She said that she wanted to speak with you.
Ddudodd hi bod hi isio siarad efo chdi. I thought when using “wanted” one had to use “oedd” but there’s no “oedd” here. What did I miss along the way?
She said that she knows your sister.
Ddudodd hi bod hi’n nabod dy chwaer.
Would it be correct to say, “Ddudodd hi bod hi’n nabod dy chwaer di?” (I seem to keep wanting to put that on the end because it sounds right to me but it may not be grammatically correct)
Someone wanted to tell you.
Rhywun oedd isio dweud wrthot ti. Why is it “Rhywun oedd” as opposed to “Oedd rhywun” beginning the sentence?
Thank you for any help on any or all of these questions!
I appreciate it!
~Priscilla
Yes, if there is reported speech or thought in Welsh then the ‘that’ is ‘bod’ and what comes after it is captured in the present tense. This is a feature of Welsh which seems odd at first!
Yes, you can include the ‘di’ - it’s optional
The re-ordering of the sentence is optional here - the ‘someone’ is placed first for emphasis - but the regular orider would be fine also.
Thank you. In reference to question #1, what’s being repeated? the “she said she” part?(I’m thinking you meant repeated and not reported?) I’m still a little confused.
Thank you. I’m going to have to read this over and digest it later this evening achos dw i’n gweithio rwan. Once I read it through a few times I’ll be aware to listen for it in future dialogue. (Takes me a while to catch on, I’m afraid) Thanks again, I appreciate you making it clearer for me.
~Priscilla
I hope this helps: As Rich was explaining, in Welsh you go back to the present tense. So it’s actually easier than English.
So, without the “that” - She said “I want to speak with you”
With the “that”- She said that she wants to speak with you
(Ddudodd hi bod hi isio siarad efo chdi)
I was just going to ask about ‘that’ and then I saw this thread! I was wondering why, now that I’ve got to challenge 21, ‘that’ seems to have changed from ‘bod’ to ‘na’… so is it that bod is used in reported speech and na is used everywhere else? Are there other ways of saying ‘that’ lurking in future lessons? I was also wondering about ‘dyna’, how do you get from ‘hynna’ meaning ‘that’, to ‘dyna’ meaning ‘that is’? It is all very confusing…
“na” is a negative ‘that’ when the bit after the ‘that’ would begin with any verb other than present bod.
“bod” is ‘that’ when the bit after the ‘that’ would begin with a present form of ‘bod’
However, as you suspect, there are other ways of saying ‘that’
when the bit after the ‘that’ would begin with any verb other than present bod, but the sentence is positive, you’d use ‘y’
when the bit after the ‘that’ starts with something that isn’t a verb, you’d use ‘mai’ (Northern) or ‘taw’ (Southern)
Hynny means ‘that’ in an abstract/non-concrete/genderless sense e.g. mae hynny’n hwyl = that is fun
Dyna means ‘that is’ (and also ‘there is/are’ and ‘those are’) when the ‘that’ starts the sentence e.g. Dyna’r syniad = that’s the idea
The "that"s can be a bit head spinning until you get the hang of them, and it’s best to get the hang of them through practice rather than having to stop and think of the grammatical rules - they will click into place in time, so please don’t let the explanations above cause you too much worry at this stage!
Wow! My head is spinning!!! Still, it is good to know all that and stops me wondering, thanks!
So I guess you can use Dyna for something like ‘there are some lovely beaches in Wales’ or similar?
While I’m here I was wondering how soon we get to we, you plural/polite, and they? I seem to be always wanting to talk about lots of people whenever I try to speak Welsh in the wild!!
thanks so much for your speedy reply.
No, you wouldn’t use dyna in that sentence because that sentence would start with ‘mae’ - mae 'na rhai traethau hyfryd yng Nghymu. A “there are” sentence that would start with dyna would be “dyna fy sbectol!” = there are my glasses!
we (ni), you plural/polite (chi) and they (nhw) will creep in before too long, don’t worry - and the fact you’re already trying to speak Welsh in the wild is superb. Remember you’re not expected to know everything straight away, so keep at it even if you have to flip back to English for we/you/they at the moment
