Pum ci or pum cŵn

Welsh General / Questions
#1

I have been revising and thought that five dogs was pum cŵn. When I checked my dictionary it says ci for a dog and cŵn for dogs.
Simple I thought but Duolingo says five dogs is pum ci. Then I checked with google translate!
Big mistake I think??
Copied and pasted
Ci, cwn. Pum cŵn. Pum ci.
A dog, a dog. Five dogs. Five dogs.
What on earth is going on here?

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#2

I have an old, simple grammar book that tells me that counting numbers of things is a bit different in Welsh. For numbers up to 10, you use a singular noun. For example, saith ci means “seven dogs.” The pattern they give for this is “Numeral (up to 10) + singular noun”

For numbers after ten you say “Numeral + “o” with soft mutation of plural noun.” Obviously, as you’ve seen, that is not always followed, but it looks like Duolingo has it right in this case. And it is a good idea not to depend on Google translate for such details, as you noticed.

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#3

Thanks very much Sionned. Something else I must have missed along the way!

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#4

First of all, don’t trust GoogleTranslate!! :smiley:

What Sionned said is basically right - o + plural for higher numbers (from about the teens on), and then lower ones you have the choice of doing the same, or singular without the o. So either pum ci or pump o gŵn. Some exceptions with measure words etc, where singular is normal - trideg pwys thirty pounds (weight), chwedeg munud sixty minutes. The can(t) often has either - can punt or cant o bunnoedd £100.

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#5

Thank you very much Gareth thats, very helpful :blush:

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#6

Good replies; I’d go with them and would only add my voice to the “don’t trust Google translate” advice, though to be fair, it has improved (from a very low base). But Duolingo usually gets it right. Far fewer errors on Duo than on various Memrise courses, for instance. Memrise i great, but full of errors; even in the English used on the Welsh courses, so beware!

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#7

Thank you very much Caroline :blush:

#8

How true! The Duolingo course was produced by volunteers who are experienced tutors and mostly covers material from the Mynediad and Sylfaen courses.
Anyone can create a course on Memrise. Some are good and helpful for revising vocabulary. Others are best avoided. The best thing about Memrise is that you can produce your own course that includes all those words that you can never remember. Of course you need to get it right in the first place…
Sue

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