New level 3 challenge 2

Welsh General / Questions
#1

In Level 2 challenge 15
Are you sure…that’s the best thing…to do ?Translate as…
mae dyna ydy’r peth gorau…i’w wneud
But in Level 3 challenge 2.
the “ydy” is dropped.

  1. do I hear correctly? If so,why?
  2. I was expecting “bod” instead of “mae”
    Although it doesn’t sound right.
    I guess it has to do with the following “dyna”
    Are there anymore exceptions ?

.

#2

I haven’t listened to the two challenges, but I suspect that the ‘mae’ you are hearing is not a ‘mae’ but a mai (it would be ‘taw’ in the south), meaning that . It’s because you are going on to say ‘the best thing’, which makes it an emphatic sentence. It would be the same if you were going on to say the tallest, highest, worst, longest…

Emphatic sentences don’t start with a verb, so no ‘mae’ at the start of the sentence. When you put something before the sentence such as ‘I think that…, I hope that, I’m sure that,’ then the mai links the two together. Everyone struggles with this in formal classes. So, it’s the rule, not the exception. :smiley:

The way I try to remember it is to think about a line from a Meinir Gwilym song Dim Dima Goch:

Mae pawb yn gwybod mai ‘wine gums’ ydy’r gorau.

Perhaps she’ll sing it at the SSiW party.

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#3

Just because people tend to leave stuff out (in any language, not just Welsh)… :slight_smile:

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