Question re third person: "it" and proper names

I’m currently on Course 1 Gwers 16 Southern. I talk to myself in Welsh as I go through the day (sometimes it’s a bit like a four-year-old with an imaginary friend :laughing:) and I keep coming up against things I don’t know yet, but think I should be able to figure out…

One of the sentences in Gwers 13 was “It is going to work out.” I don’t think we’ve actually covered this yet. The answer sounds to me like “Mae’n mynd i weithio mas”, but I don’t know if this is correct. How do we say “it”, as opposed to “he” and “she”?

Second, somewhat related question - how do we handle proper names? Is “Mae Catrin yn siarad Cymraeg” correct? (Similarly, I’m guessing “Bydd Catrin yn siarad Cymraeg” and “Mae Catrin wedi siarad Cymraeg”.) What happens with the “need” pattern? “Mae isie iddi Catrin siarad Cymraeg” or “Mae isie i Catrin siarad Cymraeg”? And the “have” pattern: “Oes caws gyda Catrin?”

Thanks for any help, and apologies if I’m getting ahead of myself and just need to be more patient!

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Hi Anna. There is no '“it” in Welsh. Sorry.

Mae isie i Catrin…

Mae isie iddi hi…

“i” changes to iddi, iddo, etc when there is a pronoun, an “I, you, he, she, we, you, they” word.

But it doesn’t change before a noun, proper or otherwise.

“Gyda”, fortunately, doesn’t go through this set of changes. (Although the equivalent in Gogspeak does!)

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“It” and “he” is fairly the same - “fe” although you use “hi” (she) for (as I remember) for all sorts of strange things like weather for example …

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It’s partly this, but it’s also a very good sign that you’re starting to extrapolate and doing so almost entirely correctly… :sunny:

‘It’ in Welsh is either ‘hi’ or ‘fe/fo’ (so either ‘she’ or ‘he’, effectively). Mae’n mynd is an elision in very common use - but depending on context, you might also say ‘Mae hi’n mynd’ or ‘Mae o’n mynd’ (there are some regular patterns about which you’d use, but it really doesn’t matter if you go the other way!).

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Wow, so many answers, so quickly - this forum (meaning all of you) is fantastic! Thanks so much!

Regarding “it”: I guess did know that it didn’t have its own word, that it would be he/she. I guess I was thinking about how it would work as the subject (“Mae hi’n mynd”) rather than the object (“ei rhoi e i fi”) and how we know if we mean “it goes” or “she goes” when we are using the same word. So it seems we just depend on context (instead of a different word as in English).

I didn’t think “iddi Catrin” sounded right…thanks for the grammar lesson, @margaretnock, That’s very helpful.

Thanks, @aran! So I probably did hear “mae’n mynd”. There are a lot of contractions/dropping of bits in Welsh, it seems. I will do my best to be patient and not extrapolate too far…although you do say that saying things wrong is better than not saying them at all :slight_smile:

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Measurably, scientifically :sunny: :thumbsup: :star:

I just thought I’d mention that Aran is a gog and put ‘o’ for ‘he’. In the south, that’s ‘e’. In the north, for gyda, ‘gen’ is used and I still use ‘mae ddrwg gen i’ for I’m sorry!! If I said, ‘we have a dog’, that’s be ‘mae gennin ni ci’ or ‘mae ci gennin ni’ which I have probably spelled wrong!! I am not the best person to teach anyone anything in Cymraeg, but I thought the ‘o’ might confuse you and tatjana might have made you curious about gogledd habits of speech!! :smile:

Apart from the bit where he put ‘fe/fo’, of course…:wink:

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I?

Umm … might be, yes … might be … :slight_smile:

@henddraig Thanks for the Gog heads-up and mini-lesson! I am definitely curious about the differences. I wonder when I listen to the radio how much is Gog vs. De and whether I will need to do the Gog course at some point to be able to understand. I am also curious as to whether Gog is more phonetic. It’s very interesting to hear the pronunciation differences just between Iestyn and Cat (e.g. yved, staer, dechrau) and so I wonder how different it is in the north. It’s hard being “across the pond” with no “real” people to listen to/speak with :frowning:

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If it wouldn’t confuse you too much, it’s not forbidden to “sneak” into northern lessons and listen to a bit of one … :slight_smile: I did so in my early stage of learning and found it quite interesting but I remained on South side of Cymraeg though.

The difference between Gog and De (particularly on the radio) is minimal. When you get down to street level it can get a bit more complex, but as far as you’re going to be concerned, as an overseas learner, you’ll get enough from one course to enable you to work out the differences yourself via context, this forum, and the odd sneaky look at a grammar guide (when you’re confident enough).
As for Gog being more phonetic, not really. After all, they pronounce eisiau as isho! :smile:

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And Aran and Catrin sometimes pronounce things differently (though I think this is for demonstration purposes - to let us be aware that pronunciation can and does vary, even within what is supposed to be the same dialect).

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It’s all one perfectly understandable language (I have more difficulty understanding some farmers in the South than I do most people from the North!), and the “used in South/North” things are often more honoured in the breach than in the observance, and are by no no no means universal to everybody.

And best to think of the lessons as “the language used by Aran in the context of the lessons” versus “the language used by Iestyn in the context of the lessons”, (whilst remembering where they live), rather than “North” versus “South”.

Just my penny worth, anyway.

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I’d like to claim that, but we just say some things differently - and some things differently at different times… :sunny:

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Diolch, everyone, for the info regarding North vs. South - I’m glad to know it won’t be as big an issue as I thought. I had been thinking that if there was a need for two separate courses, then there must be quite a bit of difference between them. Glad to know there’s a hope I may someday be able to follow a radio program :slight_smile:

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At the rate you’re learning you’ll be able to completely understand it much earlier then me so carry on. You’re on good way. :slight_smile:

Mae ddrwg gei i, Aran!! I nearly mentioned ‘fe’ after a vowel, but I felt so bad trying to teach anyone anything about yr hen iaith, that I thought, “I’d better stop now!” To be honest, the use of ‘o’ or ‘fo’ for '‘e’ or ‘fe’ is the one thing that is really strange to me about the north!! Just as the use of gyda for gen is odd about the south!! I’m just a mixed up mixture!! (Oh and I pronounce ‘my’ way, not Iestyn’s!!!) :sunny:
p.s. You sometimes put a thumbs up in postings. I don’t seem to have as many options as you???

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:thumbsup:

Write colon : and without space word “thumbsup” (without quatation marks of course) and you’ll get it. :slight_smile:

And with colon : using some other words you can get many more of those …

Happy emotions exploring.

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:thumbsup: Oh,dioch yn fawr Tatjana!!! I’ll try others if I want to show something in particular!!!