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I wonder if anyone can help me with lessons 5 & 6, in which I’m utterly confused about the use of ‘ei’.
When and why it is used in some sentences / structures and not others? It seems so random to me that I’m losing confidence that what I would say is likely to be right. I could do the lessons by learning the answers but that wouldn’t help me to understand and be able to formulate my own sentences & phrases with confidence. At present I simply have no idea when to use ‘ei’ and when it is not needed.
E.g.
I went to see what he was borrowing = …beth oedd o’n ei fenthyg.
I didn’t go because I didn’t want to see it = …achos don i ddim isio ei weld o
what I mean = beth dw i’n ei feddwl
he was reading it = oedd o’n ei ddarllen o
I see what that means = wela i beth mae hynny’n ei feddwl
What does the ‘ei’ do in the above?
And why is here no ‘ei’ in the following?
I didn’t go becasue I didn’t want to see what was happening = …achos dw i ddim isio gweld beth oedd o’n digwydd.
I’m sure I must be missing something glaringly obvious to other people but explanation would be welcome.
Thanks
Pat
It seems so random to me that I’m losing confidence that what I would say is likely to be right.
It’ll never affect understanding, so whatever you say will definitely be understood…
It’s a tricky one to explain/understand, because it doesn’t match up to any standard English patterns - sometimes the Welsh wants to refer to an ‘it’, sometimes not - in English, it’s not obvious at all why you’d put an ‘it’ in for ‘what I mean’ but not for ‘what was happening’, so the only way for you to get the hang of this in Welsh is:
a) not worry about it, and say what comes to mind first, in the sure and certain confidence that you’ll be understood, and
b) internalise certain patterns through hearing them often enough (in the course, and in real life).
I know it can feel a bit frustrating, but it’s a great example of when it really helps to embrace making ‘mistakes’…
There’s a normal everyday ‘it’ situation (I didn’t go because I didn’t want to see it) . . . in which case, using it as we’ve been doing all along is comfy, right?
or
The first clause of the sentence, which you’re referring back to in the clause with the ‘it’, contains a nonspecific reference to a thing (examples: beth, rhywbeth, hynny). Welsh asks us to use ‘it’ to refer back to those when the what-word could be at the end of its own little sentence (so, he was borrowing what, I mean what, that means what . . . but not: was happening what).
