I’m still getting confused with ireggular verbs.
Specifically, why I would use the ireggular over the regular. E.g when referring to he/she in the past, when should I use ‘aeth’ over ‘wedi mynd’?
They are two different tenses.
Aeth = Went [Past]
wedi mynd= Has gone [perfect]
I would use wedi mynd where the someone or something has left a place that is still currently occupied by myself or the thing being talked about and aeth, otherwise
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Y_Ddraig_Las has answered your question.
However, a word on terminology:
It’s not that “aeth” is an irregular form of the verb. The verb itself is irregular.
Like most European languages, Welsh has irregular verbs, although not very many of them, and “mynd” (the dictionary form) happens to be one of them.
With regular verbs, when forming the simple past tense (“I heard”, “I spoke”, “I bought”), what happens is that an appropriate ending is added to the stem of the dictionary form of the verb.
This form of the verb is sometimes known as a “short form” (“short” because it does not make use of an auxiliary verb, which is another way of forming the simple past).
However, with the small number of irregular verbs (of which “mynd” happens to be one), they don’t tack on endings to the stem, although they do - sort of - still have endings, which conform to a pattern which you can recognise when you get used to them.
So for “I went”, I could use the “long form”:
“nes i fynd”
or I could use the “short form”:
“es i”
Note that the short form looks remarkably like the ending of “nes”.
That’s because “nes” is actually the short form of “gwneud” in the simple past
(so it literally means “I did go”).
So these “irregular” verbs are kind of regular in their irregularity, if you see what I mean.
In other words, they have a pattern.
As there are so few of them, it’s worth taking some time to learn them in their own right, because they will come up a lot.
Anyway, “aeth” happens to be the “3rd person” (he, she or it) of the short form of “mynd”, whose first person (“I”) happens to be “es”.
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Thanks both. That’s a big help. I hadn’t distinguished between gone and went in my thoughts. And the terminology help is very much appreciated.
So, as I understand it, although ‘es’ isn’t an ancillary verb, it’s derived from Gwneud. So are the short forms aeth and aethon also from Gwneud or some other verb?
Actually ‘es’ is the 1st person singular short form of “mynd”: it means “I went”. “Aeth hi” = “she went” and “aethon ni” = “we went”, both again from “mynd”.
I think that Mike is comparing the short-version past tense patterns of “gwneud” and “mynd”. “I did” = “nes i” (from “Gwneud”) and “I went” = “es i” (from “Mynd”). You also have “naeth/aeth hi” (“she did/went”) and “naethon/aethon ni” (“we did/went”) and the same for the other parts of the two verbs.
It works out as you start using them - go along with it and it’ll be just fine! Good luck!
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Others have given you the proper answers, Nadip, so i just want to put your mind at rest a bit on the importance of the difference.
He has gone to the shop (ma’ fe wedi mynd i’r siop)
He went to the shop (aeth e i’r siop)
But, if you say
He has gone to the shop last night (ma’ fe wedi mynd i’r siop neithiwr), it sounds a bit unconfortable, but then you’re speaking a second language with very litel experience - there will be plenty of other things that sound a bit uncomfortable, but no-one will misunderstand, and few will even notice.
He went to the shop already (Aeth i i’r siop yn barod) is the same. Not grammaticaly perfect, but difficult to misunderstand. I guess it could mean “he went to the shop in a state of readiness”, but the context will make it clear which you mean.
In other words, really really don’t worry about this in real life, although it’s important that you learn the difference if you want to for the purposes of knowing why it;s one or the other. But real life is not an exam. Or at least, if it is an exam, you get your marks for being understood, not for getting the grammar right.
So enjoy learning the rules by all means, and even enjoy thinking “D**n, that was the wrong one, I think,” in the middle of sentences.
But concentrate on getting experience of using the phrases, right or wrong, and you’ll soon find that the correct one comes automatically because it just sounds right.
If you’re getting confused by something, that means that you are moving through the course, which is all you need to do. So congratulations, and keep on going!
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As @Baruch has correctly explained, I was just comparing the short form of the simple past, 1st person, of mynd, which is “es i” with the same form of “gwneud”, which is “nes i”.
They are independent and different verbs, and both are irregular, but follow the same pattern.
In addition though, and weirdly wonderful, or wonderfully weird, as so much of Welsh is 
the short form of mynd is very minimalist. It’s just an ending! Well, that’s how I think of it, anyway.
( Linguists / grammaticists, especially of the old school, might raise an eyebrow, or even catch their breath at that, but we can safely ignore them).
We note that (as you yourself noted), “go” in English is also irregular (go, went, been).
IIRC, it’s also irregular in French & German.
“Come” is also irregular in English, German, and I think also in French. Also in Welsh.
I assume that the reason these verbs are often irregular in many languages (as is the verb “to be”) is that they are simply so common, they have kind of taken on a life of their own, so, in a way, they don’t need to be regular.
Rather than try to develop that line of thought, I went a googling (as so often), and found this:
Not a complete answer; just a collection of people’s thoughts really.
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