A question on the use of BOD versus NA:
Example: "Your mother said THAT I shouldn’t read too much’’
This is an example from Level 2 - Lesson 5.
Whenever I translate ‘‘THAT’’ I am tempted to use ‘‘BOD’’
If it is a negative phrase beginning with ‘‘THAT’’ do I use ‘‘NA’’ instead of ‘‘BOD’’ ??
Justin
Not sure what the lesson says, is it something like: dywedodd fy mam na ddylwn i ddarllen gormod?
“Bod” and “that” are an uneasy mapping, and with “should”, “that” is not mapped to “bod” at all - often it is “y” or nothing. My mother said that I should read that book - dywedodd fy mam dylwn i ddarllen y llyfr 'na
Understand where you’re coming from. My first instinct was to use bod in such patterns also. No risk of being misunderstood but it would be incorrect as Louis has said. The plot thickens, however, in L2 Challenge 15. I’d just got comfortable using “na dylwn i …” when I’m sure I heard “na ddylwn i ddim…”. Is this just a Gog thing or a common alternative pattern?
I’ve always found this area interesting, but rather confusing.
In Gareth King’s Modern Welsh: a Comprehensive Grammar (I have the old 1993 edition), section 488, 489 and 490 talks about this sort of thing.
In 488, he offers 2 alternatives, one with “bod” (and its variations) and one with “nad ydy…”
e.g. fod e … ddim OR nad ydy e … (ddim optional).
In 490, there are these examples (among others):
Gobeithio na bleidleisiodd e yn erbyn
I hope (that) he didn’t vote against
Wedodd Geraint nad oedd ei rieni gartre (Ddydd Sadwrn diwetha)
Geraint said (that) his parents weren’t home (last Saturday)
(so it’s “nad” before vowels, otherwise “na”). (and the brackets indicate (to me) that the “na(d)” isn’t really a direct translation of “that” (which is just understood). But who knows… 
)
I think this edition of GK’s grammar book is actually in Google books, so if you can find it, it might be worth a look.
I’m pretty certain I’d always say ‘na ddylwn’… 
And of course the thing to remember is that neither “bod” nor “na(d)” actually mean “that”. It’s just the English translation that sometimes needs the word.
Fantastic Louis - thank you. That has cleared up one mystery for me.
Justin
Aran - Challenge 15 22:55 “…na ddylwn i ddim cymred gormod o risg”. I’ll take this to be a slip of the tongue and work with your preferred version. I assume that it doesn’t matter much anyway. Don’t know whether to be pleased about increasing sensitivity to grammar when listening or to despair at descending into geekiness. Sorry Mike, but I can’t share your enthusiasm. I may, however, consider a muted celebratory welshcake (unbuttered).
Aha - I think we have confused each other…
You posted originally that you were used to ‘na dylwn i’ - I thought you were deliberately commenting on the d/dd mutation! So I was confirming that I would always mutate in that situation - as na ddylwn i, or as na ddylwn i ddim - the difference between those verges on the invisible, maybe a little bit of an emphasis shift - but use whichever comes first…
This helps a lot, too. Many thanks.
My neurons refuse to totally forget their English language bias - so to keep things simple and manageable when I see a phrase with ‘‘THAT’’ I will go to my Welsh tool-box and pull out ‘‘BOD’’. Then just before using it I’ll look to see if the phrase following ‘‘THAT’’ is in the negative - in which case while no-one is looking I’ll sneak ''BOD" back in the tool-box and pull out ‘‘NA’’.
And similarly if the phrase following ‘‘THAT’’ contains ‘‘SHOULD’’
All this, of course’’ happens in the blink of an eye and hopefully the voice muscles will take-over before I start thinking and have a chance to mess things up.
Justin
Believe it or not, one day they will!
I stumbled on this topic as I was trying to get my head round these differences around lesson 23, Level one.
I think I’ve grasped that na is used before negatives (like I shouldn’t and she doesn’t like.) But then I noticed what sounds like just ‘y’ being used before ‘licion i’ and ’ wela i '. Any tips as to when to expect that to happen?
Also, I noticed mae gen i becoming bod gen i, which I guess makes sense, but is another this to try and embed in those neurons!!
The way I think of it - bod comes before “normal” forms of verbs - bod hi’n dweud - that she is saying
The y comes before short forms - y liciwn i, y wela i
Mae, dw i, etc. Change to bod in the middle of the sentence. So “dw i’n meddwl bod gen i foron” i think that I have a carrot.
Does that help at all?!
a) what Anthony said or b) nah, just roll with it and don’t worry too much…
Thank you, both! Anthony, it always seems to be you answering my silly questions. Either you have infinite patience or you have a mind like mine that always has to try and understand the ‘rules’!
Haha, do I?! I’ve been lucky enough to have had a lot of people to answer my questions and they’ve been really good at explaining the rules without completely confusing me. So hopefully, hopefully, I can do the same