Differences in SSIW course to other Welsh I have been taught

Welsh
#1

Just trying to sort out some very basic things as a complete novice .

  1. In early challenges when we sat Ma esisau fi - cannot work out why it should not be 'Ma eisiau gyda vi ( or with gyda shortened to Di ? ).
  2. In somewhere around minute 5 to 7 of challenge 4 - the speakers use i in front of infinitives at the end of sentences - can’t remember which ones but something like ‘…I siarad’ where I have always thought the use of the infinitive does not require the use of ‘i’.
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#2

Hello John and welcome to the forum.
I can’t help with the first question, I’m tagging @Iestyn or @Deborah-SSi, who can help you here.
With the second question: was the sentence something like:" I have something to learn" or " I have more to say" or similar? In these sentences the English “to” is not for the infinitiv, but it has more the meaning of “in order to” and here you would need the Welsh “i”.
I hope I could help you a bit. Please ask again, if my assumption was wrong.

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#3

Hi John,

Eisiau, as need, uses the ‘i’ construct for actions (in round terms) - similar to rhaid i fi.

So ‘mae eisiau i fi …’

…’there is a want/need for me to’…do something eg fynd gartref (go home)

If you need a thing eg. Milk it would use ‘ar’ instead:

So mae eisiau llaeth arna I - I need milk.

Mae llaeth gyda fi or (gyda fi llaeth) - I have milk.

Rich :slight_smile:

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#4

Diolch Brigitte and Rich for answering already: I’ll just add to your good answers.

Mae eisiau i fi just is, I’m afraid. As Rich says it’s like ‘mae’n rhaid i fi’ I have to. It’s always good to have a model to apply to other things, i know, but in this case, it just is!

The ‘i’ that sounds like an infinitive could be as Brigitte or Rich say. There’s a posibility that it’s the confusing little i that comes after moving words like mynd. I’m going to speak is Dwi’n mynd i siarad, but the i here isn’t attached to the siarad as an infinitive, it come with the mynd.

Would you like to give an example, and we’ll try to explain it better!

And well done on getting to challenge 4, obviously in fine enough fettle to start picking up these subtle little things - that’s a pretty good sign that you’re ‘getting it’! Da iawn.

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