Questions about "bod" Course 2 Lesson 17 &18

Welsh General / Questions
#1

Okay, so I’m working on this “bod” as a conjunction business. Cwrs 2 Gwers 17 was positively a brain-melting experience. I remember doing this one a few months ago before life got me sidetracked, but it wasn’t any easier coming back to it. Got a bit discouraged but I pushed on to Gwers 18 and feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it, even though I don’t feel all that confident yet. Dim anobeithio’n llwyr yma!

I’ve got two questions at the moment:

Question #1: When we say “that” in the negative, we can specify a tense for the second part of the sentence using “nag yw”, “nag oedd”, or “nag oes”. But when it is a positive statement, we just have “bod” and so we can’t really specify present or past. For example:

Dw i’n credu ei fod e’n moyn aros gyda ni.

This could mean “I believe that he wants to stay with us” or “I believe that he wanted to stay with us”. Do you just distinguish the meaning by context, or am I missing something?

Question #2: One thing that’s got me a bit confused is that in English the “that” is sometimes optional, and I’m not sure what the situation is yn Gymraeg. Can “that” be optional in Welsh as well? For example, about 20 minutes into Gwers 18, we have:

That’s not something I want to think about. - So hynny’n rhywbeth dw i’n moyn meddwl amdano.

I think that this sentence could also be phrased:

That’s not something that I want to think about.

In which case we would say (guessing by using the pattern, because at this point I haven’t been taught “that I” yet):

So hynny’n rhywbeth fy mod i’n moyn meddwl amdano.

I’d love some enlightenment on whether both are correct and it doesn’t matter which I choose, or if there is some reason why it has to be the first way.

Diolch ymlaen llaw!

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#2

To say " I believe (that) he wanted to do it, you’d use a different pattern of words.

“Bod” is actually the verb “to be” but we use it to convey what is meant by “that” in English.

The trick with SSi is to just accept the phrases as “how to convey what you nean” rather than try to delve too deeply into what every word means.

Just relax and go with it - I usually find that when I’m confused by something like this, a few lessons later a new word or phrase comes in and I get a eureka moment with a little bit of endorphin - that’s how this method is effective

:smile:

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#3

It sounds like you are getting an extremely good handle on it already! It’s worth bearing in mind that those lessons were written before the idea of not repeating them, and it’s a particularly tough corner of the course. (I remember needing to listen several times to get the hang of it - at that time it was still allowed!)

On the first point, I think it probably would be ok to say ‘Dwi’n credu oedd e’n moyn aros gyda ni’ if that was the specific meaning you wanted.

However I think the point is that if the first part of the sentence is in the past, you just use bod and the continuing past tense is implied:

O’n i’n credu ei fod e’n moyn aros.
I thought he wanted to stay.

On the second point, your alternative looks fine to me. I think you’re right that they are interchangeable.

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#4

Yup, got that part okay.

I do understand the SSi “go with the flow” approach, and I’ve been doing that for a year now, with great success. But as I get deeper in, sometimes I want to understand the underlying reasoning/grammar a bit better, too.

Yes, I love when that happens!

Thank you! I have done these lessons more than once, there’s way too much in them for me to get it all in the first go.

I read this as “I believe he wanted to stay with us” -so actually, this looks like a case where dropping the optional “that” means you can be more specific in regards to the tense.[quote=“netmouse, post:3, topic:5221”]
However I think the point is that if the first part of the sentence is in the past, you just use bod and the continuing past tense is implied:

O’n i’n credu ei fod e’n moyn aros. I thought he wanted to stay.
[/quote]

I thought this might be the case. It works if you want the continuing past tense, but not if, as in my first example, the first part is in the present and the second part is in the past.

That makes me happy!

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#5

You aren’t actually “dropping an optional “that””.

When you put two sentences together in this manner in Welsh, and the second starts with a present tense of the verb “to be”, the verb takes the form “bod”.

If it is past, or future, it stays as as it is.

There is another difference in Welsh, where Welsh looks at the situation slightly differently. “I thought that he is wanting to stay”, rather than “I thought that he wanted to stay”, because at the time it was in the present, if you see what I mean.
Or you can just not think about it at all and just go with the flow, as it were. I found it helped to think about and understand it and then go with the flow.

No idea if that helps or not!

[optional information- there is an optional “y” which can appear in these situations where “bod” is not used. You’ll do fine without it though :blush:]

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#6

@owainlurch That’s brilliant, really helpful, ALL of it! Diolch![quote=“owainlurch, post:5, topic:5221”]
I found it helped to think about and understand it and then go with the flow.
[/quote]

This is exactly what I think will work for me too :slight_smile:

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