I need help understanding this one

I how can bod mean “that” but wedi bod means “been”. Its confusing me. Is there a simple way to understand it.

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Because bod doesn’t mean that…, it means that…is/are….

Similarly, wedi bod doesn’t mean been , it means have/has been.

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Bod is the verb “to be” or “being” it means “that” when it’s in the middle of a sentence.
There are a few other versions of “bod”:
Mae hi/fo
Dw i
Dach chi (dych chi)
Dan ni (dyn ni)
Maen nhw
When these appear in the middle of a sentence they become “bod”.
So compare two sentences:
Mae o wedi bod yn sal- he has been ill
Dw i’n meddwl fod o wedi bod yn sal
(i think that he has been ill)
Does that make sense?

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It’s one of those times when you just have to let go of the idea that there is a word for word translation from one language to another and accept that they have a completely different grammatical structure.

As others have said, bod is one of the MANY forms of the verb ‘to be’ in Welsh. And Welsh uses different forms of ‘to be’ in places where English would use the word that.

It kind of starts to make more sense as you encounter different versions of sentences with ‘that’ in English, which translate in different ways in Welsh. (I won’t confuse you by giving examples here, but they’re coming!)

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This!

But maybe a word-for-word version will show (a) how it can do both jobs and (b) why the course doesn’t go for a word-for-word version. If we take bod as ‘to be’ or ‘being’ (“I want to be an astronaut” and “I like being an astronaut” would both use bod) then we get:

Dw i’n meddwl bod hi’n sâl = I’m thinking being she ill (I think that she’s ill)
and
Mae hi wedi bod yn sâl = She is after being ill (She’s been ill)

Years ago King Alfred the Great, with the help of the Welsh monk Asser, personally translated from Latin into Old English some of the works he wanted to make available in translation. In the introduction to one of them he famously explains that he has sometimes translated word for word, and sometimes meaning for meaning, in order to make it as understandable as possible. Word for word from Welsh into English is often going to make us sound like Yoda: although I hope it might help show how bod does both jobs, we’re mostly better off with meaning for meaning :slight_smile:

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thankyou…but still a bit confusing:thinking:

Don’t worry too much about it, it’s just a difference between the languages. There are many forms of “that” in Welsh. It’s a very versatile word in English.