wnest ti ddechrau.” Shouldn’t it be “Dw i isio cofio pan wnest ti ddechrau.” as it’s a statement of when “you” started and not a question about it? Thank you so much in advance!

As a basic rule, yes, pan is for statements and pryd is for questions, but there’s also something a little more subtle going on.

Pryd is used whenever you are referring to a specific time, whereas pan is more “general circumstances” - which is why you can find pryd in statements, but never find pan in questions or implied questions (because questions are asking about a specific time).

2 Likes

That’s a lovely extra insight from Siaron there :fire:

I’d also say this is a great example of how no two languages ever work in exactly the same way - as long as you get a foothold in the new language, you’ll fine tune via exposure - until at some point pan/pryd just make sense to you as pan/pryd instead of as versions of ‘when’. The key is not to worry - people will understand if you use one they weren’t expecting, and if they don’t, they’ll ask (and that will help your brain fine tune further) :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

Hello, I’ve just started Welsh and am loving it. I’m still in the ‘free’ stage - have completed 2 hours - but will be signing up as soon as I can. Is there anywhere I can find an overview of the course? I’m someone who still uses paper maps as well as Google when driving because I like to have the big picture of where I am.
I’m Irish, retired, fluent in my own lovely Irish Gaelic, and learning Welsh is my small contribution to supporting minority languages struggling to survive the in the increasingly Anglicised world.
Thanks

3 Likes

Hi Teresa, and thank you very much for learning Welsh! Go raibh maith agat, if I’ve managed to spell that correctly :slightly_smiling_face:

The further we go towards customisation/personalisation, the further away we get from set texts, so I’m afraid we don’t have any handy overviews - the closest you could get would be to look at the vocab lists per challenge for Level 1 and 2, I think, but they’re behind the paywall - sorry about that. Our material isn’t anything like the curriculae you’ll see for traditional courses, so this kind of stuff has always been a bit tricky for us.

As Aran said in his reply, there isn’t really an overview and the vocab lists are behind the paywall… but handily, you can also find them here on the forum on this thread Vocabulary from Challenges if that helps.

This makes so much sense now! Thank you! I’ll keep this in mind :slight_smile:

I appreciate this way of looking at things, Welsh words making sense as themselves instead of Welsh ways to say English concepts. I hope my post didn’t come off as complaining that non-English languages don’t work the way English does - that was absolutely not my intent.

2 Likes

No, not at all! It’s something I talk about all the time, I definitely didn’t think you were complaining :slight_smile:

Not sure if this is the right place to ask it, but as it is my first question on this forum… :slight_smile:

I have been a diligent learner so far, but I was very disheartened by how badly Challenge 10 went for me. One thing that threw me off was something that I was certain that had learnt it before, but that without explanation prompted another result:

I ask you - Dw i’n gofyn wrthot ti

Now I’m positive that I had learnt gofyn i mi earlier, so I had expected something along those lines… Is this incorrect, a “childish” way of saying things or simply another, equally valid way? :confused:

It’s simply another way of saying it - in the spoken language some people use wrth, some use i. The trick is to use whichever you’re comfortable with or that you hear most often around you but to be aware of the other version that someone else might use.
SSiW will throw in variations like that unexpectedly - exactly as you’d come across them ‘in the wild’ - so that you get ‘thrown’ in the safety of the course rather than ‘thrown’ during a real conversation.

2 Likes

Thanks @siaronjames . To be honest, during conversations I would expect other variations but it may be (at the very least) confusing to do this unannounced during a course - but that might be just me :slight_smile:
I’ll give Ch10 a new go with new enthousiasm then :+1:

1 Like

You’ll find that it settles into gofyn i mi as you work through the course, especially from Level 2 on, as that is the most common way and generally considered “standard”.

2 Likes

Bore da! I’ve just received my week 3 email, and am fairly confident that I’ve got lessons 1,2&3 down to a reasonable standard, but I may have another few goes at lesson 4 today before moving on. I think I may be a “high repetition” learner, as I find I get a panic induced brain fog if I don’t feel confident enough in what I have already learnt. I’m currently repeating each lesson at least twice, plus using Automagic to reinforce everything I’ve listened too. I am struggling slightly to get through each lesson and often have several false starts and long pauses (while I deal with some outbreak of chaos!) as I am simultaneously parenting a 5 year old and 5 month old solo through the summer holidays, and don’t really get a solid 30mins to concentrate, ever! I’m also running on about 3 hours sleep a night, so I’m afraid my poor brain may not be at full power! Anyway, this sounds like a pile of excuses, but my question really is, is this still possible? I’d love to be able to follow the program properly, but it’s just not possible at the moment. Am I being too ambitious?