Hi, I’m getting a little muddled with these. I know that bydda i is ‘i will’. Is it also ‘i would’? Or is that fydda i? Or does it change to a f if it is a negative? Similarly, i know that dylen i is ‘i should’. Does this change to fylen i if it’s negative? Or is it something to do with the words around it? Thank you!
bydda i = I will
byddwn i (or baswn i) = I would
fydda i? = will I?
fyddwn i? (or faswn i?) = would I?
ni fydda i / fydda i ddim = I will not
ni fyddwn i / fyddwn i ddim (or ni faswn i / faswn i ddim) = I would not
dylwn i = I should
ddylwn i? = should I?
ni ddylwn i / ddylwn i ddim = I shouldn’t
Does that clear things up a bit? 
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Ooh yes, very much thanks! I hadn’t quite caught the difference at the end of the words.
Also, am I right in thinking that you don’t have bod with these? It seems to disappear from the sentence. E.g. we all thought that we should find a better way , on ni’n i gyd yn meddwl ddylwn ni ffeindio ffordd well - no bod. I always seem to get caught out with this.
yes, kind of right - because they are already forms of bod!
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That’s incredibly useful! This is something I’ve been puzzled by as well but I decided not to worry about it. I feel much better understanding it though. Thank you, Siaron! 
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If you’re doing Southern @emma-ireland, you find both ddylwn i ddim and na ddylwn i appearing around Level 1 challenge 21 - I was told that na is a Southern variation.
‘na’ (or ‘nag’ before a vowel) is a way of negating the following phrase; so if you’ve used na you don’t then need ddim.
(Also, if you’re like me, and like some ‘why?’ answers, you get a mutation with the negative form, hence b -> f and d -> dd).
Yes, I’m doing the southern and finding the nag ones are hard. I’ve recently done level 2 challenge 22 and there were loads, and I didn’t get any of them right! Just gone through another post where it’s been explained to me and going to try the challenge again 
I’m getting the hang of where to expect them but not getting the words right 
Aha…the various forms of ‘that’ 
If the second half of the sentence would use the present tense - if it was a sentence on its own - you use ‘bod’ for that…
'o’n ni i gyd yn meddwl bod ni’n mynd yn wallgof ’
We all thought we were going crazy
If the second half uses another verb eg should, then on paper it has an ‘y’ or ‘yr’ for that - and this causes a soft mutation (d -> dd)…except that you’ll be lucky to hear in speach as it is more often than not dropped.
So…
‘on ni’n i gyd yn meddwl (y) ddylwn ni ffeindio ffordd well’
Rich
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You’ve got some other mutations creeping into challenge 22 as well - but I promise there’s life afterwards!
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I’ve left what appears like a deliberate mistake in my answer @emma-ireland in readiness for a follow up question 
Rich
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Haha, not sure what the deliberate mistake is, but you’ve pointed out something that I think I’ve worked out after some confusion - that the second clause seems to become present tense if there is bod even though in English it is past tense. If the sentence doesn’t have bod, the second clause seems to be past tense eg dwedodd hi wrtha i beth oedd hi’n gwneud. But now that you’ve all pointed out that byddwn i etc is a form of bod, does this mean that it would make the second clause present tense in a past tense sentence? I might be totally barking up the wrong tree, and have jumped to wrong conclusions here!!
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Jackpot! One way to describe it is that the Welsh refers to what was thought, or said at the time (which was present tense at the time!)…another is that bod in this context doesn’t really have a tense - but we need to add one for the English translation.
In this sentence there is a full blown ‘what’ joining the the two halves of the sentence - so doesn’t come under the ‘that’ conversation
No, fortunately not that complicated thank goodness!
If the second half would be the present tense of bod on its own - use bod for that…if not use ‘y’ or ‘yr’…but often not heard in speach…
Dywedodd e (y) fydden ni’n wallgof i wneud e
He said we would be crazy to do it
This is the broad rule.
Rich
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Brill, thanks, it is slowly starting to make sense. I just repeated the challenge 22 with lots of ‘nag’ - I’m getting there, but definitely not wearing shades yet!
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Amser maith yn ôl, a long time ago I had a Welsh tutor who reckoned there were 5 things that would help us progress well as learners. The three things I remember were,
Have a good handful of proverbs, sayings, to hand.
Pronunciation, pronunciation, pronunciation.
Get your head around ‘bod’. Only one verb, but it gets everywhere!
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