This is concerning sentences that include such things as ‘my work’, ‘my dog’, etc. When using ‘fy … i’ I sometimes find that it should have been ‘fy … fi’. At first I was expecting that the ‘fi’ would be following a noun or verb that ended with a vowel but that doesn’t fit all the examples in the lesson. And then I get a surprise when the ‘fi’ or ‘i’ is just not there at all.
I have looked through the archived questions on this lesson but not found an answer.
Could some kind soul tell me what the rules are so that I can work out these sentences, please, as I am mystified by all this?
Its fi after a vowel normally, except when the speaker says i instead in the flow of their speech! If you use fi after a vowel, you will be fine. As regards missing it out altogether, this is common colloquially. You can do the same or include it, and you will once again be fine. Remember the mantra don’t worry about it, and you will settle into your own pattern of usage naturally the more conversations you get into in Welsh.
What you’re hearing is a range of variations - sometimes it’ll be ‘fy ngwaith i’, sometimes just ‘fy ngwaith’, sometimes you’d hear younger people saying ‘gwaith fi’ - I can’t think of the top of my head where you might have heard ‘fy…fi’, though, so if you could let me know the examples, we can see what’s going on (you might get it very occasionally as a very casual usage).
The bottom line, though, is that there isn’t a ‘correct’ time for, say, ‘fy ngwaith’ versus ‘fy ngwaith i’ - it’s just about personal preference, so you genuinely do not need to worry about it at all - just say what comes first to mind, and be happy that you’ve got a wider spread of stuff that you can understand when you hear other people saying it
Thank you both for the prompt replies. I have gone through some of lesson 20 and picked out these examples:
10:14
mae hynna’n fy mhoeni fi
19:42
mae o’n dweud bod hi’n fy ngharu fi
22:37
dw’i ddim eisiau i ti fy neffro fi yn gynnar
23:26
dw’i eisiau i ti fy nysgu fi sut i siarad Cymraeg
whereas others are like:
26:35
dydy’r dyn ddim yn mynd i fy ngalw i
I realise that these are all verbs but some seem to use fi and others use i and it’s not always that fi is used to follow a vowel because the last one has i following a w.
So I am still puzzled and very interested in the answers.
This is where the mantra about not worrying is useful. Language in general has very few rules that are not broken. It is useful to take the view that with all languages, grammar rules pick up on patterns rather than tell us all what’s “right”, although they can be useful. Speaking came first, grammar came much later, and the SSiW approach is all about learning to speak useful sentences first and as vocabulary grows, we are still using micro-patterns, remembering and constantly revising these as we go.
If you look back at your examples, although they are vowels, the one ending in “w” could be followed by either.
If you choose to choose to use galw fi, then if you say it as “galoovee” - that follows quite naturally, given that we don’t always use speech in a staccato form, unless for effect, or out of necessity, where two sounds, one at the end of a word and one at the beginning of the next word, don’t flow naturally.
If you say galw i, you would naturally add a w-sound in between the two - “galoowee”. Other vowel sounds have the (required) consonant sound- it is provided by the “f” in “fi”.
Hope this all reinforces the message that it should not be a matter to worry over too much and builds your confidence in the course - you will be picking up patterns you will hear and understand in a conversation.
Good luck!
Ah, yes, good stuff - with a verb, you’ll see that consistent pattern of ending-in-a-consonant -> i, ending-in-a-vowel -> fi (there are probably exceptions, but that’s broadly what’s happening). W just makes stuff a bit slippery, because sometimes it ‘feels’ like a vowel in Welsh, and sometimes like a consonant…
It’s a very similar pattern, but not exactly the same event with a verb as with a noun - but either way, you’ll always be understood, so don’t worry about it and let your brain develop its own preferences
