I still don’t really get the ‘bues’ tense. Various Welsh teachers have bravely had a go – one memorably explained it as the I beed tense. But it still feels pretty hazy to me, floating into the territory of ‘Roedd’ plus the perfect forms rather often in my head.
With English, I was taught to teach the differences between past and present perfect by setting out some mostly-reliable guidelines and contexts. (BTW, just talking about this as an example, since English doesn’t have an ‘I beed’ tense, though I recall someone saying that Portuguese does (??))
e.g.
closed time like last year/yesterday/last week is used with the past;
open time like this year/today/this week is used with the present perfect.
news is often given with the present perfect (e.g. “Mark Drakeford has announced…”)
stories/novels often use the past tense (e.g. “He ran down the street, and didn’t stop until he reached the train station.”)
Could you help? Are there similar simple guidelines that can help me think ‘yes, this is definitely time to use bues/buodd etc.’?
The only ones I have a grip on at the moment are that it’s typically used with ‘erioed’ questions and answers. ‘Fuest ti erioed yn yr Eidal?’ “Do, bues i yno ddwyaith.”
I have to be completely honest with you - I’m now a fluent speaker, I’ve studied for an MA through the medium of Welsh, I’ve been working in Welsh-essential jobs for the past 6 years … and I still don’t get this one!! I think I only ever us “bu farw”, and just try to avoid it the rest of the time. (I understand it when I read/hear it, but I don’t think I ever produce it myself.)
This doesn’t help you, I realise (Except perhaps to offer solidarity?) But thank you for asking the question - I will look forward to some more helpful responses!
one memorably explained it as the I beed tense. But it still feels pretty hazy to me, floating into the territory of ‘Roedd’
Our tutor said that it’s similar to the “roedd” tense but used for shorter periods. Or at least she said that is one way to use the “bues” tense. I think what she meant was you would say, “Ro’n i’n byw ym Manceinion pan ro’n i’n ifanc.” (I lived (lit. was living) in Manchester when I was young.) but “Bues i yn Llandudno dydd Sadwrn diwethaf.” (I was in Llandudno last Saturday.) But she also added that it’s a subtlety that native speakers will use, but using “roedd” for both is absolutely fine.
Otherwise I’ve only come across it on gravestones and memorials. So there really isn’t any need to use it yourself, as long as you recognise it when you see or hear it.
Yes, the examples in the Uwch ii textbook are almost all similar to this - “I was in (Llandudno, Spain, etc.)” sort of thing, where one could equally well say “I went to” / Es i i. The emphasis is on something that happened, and then finished, in the past. (The Uwch iii book confirms that the bu of bu farw is the literary Welsh equivalent of oh-so-colloquial buodd.)
ETA - I guess for those with Spanish this is the equivalent of Fui a Francia (over the summer) - where the dictionary says fui means “was”, but in context we might say “went to”, because you’re talking about a holiday that’s already finished. (Paging @Deborah-SSi on this comparison in case my Castilian is dodgy!)
Thanks, folks, for your replies. I enjoyed reading them all.
Have just checked my copy of Intermediate Welsh (p. 118) by the forum’s own Gareth King, and it does have something to say on the topic. I think in the past I’d assumed that because bues didn’t have a chapter devoted to it, it wasn’t there, but that’s wrong.
Paraphrased: the bûm/bues form is mostly uncommon in spoken Welsh. When it does occur, it’s largely used like wedi bod Ble fuest ti? | Ble wyt ti wedi bod?
Skip the below paragraph if you hate grammar.
Though based on the examples up-thread, the bu’s can be used with finished periods of time (like last Saturday) whereas the English version of wedi bod (have been, present perfect) wouldn’t work in that context. I’ve no idea if the Welsh present perfect is as strict as the English or not.
Interesting. I swear I’m getting closer to grasping the true meaning of buodd.
If you have, or can get your hands on a copy of @garethrking 's excellent ‘Modern Welsh - A Comprehensive Grammar’, he explains it completely in section 244 (page 155). Rather than copy the whole unit verbatim, the bones of it are that the preterite form (bues, buest, etc) is used to refer to something where the person involved is no longer in the place, or doing the action that they were e.g. Fuodd 'n chwaer i yn Ffrainc = My sister has been/was in France (and she is not there now), whereas the imperfect forms (roeddwn i, etc) don’t neccessarily imply that e.g. Oedd 'nchwaer i yn Ffrainc pan laniodd dyn ar y lleuad = my sister was in France when man landed on the moon (and it is irrelevant whether she is still there or not)
The ‘bu’ form is even more restricted - only used for a) bu fawr (hasa died/is dead), b) most usually in media where very recent time is indicated (In English, translates to there has/have been) and c) in recent past when talking about the weather.
As others have said, the imperfect forms are much, much more common in speech and most writing.
Rather than copy the whole unit verbatim, the bones of it are that the preterite form (bues, buest, etc) is used to refer to something where the person involved is no longer in the place, or doing the action that they were e.g. Fuodd 'n chwaer i yn Ffrainc = My sister has been/was in France (and she is not there now)
Yes, this it it. I’ve kind of felt that there was something else going on with the tense apart from the ‘single event in the past/action lasting an extended period of time in the past’ explanations I’ve heard from teachers, and this seems to work much better in terms of how to think of it.
This is how i remember it’s correct use. ‘Bues i yng Nghaerdydd ddoe’. ‘I was in Cardiff yesterday’. A simple stafement of fact, nothing more added, not a continued action in the past. ‘Roeddwn i yng Nghaerdydd ddoe, prynais i afalau a gwelais i Gwilym’. A continuous action about events which occured in the past.
(Except perhaps to offer solidarity?) But thank you for asking the question - I will look forward to some more helpful responses!