Hi All!
Hope you are all well 
If possible could someone help me to understand why sydd (this may not be the correct spelling/translation sorry, I mean the translation for “who”) is not included when saying the below in welsh please? When who has been used else where, I have often had to use sydd.
I’ve got a friend who wanted to tell you what to do yesterday
mae gen i ffrind oedd isio deud wrthot ti beth i wneud ddoe
Thanks so much!
Lucy
It’s because sydd is only used for the present tense.
Mae gen i ffrind sydd isio deud wrthot beth i wneud (who wants to)
but in the past you use oedd (who wanted to) and in the future, bydd (who will want to).
There’s more to it than that, of course, but I think that’s basically it.
I see David has given you the basic answer, and he’s right that there’s more to it, so I’ll elaborate just a touch.
sydd is not exactly the word for “who” - it’s a form of the verb bod (to be) which can mean who is, which is, and even what is, depending on the context. We really only translate it as “who” to make the English less clunky, rather than as a word-for-word translation.
As David said, sydd is a present tense form of bod, so in your example above where the second clause is past tense, we need the past tense form oedd.
If we wanted to say:
I’ve got a friend who wants to tell you what to do tonight
we would say:
mae gen i ffrind sydd isio deud wrthot ti beth i wneud heno
which literally translates as:
“I’ve got a friend who is wanting to tell you something tonight”.
Thank you both @siaronjames and @David_B so much - that makes loads of sense
Also whilst oedd has come up - I was wondering what the reason was for the different placements of oedd, as ive noticed when it is she/he/someone wanted, the oedd is at the start of the sentence. But when it is ‘my friend’ like in this scenario the oedd is just before the isio.
Thanks
Yes, when it is a simple sentence in the past tense, oedd will be at the beginning. But in cases other than simple ones (like your example), it may well pop up further in. It’s not the phrase “my friend” that is making the difference, just the construction of the sentence with more than one part to it.