Lessons 6.1 & 6.2

Welsh General / Questions
#1

Hi all,

I’m doing lessons 6.1 and 6.2 of the old North course and need to clarify the sounds in some of the words. Ignore my spelling as I haven’t started reading Welsh yet, i’m just using the Ssiw course.

The lessons introduce talking about the future: I will, I won’t, You will/won’t, Will you?

I know the affirmative sentences begin with the letter B… Byddai’n, but i’m not sure about the negative sentences. In one part of the lesson the speaker clarifies that the first word is pronounced with the English ‘v’ - it sounds like Vyddi ddim, but later in the lessons when questions and answers are introduced it’s not clarified and it sounds like they are using the English ‘th’ sound in ‘the’ - i.e. ddyddaf instead of vyddaf.

So, are the negative sentences in these lessons pronounced with a ‘v’ or ‘th’?

Thanks!

#2

Hi, the first sound in the negative is pronounced as the English “v” sound in these lessons. In Welsh this is written “f”.

#3

Welcome to the hardest bit of the course. It all gets easier from here. But yeah, it’s one of those cases where the start of the word gets softer - like with hen in hen gi. It’s because in super formal Welsh, there’s actually a word that goes in front of it - in more spoken Welsh, the word at the beginning is dropped, but the softening is kept. Same with the question.

#4

Ah, I see, that’s really helpful. Thanks :slight_smile: So it’s like bara mutating to fara, but the fara is pronounced ‘vara’?

#5

Sounds as though you’ve nailed it, Gavin…:smile: