QUESTIONS: How To Say

Thanks @mikeellwood…I have some time off today so I’ll try to catch a few episodes.

I have two How To Say questions…one specific, one general

  1. What is the difference between bob and gid and pa and faint? If I wanted to say “All of the men in my singing group…” would it be Gid o’r dun yn… or Bob o’r dun yn… or something else?
  2. Is there a list or record of English constructions and/or sayings that either a) don’t have Welsh equivalents or b) have similar Welsh sayings and/or constructions that aren’t word for word? Or am I looking for something that doesn’t exist?
    The only example I can think of right now is “If you ever…” or “Don’t you ever…” and they probably aren’t the best ones.

EDIT: “Idioms” may be a better word for “constructions and/or sayings” in question #2 above

I’d say ‘Mae pob un o’r dynion yn fy mharti canu’ - but you’ll often hear people in the south saying ‘Mae i gyd o’r dynion’ - which sounds horrible to me, and I put down to dreadful education…:wink:

But if you’re hoping for a rule here that will let you predict in advance which to use in every possible situation, I’m afraid I don’t think it’s going to play out very well - it often seems that the smaller the word, the more different ways there’ll be to use it that don’t match with English!

Not to the best of my knowledge. You might find a book of idioms gives you some of what you’re looking for here - R.E. Jones’s ‘Idiomau Cymraeg’ is good, I think.

Is there an idiom to say “growing boy”. Sorry I payed this in the wrong place just now, I’m getting use to how to post.

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Hi Nikki,

Not sure about an idiom, but I would have said something like “Mae o’n hogyn sy’n tyfu!” - He’s a growing boy! As usual, Aran or one of the other most experienced learners on the forum will give a more reliable answer to your question!

Hwyl,

Stu

I think it might be this: “Hogyn ar ei brifiant”/a boy on his growing…I would have used, Stu’s version though - easily understandable.

EDIT: Baban ar ei brifiant… I’ve just seen this for - a growing baby on Google.

Brilliant - I saw prifio on my ap geiriaduron but didn’t know how or if its used. Thank you. I’m doing a Cymraeg Llyfr a chymraeg llafar course as a core module on my degree and we’ve been give a few of these. Most of them I could find but that one really got me.

This is the perfect place to post this, @nikkikelsey…it’s what this thread is for!

Yikes! I’ll stop saying that straight away then :-). Are there maybe general rules for gyd…or at least a few that will keep me from sounding horrible? :-).

And is mharti pronounced the way it is spelled

Sorry…one more question about the original sentence…would the translation change if the entire sentence was “Well, all of the men in my singing group are dead, so, no…not really.”

(Yes…more Captain America trosiad…)

EDIT: removed repeat question about gyd…additional question about original phrase

Hi nikkikelsey!

Last night I posted something about finding “plentyn ar ei brifiant”/“plentyn ar ei dyfiant” in Geiriadur yr Academi, leading to the possibility of “(preferred word for boy) ar ei dyfiant/brifiant” being one possibility of an idion for a growing boy, if you could get it checked by someone whose grasp of colloquial Welsh is better than mine. However, I deleted it because I had not heard it in conversation.

Now, Dinas’ grasp of colloquial Welsh is far better than mine!

But Dinas does not say whether he has heard in it conversation or got it from a dictionary. (This is not a complaint against Dinas! Just a statement of fact).

I only mention this because you are doing a BA in Celtic languages, and also because this is part of your coursework.

You might want to check with Dinas if he has actually heard it (or with any other friendly Welsh speaker on this forum or elsewhere!)

Yes…another question (I have to write them as I hear them, else I forget)

Would “Either one of you know…” translate into Welsh, or is it an English-ism?

I looked up either in a few dictionaries and the different translations were a bit confusing (probably doesn’t help that I really need to refresh my grammar syntax)

Wel, mae pob un o’r dynion yn fy mharti canu sydd wedi marw; felly dim reali.

I just now really saw that pob un in the trosiad. That’s un as in one, correct? If so, any rule for when to use un with pob…or is that another ‘I’ll get used to it?’

Also, I just remembered that I am taking the Southern set of courses…does that mean using gyd would be correct for me?

Chatted about this to a first language Welsh speaker yesterday. He didn’t really recognise “bachgen ar ei dyfiant” or any other variation as an idiom as such, just seeing it as an alternate way of sayin “bachgen ar ei dyfu” which is quite simply another way of saying something like “bachgen sy’n tyfu”.
Also, he sort of thought he probably wouldn’t say any of them really, being more likely to say something along the lines of “mae e heb tyfu - mae fe’n dal yn crwt!” or something similar (please don’t rely on my reproducing the grammar and sounds exactly! But that was the general idea.)

As always with these things of course, this is just the experience of one Welsh speaker. Haven’t talked about it with anyone else.

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You just want to remove the ‘sydd’ from that and you’re spot on :sunny:

I’m going to take a stab at this since Ap Geiriadur has a nice grammar syntax pop-up feature (rhagenw=pronoun, cysylltair=conjunction)

The full sentence:
Hey guys. Either one of you know where the Smithsonian is?

My trosiad attempt:
Hey dynion. Naill ai un ohonoti yn gwbod ble mae’r Smithsonian?

How about this -

Hei bois, ydy un ohonoch chi’n gwybod lle mae’r Smothsonian?

Hwyl,

Stu

Ouch! my head hurts… :wink:
just some suggestions -

Ydy’r naill neu’r llall ohonochi’n gwybod…
Ydy’r un neu’r llall ohonoch chi’n gwybod…
?Oes? un ohonoch chi’n gwybod…
(Oes? Should it be Oes there, or ydy? feels like oes to me, but that means absolutely nothing!)

Please do not take any of these as correct until someone with better knowledge than me answers!

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Ooo, not saying stu does not have better knowledge than me, spent so much time typing that with my stubby little fingers I missed his message!

Owain, I reckon you’re right about using Oes there… :smile:

Stu

I reckon ydy/yw would be OK. If you’re going to use oes, then I’d want to stick a sydd in there - Oes 'na un ohonoch sy’n gwbod…?
But like the pair of you, I’ve thought about this too much and it’s sown seeds of doubt. Further proof that not worrying about it and just saying it is by far the best policy! :smiley:

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