Also, as always - I don’t think it matters 
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I’ve always thought of ‘fan hyn’ as more specific sort of ‘right here’ just like ‘rwan hyn’ is kind of ‘right now’.
‘Ty’d yma rwan.’ … ‘ocê, dwi’n dod.’
Ty’d yma rwan hyn!’ … ‘uh oh, dwi mewn trafferth.’ 
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Yes they are. The ones with fan are VERY commonly used in speech - thoroughly recommended!
famma = fan 'ma = fan hyn (the papur bro for Yr Wyddgrug in the NE is called Papur Famma)
fanna = fan 'na
fanno = fan yno there [out of sight]
And don’t forget:
fancw = fan acw yonder
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So “Ty’d fan hyn rŵan hyn!” - either “dyna fo, oedd o’n neis i nabod pawb…” Or the other person has just been listening to Fat Boy Slim?
That’s interesting, I hadn’t really thought of that. Then again, rŵan hyn is a very northern construction, hyn isn’t used for the same emphasis down 'ere
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Can anyone help me with a Welsh translation of ‘secret Santa’?
My suggestion would be “Sion Corn cyfrinachol”, but others may have better ideas.
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Sion Corn Cudd might be another way of saying it. We didn’t do it at work this year and I can’t remember what it was last year!
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Sion Corn Cudd has a very good ring and flow! Like it!
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Thank you all!
By way of explanation, my parents have got their Cymrophile (but sadly not Cymro-Cymraeg) neighbours in a secret santa. I’ve just been correcting the gift tag my Dad concocted with Google Translate (it did a surprisingly good job for once), but wasn’t at all convinced with its suggestion for ‘secret Santa’.
As I suspect its going to be taken to the local Welsh Society for translation, I’m keen to get it right!
To be fair, secret Santa is a modern concept! It may not have an ‘accepted translation’! @aran? @Iestyn? @garethrking?
Quick query arising from the 5-minute test thread. I said there that
which obviously involved me messing up an identification sentence…
…but I think that when I said “something like” I was actually over-thinking and re-writing it because I’d got myself confused about what I actually had said. I think what I said – and afterwards mis-corrected – was actually something like Dyna’r peth dw i angen. I think I got my knickers in a twist about the fact that that didn’t seem to have a main verb at all, but now I’m wondering if it’s not, after all, better Welsh than what I changed it to. Is it??
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That’s an interesting question (so I’m joining your thought train if that’s OK? ) . I’m never sure with Dyna. When I read your sentence I imagine you pointing at the thing you need. I kind of think of Dyna as “that there…” I only really use “dyna” when i’m saying 'na ni/fo/fi ayyb.
With @aran’s example for the 5 minutes, if I were to say “that” (without the point) I’d say “hynna ydi’r peth dw i angen”. So that, slightly emphatic but without the point in a direction.
(I’ve no idea if that made sense?)
You remember when we were looking at the list of ‘shrunken’ bod forms? Well, if you think about it, that’s kind of what has happened here. “Dyna’r peth dw i angen” is a shortening of “Dyna’r peth yr ydw i angen”.
Oh, yes - but if I was trying to say “There’s the thing I’m in need of,” I wasn’t bothered by “I’m” vs “I am” (or anything from yr ydwyf to dw i). What bothered me was that I’d said “There the thing” rather than “There’s”, and then I made a mess of trying to correct it.
On the one hand, I was worried that I’d unintentionally dredged up some mediaeval syntax from somewhere in my brain, from when they used to say things like “Hen y dyn” instead of “Mae’r dyn yn hen.” But on the other I had a feeling that it’d be perfectly good modern Welsh to say “Dyna fo” for “There he is.” (I think.)
Yes, makes perfect sense - I think it’s things like “Dyna fo” with no actual verb that made me come out with what I did.
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Ah, I see - I thought you meant the “didn’t seem to have a main verb” bit. Oops!
That’s fine…
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That reminds me, in a conversation a while back I said ‘dyna’n well’ for ‘that’s better’ meaning ‘that one’s better/that thing is a better choice’. But I thought it didnt sound right and wondered if I should have said ‘mae hynny’n well’ or some other option?
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Yes. But it depends on context, of course. If, for example, you mean ‘That’s better’ in the sense of an improvement in the general situation (say, you tightened the washer on the tap to stop the dripping, and then said ‘That’s better’), then
’Na welliant
(lit. ‘that is an improvement’) is very commonly heard.
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Yup, I’d have gone for ‘mae hynna’n well’ or ‘dyna welliant’ (which makes me suspect that ‘dyna’ would generally only work with nouns?)…
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