Progress made

Had my first listen of level one lesson 24 today :slight_smile: There is definitely some new stuff in it that I’ve not encountered before but I have an issue I just do not seem to be able to get my head round the dwedov orthay (sorry for spelling) pattern. I have gone to the lesson it’s introduced so many times, had a gap in my learning gone back repeated moved onto to later lessons and I still can’t get it. I start to think I have it then something alters word order or at least position in sentence and I’m thrown again. Any advice?

dwedodd is basically said in third person and wrth is sort of a cross between on and to depending on context. A lot of words like i and wrth change a little based on who it’s referring to (with hi, for example, i becomes iddi and wrth becomes wrthi) - so wrth when used for oneself becomes wrtha, and is usually (in the south at least) followed with i, becoming wrtha i, or “earth eye”.

It’s commonly used as dwedodd e rhwybeth rhwybeth rhwybeth (said he blah blah blah), dwedodd hi rhwybeth rhwybeth rhwybeth (said she blah blah blah) and rhwyun pwy dwedodd rhwybeth rhwybeth rhwybeth (someone who said blah blah blah). Approximately. I hope that makes it easier to understand.

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Great answer from Hector. I think this is one of those things where SSIW beats grammatical learning and books etc. Once your mind embraces the construction said mam to/with me that I needed to bla bla bla, with dwedodd mam wrtha I then you’ll be freewheeling, but it’s not a natual English style construction for sure.

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Not a usual English construction to be sure, but not totally unknown in poetic type contexts, or perhaps in expressions such as “Come hell or high water (I’ll learn Manx in 7 hours…)…” or
“Be that as it may, (you have to ask whether vodka is the best linguistic lubricant)…” :slight_smile:

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Yep - I always thought Welsh was more poetic - gwlad beirdd a chantorion. I had heard that VSO constructions in English are used widely in poetry and songs and it does change the sound and flow quite nicely doesn’t it.

Talk of Vodka, made me think of Father Jack in Father Ted for some reason. His speech was V V V - drink, drink drink.

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I am halfway through Level 2, and I found dwedodd one of the hardest things to learn. Combining it with “my father” made me give up on Level 1 and go back to Course 1 (which I had bailed out of after the future tense sent me into a tailspin.). But now that I’m back in the Levels, dwedodd is a breeze. It all sinks in if you just keep going. I generally make a rule not to listen to a lesson more than 3 times in a row. If I’m still going nuts, I switch from Course to Level or vice versa. It’s much easier when you already know half of the new words.

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I did lesson 24 and 25 today whilst out and about for work. I felt like I got about 70% on both with mistakes coming from the newer material and the odd silly mistake of older stuff that I should technically know, sometimes it was brain knowing answer but words not being spoken quickly enough. This was after two attempts. Do you think I need to keep going to try get more like 80%?

No, I absolutely don’t. I think you should revisit them once every two or three months, but in the meantime push on with new material… :slight_smile: