Pa vs beth

Shwmae! So going well with my welsh at the moment, attempting to use it as much as possible when speaking to my uni mates (most of them are fluent speakers which is definitely a benifit for a learner aha) I tried asking them this question but they found it hard to explain to me in english so thought I’d come on here.

We were planning to go to the pub, so I asked, beth amser, as in what time. They corrected me and said that it should be pa amser as beth amser means more like, WHAT! Time. I’m not really sure what they said to be honest. But yeah, what’s the difference and when would I use pa instead of beth

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Well ‘pa’ is more of a ‘which’ that a ‘what’, but they both get used for phrases that have a ‘what’ in English. The basic difference is, ‘pa’ is used before nouns and ‘beth’ is used before words that are not nouns.
e.g.

Pa amser; Pa un; Pa ffordd = what time; which one; what/which way

Beth oedd; beth yw/ydy; beth am; = what was; what is; what about

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