Hello, in my notes from my Welsh lesson I’ve written “Gyrrais i i Gaerdydd dydd Sul”
… and it was meant to mean “I drove to Cardiff on Sunday”
But can there really be an “I” then another “I”?? I thought two vowels weren’t meant to run together like that. Did I write it down wrong?
Thank you!
Sometimes weird things happen when vowels run into another, but here there is a perfectly good reason for both "i"s to be there, as one is the pronoun “I”, the other is the preposition “to”:
Es i i Gaerdydd ddoe – I went to Cardiff yesterday
And usually in these scenarios you will actually hear people enunciate two i’s with a slight pause between them.
Thank you so much - that was a very kind of you. So it’s only sometimes that there is a change to stop two vowels being together, like when Y changes to YR?
Well, y becoming yr in front of vowels is one rule, and there are fixed things like i + ei → i’w, but other than that, there is no rule specifically disallowing a vowel following a vowel. So if there is no rule how to deal with a specific vowel/vowel combination, you just leave it as it is:
Ydy o o ddifri? – Is he serious?
Wyt ti’n bwyta afalau? – Do you eat apples?
Thank you so much - you’re amazing! Diolch yn fawr!