On your second question, if it’s verbs that’s the problem then positive statements will usually begin with a ‘b’ (bydd, bydda i, etc.), and negative statements or questions with a ‘f’ (fydd? Na fyaddaf, etc.)
I’m not going to weigh in on the first one, as it’s been a long time since I did lesson 6 & I can’t remember what they’re using for ‘about it’ there.
@aran - In the South versions, @Iestyn does tend to sound a bit the same for ‘f’, ‘th’ ‘dd’ and ‘b’. I had to look at the Vocab lists to work out what he was saying a couple of times. I guess that means, if we say it wrong, it won’t matter, because people understand him!! When I moved to York in 1951, I learned the use of ‘thee’ and other dialect things, but didn’t say them. although I gained the accent pretty quickly. I understood and was understood not despite difference from how I had sounded, but because of it!
If I ever was able to come to Gogledd Cymru, I would now know ‘rwan’ instead of ‘nawr’, but folk very kindly never corrected ‘nawr’ back when!!
p.s. Any chance of a crib sheet to help me with when to use which past tense???
To be fair, it’s not about Iestyn, it’s about those sounds being very close to each other in how they’re formed, and very easy to mis-hear if we’re not certain about the context (which is always the case when you’re learning another language). It’s certainly the case that people aren’t likely to be able to hear if you use a different one, because they’ll be expecting to hear the ‘right’ one…
Nope, sorry, we’re not about to start teaching grammar! Just jump in and use whatever comes to mind first - you’ll always be understood…
Grinds teeth! Accepts that one cannot have the good sort of learning and then demand little bits of the bad! (Will cheat by looking up Gareth’s llyfr!) Must learn that I can’t always have what I want!! Swishes tails and flaps wings!! I should have learned that by now, but I never stop hoping!!
Edit: To @aran the long suffering, clear speaking, fine Cymro:- I love it when you give me a ‘like’ for being a crotchety hen ferch!!!
More edit to @aran People ask about ‘rh’ and are told to say ‘hr’. I lived in a village beginning with ‘rh’ and have always said the two sounds together, so it is possible. I have also seen ‘dd’ represented as ‘vv’, but ‘dd’ is the English ‘these’, ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘them’ - as opposed to ‘thing’ or ‘thong’ and definitely not ‘v’!!
Knowing that you live in Yr Alban, I have always tended to imagine you speaking like the actress Molly Weir (“Aggie” in “Life With The Lyons” if you remember that, and yes, I do go back that far…). But now I have to get used to thinking of you speaking like Nora Batty in “Last of the Summer Wine”.
You are messing with my head, Hen bach!
I know people can confuse these when listening, so if you are saying that people should never be encouraged to confuse them when speaking, then I’d strongly agree with you.
Mae ddrwg gen i! Although it was not intentional!
In my lifetime I have had more accents than most people due to an unfortunate habit of picking them up like fluff on velcro!
My Mam wanted me to sound like a 1940s English movie star! I tried to avoid doing so! However, when, aged 10, we went to York, I was delighted to pick the local accent up as I wanted to fit in. When we moved south, I didn’t deliberately stop with Yorks, it just happened. I was more or less Welsh depending where I’d been most recently and now I’d say a sort of unidentified hotchpotch with the odd hint of De Cymru! I had so much time in London that some must have stuck!! But I never dropped my aitches or sounded cockney!! I say the odd word of Scots to be understood here, but not much and I do not sound like someone from mid-Argyll. To be fair, neither does Janet who has lived here for years and whose mother certainly sounded local!!