Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

When ordering adjectives, it’s size - colour - quality, and for a single female noun, you have to mutate every adjective. So a “cute small red dragon” would be draig fach goch ciwt (I’d lean to not mutating the english-loaned ciwt to giwt)

For further reading, please see this reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnwelsh/comments/fag3w9/welsh_grammar_trefn_ansoddeiriau_order_of/?rdt=49804

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Diolch, Hendrik :slightly_smiling_face:

While trying the new languages on the app, I’m also trying the Automagic Welsh course, from time to time (South again, sorry Gogs!) :grin:

I just came across “You said”.

It sounded like “ddwedest ti” when I heard it, and now that the sentences can also be seen on the screen I can see it really is “ddwedest ti”.

I have to admit that when I did Level 1 I was completely lost and coufused with mutations, and I don’t remember how it was there. :face_with_spiral_eyes:

But now I would definitely say “dwedest ti” (dywedaist ti) unless it’s a question, a negative sentence or preceded by mi or fe, which is not the case here.

Any hints of why it so?

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The ddwedaist comes from where the preceding fe has dropped off but left the mutation it caused. It’s common for that to happen in speech, but yes, to be technically correct a positive statement should be fe ddwedaist (mi ddwedaist in the N) or dwedaist if you’re not using the mi/fe.

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I did a search but couldn’t find what I need.

I wonder if someone could help me.

I fwyta or I’w fwyta, what warrants the use of the latter?

Diolch

These threads might help you Victoria -

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Thank you, i nticed the benwythnos thing too.

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I am confused about a lack of mutation where I’d very much expect to see mutation:
Yr Arglwydd yw fy Mugail; ni bydd eisiau arnaf. (Salm 23, Y Beibl.)
Now, as I understood it, the Bible is a main source of standardised Welsh grammar, and ni causing soft mutation on b is standard. So… what happened?

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Yes.

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I can confirm the veracity of your surmise. :+1:

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When talking about the man ot the youngest, smetimes its mae’r dyn or fenga, smetimes just y. Is there something that coyld help me get it right?

I’m not quite sure what you are asking here, but I think you are wondering why the definite article is appearing in different forms.
The definite article can appear as y, yr or 'r, depending on the letters surrounding it.

  1. Between two consonants, the article appears as y:
    Dw i’n gweld y dyn ifanc
  2. After a consonant and before a vowel, the article appears as yr:
    Dw i’n gweld yr afal
  3. After a vowel, the article always appears as 'r, whether it is before a consonant or a vowel:
    Mae’r afal yn flasus, mae’r dyn yn ifanc.

If that was not what you were after, please give a bit more context.

Y dyn ieuengaf, the youngest man, often with the final f disappearing. Ifanc is the word for young. Is that useful?

It was why is the mae bit there sometimes. It was explained at some point as.

A man, or an apple doesn’t need it but the man needs it. But then when referring to theyoungest they just said y fenga.

Unfortunately I am pretty inarticulate in my own language, so struggle with another.

You’re not wrong, that is confusing. The only reference I could find that deals with this unruly usage is in A Welsh Grammar by Stephen J Williams, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1980, p.52, para 77, the section about mutation after relative pronouns (not actually relevant here, I think):

§ 77. Mutation after relative pronouns.
The rel. pron. a takes the soft mutation: yr hwn a fu; y sawl a welodd;
y byd a ddaw.
After ni, na the spirant mut. of c, p, t follows, and the soft mut. of b, d,
g, ll, rh, m:
y sawl ni chred; . . . na phrynodd; . . . na thorrod; . . . ni fu; . . . na
ddaw; . . . na all; . . . ni fynnant; . . . na lwyddodd; . . . ni rydd.

Initial b in forms of bod sometimes remains unmutated: rhai na buont;
peth ni bydd marw.

I does not explain it, just an observation

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mae is the Welsh word for “is” but unlike English, in Welsh it usually comes in front of the thing you’re talking about - so for “the man is” you get mae’r dyn - literally is the man which sounds like a question in English, but is just a statement in Welsh.

mae dyn yn siarad - A man is speaking / a man speaks (it can be either in English)
mae’r dyn yn siarad - The man is speaking / the man speaks

Thank you, I can get a bit caught up with getting it right. I have faith that all will become clear, or clearer in time :relaxed:.

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I promise you that it will get clearer! It all feels a bit alien to start with, because Welsh has a very different kind of grammar to English, but you’ll get used to it, and then you’ll wonder why you ever had a problem because it will begin to feel natural!

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Yes, in some ways not holding on too tightly to the English way is a benefit. I am enjoying it so much.

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Thanks Louis.
At least there is some allusion to it somewhere. But relative pronouns? That would seem to imply that the sense of the verse is “The Lord is my shepherd whom I shall not lack.”
I’ve never heard that interpetation suggested in English, but I suppose it’s possible.
Does anybody here know Biblical Hebrew?