Wasn’t it that all the old counties - Monmouthshire, Radnorshire, Breconshire etc. were mutated after Sir which is why with the present day system we get Sir Fynwy, Sir Gar etc were the old names have been reintroduced but the soft mutation hasn’t happened with the counties that don’t use an historical name e.g. Sir Powys (not Sir Bowys).
I suppose the case with Sir Benfro / Sir Penfro is that it technicaly being an “old name” should be Sir Benfro but for whatever reason there has been some confusion.
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Could it be because part of Sir Benfro spoke Welsh all through above the landsker kine, as @rebecca said, and part was little England beyond Wales?
Perhaps a bit of a bigger question than a tiny question, but…
Can anyone explain for me when I would be best placed using “Am” for “For” and “Ar Gyfer” for “For”.
I kind of feel like I know in my head, but I don’t really know how I know… if that makes ANY sense.
I have never, ever heard that - any time it’s a ‘way back when’ thing, it’s always been ‘Sir Gaernarfon’…
I’d hazard a guess that there’s a combination of factors going on here - some of @daiwilliams ‘old=familiar=SM’, plus some ‘it’s Cyngor Sir of the place, not Cyngor of Sir Ddy Place’ perhaps influenced a bit by the (sadly common) idea that we shouldn’t really mutate placenames because we don’t want the tourists to get lost (see all the ‘Croeso | Name | Welcome’ or ‘Welcome to | Name | Croeso’ signs around the place).
Ceredigion are doing the same thing with Cyngor Sir Ceredigion - although I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything but ‘Sir Geredigion’ in speech…
Yeah, that’s kind of like the diametric opposite of a ‘tiny question with a quick’ answer…! Just forget about the English, I’d say, and use ‘am’ where you hear other people using ‘am’, and ‘ar gyfer’ where you hear other people using ‘ar gyfer’…
Unless it would help to think of ‘ar gyfer’ as being a bit more emphatically ‘for the purpose of’…?
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Would you say something like this is correct then…
I’m excited AM tonight. (which perhaps suggests to us why AM can mean both ‘for’ and ‘about’)
I’m going to Aberystwyth AR GYFER university. (Because you’ve explained the reason).
This is how I’ve been using it thus far, just wanted to check I was all cool 
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Yup, that’s cool…
They’re slippery things, without really neat dividing lines, but if you carry on as is you’ll be on the nose most of the time, and you’ll fine tune even further through exposure without noticing it’s happening…
Yes, that was the kind of thing I was meaning when I mentioned marketing… 
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I think this was answered somewhere else, wasn’t it?
When am means ‘for’, it usually means ‘in exchange for’; when i means ‘for’, it can usually be replaced with ar gyfer
Also, with time expressions, am means ‘for’ with periods, but ‘at’ with specific times:
am flynyddoedd - for years
am dridiau - for three days
but
am dri o’r gloch - at three o’clock
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I like (I mean, I hate) the way in which we un-strange ourselves so tourists don’t get lost, while supermarkets deliberately change their layouts so that shoppers do get lost, on the grounds that they then buy more…
[Although to be fair shops seem to be doing that less these days - perhaps they have the stats on rage-comparison-shopping now…]
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it’s ridiculous though, isn’t it? Imagine the Italians changing all their signs saying Firenze to read ‘Florence’ instead, just for the poor English-speakers who can’t (or won’t!) understand Italian!!
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It’s one of the many opportunities the world is kind enough to provide me with for practising a calm and meditative state…
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My undersstanding of the Sir Benfro / Cyngor Sir Penfro thing is that it is because it’s the Cyngor Sir of Penfro - a Cyngor Sir being an administrative body, and this one being for Penfro, in the same way that Cyngor Sir Ceredigion and Cyngor Sir Gwynedd work. Of course, throwing a spanner in that particular workings is that Pembrokeshire is actually sir Benfro, whereas Ceredigion and Gwynedd are naturally just Ceredigion and Gwynedd.
It’s odd, but I have always thought of them as Cyngor … Sir Gâr, but Cyngor Sir … Penfro, presunably because the area is Sir Benfro, and not putting the mental space in would make the phrase un-natural.
But I note that Cyngor Sir Ddinbych keeps the mutation as does Sir Gâr.and Sir Fynwy.
Write to the Welsh officer at Cyngor Sir Penfro and ask them…
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Thank you for that explanation @Iestyn! I did tweet at the council to ask about this but haven’t received a reply yet … will report back if/when I do.
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…or perhaps any adjective? I’m thinking of Oxon, but Oxfordshire lane.
I think I’d use Oxfordshire to describe if someone lived in the county rather than the city but never Devonshire. If someone asks me where my parents live it’s Devon. Anyway…that’s way off topic now! Haha, sori pawb!
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Hi all, in challenge 12, for the phrase “He’s going to say that you speak it very well”, what I said was “Mae fe mynd i ddweud bo’ ti’n siarad e yn dda iawn” but I heard something like “Mae fe’n mynd i ddweud bo’ ti’n siarad hi’n dda iawn”. In other words, I hear an H where I didn’t think there would be one.
Is this one of those moments where I practice a calm and meditative state (… 
) and move on, learning what that was all about as I continue, or could someone explain what I heard or didn’t hear? Diolch ymlaen llaw!
What you’ve heard is correct
Cymraeg is a feminine noun. So you say “you speak her very well” (you wouldn’t actually translate it that way but you say “hi”) hope that helps 
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Oh yes it does! Apparently it’s one of those days when I have little patience with myself so it’s a relief to get it now.
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It’s goo to recognise that these are just attitude days rather than meaning anything about your Welsh, It sounds like you’re doing really well with the course!
It’s worth remembering that in the context of the lessons, the sentences don’t necessarily follow one to another, so in many cases it could be hi or fe (though I can’t think off hand of a sentence where “fe” would be technically correct in this particular case), and in real life, you will hear people mixing genders on a regular basis - I know I do, sometimes in the same sentence. So don’t sweat the details too much on this kind of thing. Or on any kind of thing really. You’re going for “understood” here not "able to address “Gorsedd y Beirdd” at the Eisteddfod.
You’ll find the details sorting themselves out with practice.
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Could I ask a v quick question about sut i ddweud beth yn Gymraeg (I am on level 2)?
Can “beth” and “rhywbeth” be used interchangeably in all instances?
Many thanks
Peter