Can anyone help? In lesson 3 of course 1 cymryd was introduced as ‘take’ but I’ve just done lesson 21 and mynd a is also ‘to take’ Can you tell me what the difference is?
Can’t remember the exact context but i would have thought that cymryd was to take a thing like - take a book and mynd a is to take a route - take the road to Aberystwyth.
They use mynd a for taking the dog for a walk and cymryd for taking bread/milk etc. I was wondering if cymryd is for things and mynd a for people and animals? But I may be completely wrong!
I believe…
I’d use ‘cymryd’ when you are taking something, as in the act of removing something from somewhere.
I’d use ‘mynd a’ when you can substitute it with ‘go with’, like “I will go to the party with beer”
[* Disclaimer: I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about :D]
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What? You too?
Ap Geuriaduron seems to have no distinction between the two, with both being translated just as ‘take’, so it could well be I’m reading difference where there is none.
Wondersheep’s answer seems about right to me - “go with the dog for a walk”; “go to the party with beer” and so on, where “go with cheese” makes no sense.
The two have different meanings for take -
Mynd â = take and implies movement - mynd â ci am dro = take the dog for a walk - mynd â rhywun at y meddyg = take someone to the doctor
Cymryd = take and implies taking something such as a tablet or a book from a shelf
Erm… discounting the last sentence, this is what is called a “correct answer”, isn’t it?
“Mynd a” is used for “take with you” as it were.
You “cymryd” a book from a shelf, or an apple from a bowl, but “mynd a” a book to the library, or an apple to the kitchen.
English uses “take” to cover the two meanings of “take a book from a shelf” and also “take it with you to the library”, Welsh makes a distinction.
Well, as English does not make the distinction, they both can be translated with the English word “take”, but your first answer looks to me to be correct 
[edit- oh, and sure, no one is going to misunderstand you if you use the ‘wrong’ one, and don’t be thrown if first language speakers don’t observe the difference one hundred per cent of the time, but still, very good answer from Netmouse in my view )
Thank you to all of you. Thanks a great help.
Yes to all the good answers in here - the key issue is that this one of those lovely mis-matches between languages, where one of them identifies some subtle differences that the other ignores.
So in Welsh ‘mynd â’ and ‘cymryd’ are two slightly different actions that are both covered in English by the word ‘take’ - the net result is that an English speaker is not naturally aware of the slight difference, while to a Welsh speaker it seems obvious.
You can always try to scrutinise the difference to get a handle on when to use which of them, but in the long run it’s really exposure to the language that will make it happen naturally for you - at some point, you’ll have been asked ‘wyt ti’n cymryd siwgwr yn dy goffi?’ often enough for you never even to think of asking someone else ‘wyt ti’n mynd â siwgwr yn dy goffi?’.
And if you do hiccup in the meantime, after someone’s finished laughing the first time you say ‘wyt ti’n mynd â siwgwr yn dy goffi?’, you’ll be extremely likely to remember it for the rest of your life…
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thanks I thought there would be an obviously answer! I just couldn’t see it. I suppose its the same in a lot of languages, German uses different cases to differentiate verbs and verbs with movement. Oh I noticed something else today in lesson 23. When using wrthaf i. Aran says what sounds to me like wrth i and Catrin says wrthaf i. Am I mishearing or is there a difference because of gender?
Nope, Catrin’s just being that smidgeon more formal, which she tends to do in front of a microphone… 
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I think the same is probably true in other languages too. In Malaysia, if someone offered you a lift in their car, they might say “I’ll send you to the airport.” This looks much the same as “mynd a ci am dro” and probably derives from the Chinese (or possibly Malay) form of expression.
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I’d say you’re spot on. In Dutch, there is meenemen (mynd a) and nemen (cymryd). I wouldn’t be surprised if this distinction existed in most languages.
In Dutch, there is meenemen (mynd a) and nemen (cymryd). I wouldn’t be surprised if this distinction existed in most languages.
Looks close to German mitnehmen and nehmen.
On the subject of languages not quite mapping (therefore leading to translation traps), I always get confused when German seems to prefer “come” (kommen) in situations where I would say to “go” (“gehen”), in English. I can’t think of an example off the top of my head, but I wonder if Dutch does the same here as well.
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Hmmm, can’t think of any off the top of my head, lemme think about that
Well (for German), cheating and using dict.cc, I find:
to go to the dogs [coll.] unter die Räder kommen [ugs.]
Although, to be fair, there is also:
He has gone to the dogs. [coll.] Er ist vor die Hunde gegangen. [ugs.]
which is the same way around as English.
although:
to go to the bad auf die schiefe Bahn kommen
is different again.
Oh, here’s a more general one:
to go to [prison, hospital] ins … kommen
So English speakers go to prison, while German speakers come to prison. (apparently). In English, to say the latter, you’d have to already be there yourself. 
“Bekommen” (to get or receive) is another language trap in German. There’s the old joke about the indignant German in a London restaurant shouting out to the waiter “I am here since twenty minutes: when do I become a sausage?”
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Ok, so this is an old thread, but I didn’t want to start another as there is a lot of great info in here! If I was to say something like “it takes me back…” as in it reminds you of something, would that be the cymryd version, or the mynd a?
Diolch!