Dw i newydd ddechrau dysgu Gymraeg. Dw i wedi bod yn dysgu am dau wythnos. (I have just started learning Welsh. I have been learning for two weeks)
Dw i wedi cwestiwn? (I have a question?)
I’ve been trying out my Welsh on a couple of Welsh speaking friends in the South Wales area (Rhondda Valleys/Pontypridd sort of area) and I’m generally using ‘Dw i’…
Going well however I keep hitting a stumbling block with one particular friend who is absolutely convinced that I should not be using ‘Dw i’ and should instead be using ‘Rwyn’ and he either says I’m going totally wrong or I’m speaking like ‘a Northerner’
What I really want to know is… is my friend just being difficult or does he have a point?
I’m only up to Challenge 24 in Course 1 so I’m not sure if it’s just something that I haven’t run into yet.
Haia Nicky. Honestly, I think your friend is just being difficult. I know lots of southerners who use ‘dwi’. It’s certainly not incorrect. Welsh is quite an idiosyncratic language because there are so many different ways to say the same thing, so just because one person prefers one form does not in any way mean that another is wrong. Just keep doing what you’re doing.
Both are ok as far as I know, depending on how you want to shorten it. It will generally end up sounding like “Dween” or “Ween”, but sometimes the 'n is left off as was the case in your introduction.
Iestyn mentions in Lesson 0 of Course 2 that Dw i is not common amongst native speakers in the South. Rwy, Wy, Wi are more common forms. But use what you like. if your friend is really a friend, he’ll get over it.
If you’re following the new levels, chances are you won’t come across this lesson at all (just yet), as Lesson 0 is in fact in the old course. However, I actually don’t see any reason why you can’t have a listen to this lesson once you have completed Level 1 before starting Level 2, as it will give you at least a small insight into some of the significant dialectual differences we have in the south. The only thing is, you won’t really get to practice them in the new levels as they haven’t been included into the new course as of yet, whereas old course 2 implements their use throughout the rest of courses 2 and 3.
If anything, your friend may just be helping you to sound more like a local by suggesting you use Rwyn instead of Dw i’n, but use whichever you feel most comfortable with, as neither are wrong!
Croeso @Nicky You are doing very, very well and progressing very quickly! You caused me to learn something! My Welsh has come from both north (gogledd) and south (de) and I get them confused, When I saw your header, I thought, “Oh, north v south again!” Yes, but I’d got them backwards! Because Dafydd Iwan sings, “Ry’n ni yma o hyd!” I was convinced ‘R’ was gog and ‘D’ was de!!
NB @aran actually prefers English on the Forum so that beginners are not put off by a sea of Cymraeg and so that everyone can understand when most have limited reading and little idea how to spell yn Gymraeg! If you want to practice typing in Welsh, he would like translations in English in brackets, I think, except for things that everybody knows like Croeso and Hwyl etc…
Is that really what he sings? I always hear it as “Y’n ni yma o hyd” but that’s because that’s what I’ve learnt to say from SSiW, so a case of hearing what I expect to hear, and I’m sure a lot of people do that.
Actually - with dw i’n - I used that in writing Welsh when I first started and I wrote it in an email to a first language speaker, who for ages after that referred to me as “the lady who says dwi”. I ignored him and carried on regardless and he’s come down from his high horse now.
If you asked my kids they would tell you I’m renowned for singing what I THINK the lyrics are rather than what they really are. This is a very small difference, believe me
I know, I know!! It didn’t bother me, it just made me think “Ri” was gog!!
I only looked the lyrics up so I could learn it more easily - in the days when had enough breath to sing, not that I could ever sing!
My terrible singing was the entire point of one sketch we did in the Village Review one year!
I more often than not get lyrics wrong, even in English. For years, I was convinced that Jimmy Hendrix was singing: “Scuse me, while I kiss this guy”. That would have been quite daring in 1967, swinging sixties or not.