Naeth o ddim but doedd hi ddim?

Welsh
#1

Could I just check something, please?

In the last tranche of Northern Level 2 (Challenges 22-ish onwards), we get ‘naeth o ddim’ and ‘doedd hi ddim’ for he and she didn’t.

I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking that the gender was the differentiating factor – because we never get ‘naeth hi ddim’ or ‘doedd o ddim’, but that’s probably wrong, isn’t it?

It finally occurred to me: is this actually an ‘nes i ddim / d’o’n i ddim’ (perfective aspect vs imperfective aspect) thing, and the apparent gender difference is simply that the examples chosen used different follow-on verbs?

Thanks!

#2

Yes, that’s exactly the case - see, although it took time to do so, your brain processed that subconsciously, and that’s exactly the way this method works! :smiley:

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#3

Thanks!

Actually, I see this example of one of the (rare!) lapses in the method, which in general I think is excellent. Normally, you’re led to the correct version through a gradual whittling down of wrong ‘guesses’. That doesn’t happen here.

There are more than ten (at a rough guess) examples of ‘naeth’ and ‘doedd’ each, and it really doesn’t help to have all of the first using the masculine and all of the second the feminine. It would only have taken a couple of examples the other way round and the listener is given a clue that it’s not a gender thing (which is the most obvious red herring). I had to come on here to verify the guess – there’s no way of telling that it was correct in the content itself (not in L2 at least, as far as I remember).

That’s not really providing the feedback the subconscious needs, it’s introducing guessing games without giving the learner the information to correct the misunderstanding, isn’t it?

Again, I don’t see this as invalidating the entire method, just that this particular confusion is unnecessary and could be avoided with a simple tweak. It’s not a big deal.

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#4

That’s good to know, diolch. It wouldn’t have been planned that way, but definitely would be good to look into. I’ll make a note of it.

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#5

Thanks, Deborah!

As I said, I find the course excellent, and this was only a very minor glitch (assuming I didn’t actually miss a counter-example…) – I can imagine how difficult it must have been to have taken every single factor into account when constructing the sentences…

Thanks again!

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