The word for 'should' in Welsh

Welsh General / Questions
#1

Hi,

  1. I’m currently doing level 1 chap 21 (south). It introduces the use of the word ‘should’. e.g I should which sounds like ‘ddylen i/ddilen i’. This sounds like the word for ‘to follow’ (dilyn). I’m guessing these are unrelated words but hopefully someone can clear up what the word is I’m hearing and where it comes from?

  2. When it comes to negation, it seems like ‘I should not’ when talking about ones self is a different format to '‘I should not’ when its from the opinion of someone else (e.g. he said I should not). The former sounds like ‘ddylen i ddim’ and the latter ‘na dydden i’ . Am I hearing that correctly at all?

  3. As its Friday … can anyone please tell what the lady is singing on the introduction to the lessons … I can’t get rid of the words or tune from my head ?

Many thanks,

Andrew

#2

  1. You are hearing the phrase quite correctly, it’s ddylen i ddim. As you suspect it isn’t related to “dilyn”, but exactly where it comes from, I can’t really tell you that - I don’t know any “base” word.

  2. What’s happening here is that you move the “I shouldn’t” part into a sub-clause, and the wore introducing that negative subclause is na:
    She told me that I shouldn’t drink too much - Ddwedodd hi wrtha fi na ddylen i yfed gormod.
    Note that the ddim usually disappears, but you can leave it in.

  3. The intro song - 'Wela i efo llygad bach i'

1 Like
#3

Thank you very much. All points explained perfectly!

… and that’s a great tune. Thanks for the link.

#4

Lleuwen is touring at the moment I believe, so if you are in Wales you’ll probably be able to see it live!

#5

brilliant, thanks!