I did Level1 Challenge 12 (N) last night and have a couple of question (I think there was a third but by the time I finished I’d forgotten what it was).
It’s much more common for adjectives to follow nouns and hen is one of the exceptions. There’s no rule, it’s just a case of getting used to the pattern, but hen really is the most frequent one to come before.
Yes, you’re absolutely right that a/ac depends on a vowel following, but ac mae is an exception because it comes from ac y mae, and though the ‘y’ has long since dropped out of usage, the mutation it caused has stuck.
S’mae, mae gen i gwestiwn bach na dwi’n medru dod o hyd yr ateb iddo, gobeithio dydy o ddim cwestiwn dwl…
Os ydw i isio deud He’s the biggest, mae Google yn rhoi yr ateb deheuol (ef yw’r mwyaf), ond beth am yn y gogledd? ‘Of ydy’r mwyaf’? Dwi heb glywed ‘of’ o’r flaen, ond mae ‘o ydy’r’ yn swnio’n rhyfedd…
Diolch!
The short answer is “don’t trust Google translate” 
Ef is a literary form that you won’t hear in natural spoken Welsh, north or south. In southern Welsh, you’re likely to hear Fe yw’r mwyaf, and the northern variant is Fo ydy’r mwyaf.
(And just a side note: while this is a forum on learning Welsh, please refrain from asking questions in Welsh-only, so as not to exclude people who may not as yet be able to understand your question.)
Diolch! And sorry : /
But fair play for your Welsh question - really good writing there. If you’d like to practise more writing there’s a separate thread for exactly that purpose, and I’m sure the others on the thread would love to have your input: Be' 'dach chi'n gwneud rwan? A phethau arall yn Gymraeg - A topic to practice Welsh, open to all! - #908 by chriscastle
How do I say “You’ve got” in Welsh. “I’ve got” I know is “Mae gen i …” (or as I just discovered “Mae … gen i”, which is reassuring because I keep doing saying it that way in the challenges and I don’t know where I picked it up), and am pretty sure “she’s got” is “Mae hi geni …” but I am not sure about “you”.
Here is the full set for you.
I = Mae gen i
You (sing.) = Mae gent ti
She = Mae ganddi hi
He = Mae ganddo fo
We = Mae gynnon ni
You (Pl.) = Mae gynnoch chi
They = Mae ganddyn nhw
Siaron is always so brilliant with these answers.
Just want to add that if you want to refer to an actual name/thing, you’ll also need “gan”, like
“Mae gan Siaron ymatebion gwych pob tro” (Siaron has always got great answers)
Morning, I’m (slowly) working through ‘Modern Welsh: a comprehensive grammar’, and the author has it that, in colloquial speech:
Fy is pronounced ‘yn’
Ei / eu are pronounced ‘i’
Ein is pronounced ‘yn’
Is this really right? Does ‘fy’ sound formal/affected, or do both options sound normal?
Yn is more natural, but you will def hear fy, especially in more formal settings.They both come from “fyn”, which you might hear in songs.
“Yn” is the normal spoken “street” form though, and it is used as an alternative in SSiW Southern.
If I recall correctly: Dwi’n mwyn yn arian nôl (I want my money back) 
Diolch! I obviously need more exposure to street Welsh… I’m not aware that I’ve ever heard it pronounced that way (either at school or in SSiW North… though maybe I just missed it).
Also “i” is the historical pronunciation for “ei” - there’s some argument that the “ei” spelling was deliberately chosen in early Modern Welsh simply because Middle Welsh had so many words that were (at least sometimes) spelt “I” that it was just too confusing! (I, to, his, her - even ‘the’, where we’d expect “y”, because mediaeval spelling is like that.)
So yes, “ei” has been pronounced “i” for literally hundreds of years.
Level 3, Challenge 17, There’s no point for me to get left without a new bed. Welsh is given as Does dîm pwynt cael fy ngadael heb wely newydd.
Would it be incorrect to say “Does dîm pwynt i mi cael fy ngadael” or does that also work?
Not wholly sure - I think that it does, but that cael would then get softened to gael - Does dim pwynt i mi gael fy ngadael… And you will also hear i fi instead of mi - both are correct, but there are regional differences (I think fi is more Southern, but don’t quote me!)
Simae bawb,
Is there a genetive construction in Welsh like in English like this?
My car is faster than John’s
My guess would be if there is it’d be
Mae fy nghar yn glouach nag un John
Or do you always have to specify? e.g
Mae fy nghar yn glouach na char John
Diolch!
Either construction is fine, you don’t always have to specify.
BTW, as a side note to others, you’re much more likely to hear gyflymach for ‘faster’ rather than glouach, - clou is a southern form of ‘fast’ not often heard in the North whereas cyflym is heard all over.
hi, just a quick question, level 1 challenge 10
The Welsh for ‘to ask you’ is:
gofyn wrthot ti
The Welsh for ‘to ask you something’ is:
gofyn rhwybeth wrthot ti
‘to ask you something again’ is:
gofyn rhwybeth wrthot ti eto
what I wondered is, why does the ‘rhwybeth’ come before the ‘wrthot ti’ but ‘eto’ doesn’t?
how does this work in terms of verb - subject - object word order?
also why does the preposition ‘wrth’ change to ‘wrthot’?
I found in a dictionary ‘wrtho i, wrthot to, wrtho fe/fo, wrthi hi…’ etc
but why does it do that?
I know it might be a bit next-level for the stage I’m at but I’m getting curious about grammar and syntax.
thanks for your help
diolch yn fawr iawn!
The best way I can explain it is that here the eto is referring to the whole phrase, not just the rhywbeth - e.g. if you were to say “to ask you something else”, the ‘else’ would refer only to the rhywbeth, not to the whole phrase, so it would be gofyn rhywbeth arall wrthot ti. I hope the way I’ve explained it makes sense.
As for the preposition ‘wrth’ changing to ‘wrthot’, it’s very common in Welsh for prepositions to ‘run’ according to the pronoun used, and as you go through the course you’ll find this happens with lots of them, but in varying degrees as some ‘run’ more than others. It just something that Welsh (and a few other languages) does and English doesn’t, so it’ll take a bit of getting used to, but once the patterns start sticking it’ll get easier.
hi Siaron,
thank you so much for explaining, yes, it does make sense.
I definitely think language learning is about pattern recognition, I’ve had a look at Welsh grammar, most of it is confusing, but I do like to look for and make sense of patterns, which is what grammar is about, even if I don’t need it at this stage!
diolch yn fawr iawn