Hi, I’ve just done Course 1 Lesson 3 (so I’m very new to Welsh), and I’m a little confused about soft mutations of words after “i” or “ei”. I know the word immediately after the preposition or possessive is mutated, but what about words after that?
What I mean is, is it correct to translate “I’m going to try to know” to:
“Dw i’n mynd i drio wybod”
or:
“Dw i’n mynd i drio gwybod”?
If the first, are the words mutated until the end of the sentence? They might have covered an example similar to this in the lesson, but my ears weren’t good enough to pick up which is which.
Hi Gareth, welcome to the forum! From my experience, it’s just the word immediately after that mutates. I don’t believe I’ve come across any examples that are different, although there may well be exceptions.
As Karla says, it is just the word after the word/article that causes the mutation, that mutates. There are many others, as you will find out through the course. But at this stage, don’t worry about them too much. Just know that they’re there, and practice them when you know they’re there, and they will all come to you naturally!
Enjoy the rest of the course!
@gareth_j_myers : You might be interested to know that mutations can be effectively “blocked” by “dim” (not) (and maybe other words). e.g. using the simple past (which you may not have done yet, but you will soon):
“Nes i brynu” - “I bought”
“Ness i ddim prynu” - “I didn’t buy”.
In the 2nd example, “dim” takes the mutation, and becomes “ddim”, but “prynu” is unmutated.
A very warm welcome to the forum, Gaz! It’s always a great sign when someone gets involved on the forum right at the beginning - because the help you’ll get here from other learners, as well as from confident speakers, will definitely get you to exactly where you want to be
Okay, I think I’ve got a new one for you all here. I just learned the charming Welsh word for butterfly - pili-pala - from the new Duolingo Welsh course. So my question is, when a compound word like this gets softened, do both parts get softened or just the first part? Somehow bili-bala sounds better to me than bili-pala.
