diolch Aran. Dw i’n mwynhau’r 'SSiW course ’ 
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Hello all! Enjoying coming back to Welsh after a long absence, the SSiW is helping loads!
Quick question - if you are trying to say something like: “Can someone…”
Google translate gives “Gall rhywun…”
Firstly, is this the correct conjugation of Gallu? And if so, why?
Secondly, why isn’t the first letter mutated as is usual with questions? Is GT plain wrong here?
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I have definitely seen “gall” used similarly.
According to http://www.gweiadur.com/en/Pawb/gallu, “gall” is one of the possible formal forms of the 3rd person present/future.
I’m not sure about the mutation question.
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I would imagine that’s an ordering problem for Google - yes, ‘all’ would be better for a question - you might also hear ‘Ydi rhywun yn gallu’. As for correct conjugations - yes, because it’s short form - if you haven’t come across much of that, probably best not to worry too much just yet…
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Awesome, thanks Aran! That’s really helpful. Short forms “feel” intuitive from my past experience but I’m not completely confident enough to get them right all of the time. I’ll keep at it.
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I’m making progress with SSiW (on Level 3 North, now) but wanted to try to write something down – partly as a way of trying to make myself think more than one sentence at a time, partly as a way to try to acquire some vocabulary that I might need as and when I get a chance to try it out in the wild and someone asks why the hell I’m trying to learn anyway…
So the tiny question is: if I wanted to post faltering error-ridden chunks of prose & ask for help with them, is this a good thread, or is there a better? Or should I start one? Or should I wait till I’ve written a chunk, upload it to my old LiveJournal, and post a link in a thread with a plea? (I guess that’s several tiny questions…)
You could start a new thread, that way you can keep all your bits in one place then if that’s better. Any other questions can come back to this one whenever you have any. 
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I’ve been putting off posting in here and kept on accumulating little niggling questions, so a couple at once:
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is there any way to distinguish between, for example, “a daughter of the queen” and “the daughter of a queen”? from what I understand of the possessive in Welsh, both of these end up as “merch y frenhines”. do you just have to rephrase it if the distinction is important?
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in the Datblygu song “Benjamin Bore”, the lyrics in the chorus to me sound something like “hey Ben! tynar (?) tawel i ffwrdd”. can anyone tell me if this is anywhere near correct, and if it is, what “tawel i ffwrdd” actually means? this has been bugging me for literally years.
thanks in advance to anyone who can help with these!
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I can’t help with no 2 but my guess about no 1 is
Merch y frenhines, A daughter of the queen.
Y ferch y frenhines, The daughter of the queen.
As both Merch and Brenhines are feminine nouns they mutate, treiglo soft/ meddal, after the, y.
And I suppose
Merch brenhines would be
A daughter of a queen.
But I’m totally up for being corected.
It’s interesting we don’t seem to have a way of saying ‘The daughter of the queen’ in a less clumsy way in English.
merch y frenhines - daughter of the queen
merch brenhines - daughter of a queen
I think, as you imply, you need to phrase it differently if you need to specify ‘a daughter’ as opposed to ‘the daughter’.
And - nothing like a bit of research ‘ben bore’ - what a weird song…
You’re right that the phrase is ‘tynna’r tywel i ffwrdd’ - ‘pull away the towel’. It’s a play on words on ‘ben bore’ - ‘first thing in the morning’, of course. Ben sleeps all the time with a towel over his face. He says ‘eu fod yn cysgu trwy’r amser ac yn ymarfer marwolaethau’ - ‘that he’s sleeping all the time and practising death’. New jeans threaten.
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So, as @alex_1 wanted the daughter of a queen, wouldn’t that be ‘y ferch brenhines’? Or do you need ‘y ferch i frenhines’?
A/The daughter of the queen - Merch y frenhines
A daughter of a queen - Merch frenhines
What’s really happening here is that Welsh just operates differently to English in terms of a/the - so we don’t really have a way to say ‘THE daughter of A queen’ - in most cases, I’d expect that to end up as ‘Merch y frenhines’, because we don’t use the definite article in front of a described noun like that, and not having it at all makes it sound too indefinite…
Benjamin Bore - sounds as though Sonia has nailed that for you without needing to tag Rob…
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Hi, I haven’t been on the “new” forum (much) so lost track of where to post things, hence my post here: Is there somewhere to post information on Welsh speaking holiday accommodation? (or is that not allowed? - if so feel free to remove this post!) It’s not for myself, but I thought there might be an interest here for people who want to stay in places where they can practice their Welsh.
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I think that would be a great idea
Why not start a thread (click on ‘General/Questions’ up at the top there, and then look over on the right for ‘+New Topic’) called something like ‘Listing Welsh-speaking holiday accommodation’?
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I wonder if it’s actually more comparable if you rephrase the English,:
Merch y frenhines = The queen’s daughter
Merch frenhines = A queen’s daughter
It’s just that we could also do the “the daughter of a queen”/“a daughter of the queen” thang, too.
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When we use possession with a name, are we following this pattern? For example, for “Anna’s house”, we say “ty Anna” If I think of that as “the house of Anna”, how does that fit? This whole possession thing has been a source of puzzlement to me for a while…
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Yes, literally “the house of Anna” is implied in Welsh as it is in English. “Anna’s house” is what you would say so, yes “ty Anna” (sorry, I have no to bach on the letter “Y” on my keyboard).
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This…
Don’t worry about it, Anna - it’ll all come out in the wash - any time someone isn’t sure what you’re saying in terms of possession, they’ll get puzzled and ask, and that will sensitise you to the example in question… until one day it just stops being an issue…
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Thanks everyone for the answers and discussion!
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I think you have sorted it out perfectly, Anna! When talking of possessing and possessions, we need to think in terms of so-and-so’s something rather than ‘the something of so-and-so’!
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