Croeso! Welcome to 1 sentence in Welsh - how is it going for you?

Shwmae, Adele dw I. Dwi’n eisau siarad cymrag achos dwi’n dod o Tyddewi yn Sir Benfro, ond dwi’n byw yn Seland Newydd nawr. Cymrag oedd fy Mams iath yn gyntaf. Dwi’n eisau dysgu siarad Cymrag achos dwi’n Cari Cymru a dwi’n eisau yr iath Gymrag barhau. Ei huchelgais bywyd siarad Cymrag yn rhugl.

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Hi there !

I am a French native speaker , and I learned English at school, which I really liked, to the point of trying to read LOTR… and it was… a bit hard, but I managed to read it. And that’s why I’m coming here to learn Welsh :slight_smile: I find it damn beautiful and I really want to learn it…

Also, I’m a huge fan of Eve Goodman and if somehow I can see her one day I’d be glad to speak to her in Welsh :blush:

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Did I get this right?
English: I think I would like you to understand that I still need to practise speaking Welsh
My attempt at translation: Dwi’n meddwl bofi hoffeni y ti deall bo dal eisau fi ymarfer siarad Cymraeg

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Pretty good.

Possibly I’d move the “fi” from the first "bo"and stick a “d” on it.

Dwi’n meddwl bod hoffen i y ti deall bo dal eisau fi ymarfer siarad Cymraeg

Noswaith dda! :grinning:

I have had many fond childhood visits to beautiful Wales over many years and I’m happily engaged to my fiancee who has Welsh parentage. We’re both teachers and looking to move to Wales from south-east England to settle down and teach there!

Naturally we want to integrate with and contribute toward the community, and to play our part in fostering the growth of the Welsh language: once settled we would absolutely love (and to aim for) for our future children to speak it. Speaking the language will also show our commitment to living and working in Wales and this would be particularly important in the education sector where the language and the expectation to speak it is, I feel, growing.

As a few people on here seem to have also experienced already, Duolingo is good but it’s not complete and is lacking in something (and sometimes feels disjointed, like pronouncing “ga i” and “dw i” is very bizarre on Duolingo). I am thus utilising self-teaching resources from different sources, such as this. Ultimately myself and my fiancee will also enrol on a course such as those promoted by the Welsh Government’s Dysgu Cymraeg campaign.

Pleased to meet you all and I look forward to sharing this journey learning this wonderful ancient language with you.

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Bore da!

I have lived in Wales for my whole 25 years and I really wish now that I had paid more attention to the beautiful language. After living with my partner for the last 3 years, in a Welsh speaking household and in a very Welsh speaking area (St Asaph, Denbighshire), I feel out of the loop and it’s definitely time to knuckle down and get learning! I would love for my future children to be first language Welsh, so I definitely need to learn before then.

I have a basic understanding to around level 2 Welsh I would say, but I can’t hold a conversation. If I get anything out of 2021, I would love for Welsh to become my 2nd language.

Lovely to meet you all and I look forward to the journey :slight_smile:

Lori

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Thanks for the response. I think that in English there is often a hidden “that”, so my sentence is actually “I think that I would like…”. Which is why I used “bofi”. But I’m very happy to have your revision.
Rob

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Yes you are perfectly correct about the “that”. You will need “bod” (that) or “bod fi” shortened to “bofi” (that I"). You already have your “I” at the end of “hoffeni/hoffwn i” (I would like), so you are doing great. Bod hoffwn i for “that I would like”. :smiley:

Thats a tricky sentence. I hope my answer was right :rofl:

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I’m not so sure.

I think that if you use ‘bod’ you can’t follow it with a conjugated verb, so it would be “bo’ fi’n hoffi” which loses the conditional element. To retain that you wouldn’t use ‘bod’ but rather ‘y’ and so would say, “y hoffwn i”, although the ‘y’ often becomes indistinguishable in speech.

But I could be wrong. Again…

Ond dw’i ddim yn hoffi hoffi, so my preference would be to go with “y liciwn i”.

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Thanks. Wondered if that was better.
Yes, it should be "…y hoffwn i… as mentioned in G King’s Working Welsh App 1 B. Or, bofi’n hoffi.

I guess the original post would be perfectly understood though, so full marks for having a bash.

It would only be "bo-/bod before a phrase that will normally start with a “bod” type word, such as mae, dw, etc. :slightly_smiling_face:

Exactly. :+1:

I’m only up to Challenge 12 so I think I’ll stick to easier constructions :grinning:. But thanks to all for trying to sort this out.

Ha ha, yes definitely, and me. Anyway if you here a strange “y” anywhere when you were expecting a “bo”, you will know why now :smiley:

Hi. I no longer want to be English speaking Welsh. I hope to be Welsh speaking Welsh

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Bore da i chi gyd!

I have just completed a twelve month free course on another platform that unfortunately gave an equal emphasis on the dialects found all over Wales. I feel now that I should at least concentrate the next phase of my learning on the SW dialect.
Both my paternal and maternal families were bi-lingual but the changes in South Wales diluted their use of the language so much that it wasn’t passed down to me by my parents.
I am able to understand the written language by using what I have learned so-far but conversationally I am very slow and lacking confidence in when to use our mother tongue.
I am hoping that this style of teaching will brush away those fears and encourage me onwards.

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Hi, I have just finished the first week. I’m not Welsh myself, but my grandfather was a Jones and was born in Llanfairfechan, as was his father before him. He moved to Liverpool where he married my grandmother. Although he was a Gog, I am doing the South Wales version as that is closer to where I live in Newbury. I did in fact flip to the North version at one point to see what the differences might be, and the only thing different I could see was that dwi’n moyn was replaced with dwi’n something else which I didn’t quite catch (or I have since forgotten).

My question is: although the difference would be obvious to a native Welsh person, how easy is it for north and south to understand each other?

PS: I already learnt the words of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau so day 4 was pretty much a no brainer. :slight_smile:

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It’s pretty easy. A couple of unfamiliar words might make the opposite speaker pause for a second or two, but I work with 1st language speakers from both the North and the South and they don’t have any difficulty understanding each other at all. The vast majority of words and constructions are common to both. :slight_smile:

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Hello,

My name is Terry and I live in South Wales in a non-welsh speaking area, well an area where Welsh is not the dominant language.
My family were bi-lingual during the time of my grandparents (late 1800’s -early 1900’s)

During my education years I did not have Welsh as an option so I plumped for German and French achieving a very basic use that has grown but in a limited way due to lack of exposure to everyday situations where the languages are used.
I have spent the past eighteen months or so using a free on-line language application and my Welsh is improving but lacks the “reality” of using it as a means of daily communication.
I am intending to use a blend of “saysomethingin” and the other app to extend my use of Welsh to something that will do a little more than “getting me by”
hywl am y tro
Terry

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Well, here we go. I’m originally from Glasgow but have lived in your beautiful Wales for decades. Now 83 years and feeling it might be too late to learn but I’m going to give it my best shot.

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Ah I couldn’t work out how to write something. Prynhawn da I have been learning for a few days now. I am enjoying the experience. Diolch Amanda

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