Level 2 challenge 1 - tricky bit in middle

I’m feeling really chuffed that I have now completed both Level 1 and Course 1, and just started Level 2, challenge 1.

However, there is a bit in the middle (about 13.33 - 14.00) where I can’t properly hear or understand the Welsh. I don’t recognise the pattern and am pretty sure it hasn’t been introduced yet. I can understand that Level 2 is meant to be more challenging than Level 1, but I liked the way Level 1 always introduced any new words or patterns with their meanings. Please can anyone shine light on this? Thanks.

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Hi Sally - sorry, I’ve been owing you an email on this, I know - just always playing catch up…:wink:

Can you catch anything in the phrase in question? Is it just one phrase, or several in a row? :slight_smile:

I have tried to find the bit which might trip you up, but nothing jumped out at me. Are you doing the northern or the southern lessons? And just to be clear, you are on level 2, not course 2, right?
At any rate, what is the english sentence/structure which you are supposed to say in Welsh?

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Thank you for looking into this Hendrik - the English for this tricky bit (in Level 2 Northern, Challenge 1, about 13.33) is ‘The oldest told me that you needed something’. The Welsh starts with one bit I didn’t recognise, then I think it’s ‘yr hynaf wrth… something’ then another bit I didn’t get, then ‘ti angen rhywbeth’. A friend in Cacen (that’s our little Sussex SSiW group) thinks the first bit could be ‘dwedodd’, which she says is the past tense of ‘dwaed’. So far in Level 1, I’ve only learnt ‘wnes i/wnes ti’ for past tense. So, I’m wondering whether just adding ‘odd’ to a verb always puts it in the past tense? I bet it’s not that simple!

Also, I’ve got used to the idea that adjectives usually come after nouns in Welsh, but it now came as a bit of a surprise to find that whole phrases are not in the same order as in English, e.g. ‘ai eich plant chi ydi reina?’ I’d like to find a bit more explanation on this from somewhere.

Finally (nearly there!) when I started Level 2 I looked for a Course Guide or Vocabulary Guide similar to that for Level 1, and found ‘Guide to the Intermediate Lessons (North)’ but this seems to relate to something else. Has anyone found a Guide for Level 2? (Am I right in assuming Level 2 is the newer version, not Course 2?)

Any ideas welcome!
Thanks, Sally

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It is (almost) that simple. This is an alternative means of forming the simple past tense. This is usually known as the “short form”, as opposed to using another verb (“wnes” “wnest” “wnaeth” - past tense of “gwneud”) along with the main verb.

With “short form”, you don’t use another verb. You add an ending to the stem of the verb.

-odd is the ending for the he, she, it person of the verb. (You’ll discover other endings later).

There is a slight trickiness in finding out what the stem of the verb is, because sometimes it’s a bit different from the dictionary form of the verb. In many cases though, it’s fairly obvious.

There are also a few irregular verbs - mynd, dod, cael, gwneud, and of course “bod” is a law unto itself - which do things slightly differently, but most verbs seem to be quite well behaved.

This will all become quite clear a bit later, I’m sure.

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One of the main instances where this happens is when you want to put emphasis on a part of the sentence. In English we tend to just change the intonation whereas in Welsh the emphasised bit gets put at the front.

It’s almost that simple, but not quite! -odd is indeed a past-tense ending for all verbs except the irregular ones (gwneud is an irregular) but only for he/she/it or named subjects …
So - dwedodd fo / hi / yr hynaf (he / she / the oldest said)
but I, you (singular), we, you (plural) and they will have different endings which you’ll come across as you progress.

haha - “almost that simple” … even when cross-posting, great minds think alike Mike! :slight_smile:

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That would probably be ‘Ddudodd yr hynaf wrtha i bo ti angen rhywbeth’ - ‘ddudodd’ is first introduced in Level 1, Challenge 14, so it’s just slipped past your radar, rather than being introduced from scratch… :slight_smile:

‘Ai eich plant chi ydi rheina?’ is an example of emphasis in Welsh sentence structure - I’d recommend one of Gareth King’s grammar books for following up on this.

Yes, Level 2 is the newer version - we kind of went away from lesson guides once we had the ‘vocab list’ addition on the download pages - have you seen those? It should say ‘Vocab list’ just underneath where it says ‘Download this lesson’, just underneath the big play button… :slight_smile:

The complete welsh phrase is
Dwedodd yr hynaf wrtha fi bod ti angen rhywbeth.
Dwedodd is in fact the past tense of dweud- to say, and if memory serves correctly that was introduced in level 1, somewhere in the neighbourhood of challenge 10 to 13.

The thing with the word order is this: if you want to emphasize something in Welsh, put it at the beginning, so “Are those your children?” becomes “your children are those?”

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@Sally and just to clear up one possible source of confusion, “ddudodd” is a (fairly informal) northern variant, while “dwedodd” is (I think) a more formal version and also (I think) what they happen to use in the south (or “dywedodd”).

wrtha fi and wrtha i are (I think) interchangeable, but I think that Iestyn favours “fi”.

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Thanks Aran, but I’ve re-played Northern Level 1 Ch 14 and can’t find ‘ddudodd’ - maybe I’m looking at a different version. Anyway, on taking up your suggestion of running it past the forum I’ve had some very helpful replies. So, onwards and upwards (and occasionally sideways…)

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Thank you Mike for both your replies - they certainly shed useful light on the topic. My Cacen friend who thought it was ‘dwedodd’ is indeed learning South Welsh.

Thank you Hendrik for the complete written version of the bit I found tricky. Are you learning South Welsh?

Thank you Siaron - all very helpful.

Hmmm… that might need double-checking… I’ve just played northern Level 1 Challenge 14, and it’s where it should be at 17.38 - if you’re not hearing ‘ddudodd hi’ being introduced at that point, I’m concerned - worst case scenario, if you’ve done the old Course 1, jumping to Level 2 is going to be a world of pain…!

I think I must have done a different (older?) version of Level 1. At 17.38 on mine they’re saying ‘he will not sing often’. I also did Course 1 - does having done both these equip me for Level 2?

There are 3 “Courses” which build on one another, and there are 3 “Levels”, also building on one another, but as a whole they are seperate. The Levels are the newer material, but the older Courses are kept around as a resource. (There is no “older” version of the Levels.)
Now, what you quote is in fact from Course 1 (Lesson 14 presumably), so going from Course 1 to Level 2 will definitely not be the easiest thing to do. If you want to stick with the newer material, best go back a bit (into Level 1), but you probably don’t have to start with Challenge 1.
And yes, I am learning the South version (mostly, with glimpses over to the other side :wink: )

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That’s from Course 1. Can you confirm that when you say you’ve done Course 1 and Level 1, you’ve actually done 50 separate different lessons?