Yes, I’d go for Cefn in Welsh, as it has that Rigg/ridgeback feel to it.
By the way, is anyone familiar with the author and twitterist, Robert Macfarlane? He specialises in words (of any language and age) that describe landscapes. I’ve noticed that he features some Welsh words in his writing/social media posts.
Interesting. That’s a not uncommon surname in the part of the world my parents come from (southern bit of Cumbria - Furness area (at one time part of Lancashire), and of course there is a lot of evidence of Scandinavian influence in placenames round there (e.g. Kirby).
What’s Welsh for “dialect”?
I used rhaniaith in one of my speaking practices, based on Cornish rannyeth for “dialect” – is that a real Welsh word as well, or if not, what’s the usual one?
My dictionary has it as ‘tafodiaith’ which makes sense to me.
Thank you!
Besides tafodiaith, my dictionary also has iaith lafar, which also makes sense. Interestingly, the next thing in the dictionary is “dialectic” for which the Welsh is given as dilechdid.
2 questions - one technical- why is commenting so hard on phone app?
2- on level 2 , why is the bits around asking for what people want to drink chi not ti, when almost all orhers on course are ti?
Just something that you are all probably aware of, but I have only recently noticed and can lead to difficulties.
In English:
Dialect and dialectal are related to language.
However, dialectic and dialectical relate to a different meaning.
I hope that this helps
Hi Vicky.
I’ll leave IT (phone) problem to someone who knows more than me. I tend to use desktop because its easier and doesn’t have predictive text etc.
Regarding Chi/ti
You will know that Chi is plural and also polite singular.
Ti or Chdi (?) is for someone around same age or younger than the speaker.
So it could be a question to a group of people asking what drinks they want.
There is one particular sentence in one of the challenges when the first part of the sentence is singular and the second is plural.
I hope that this helps.
Okay, this is probably just me being dense today, or possibly that I’m missing some clue in the words. But (for various reasons) I was looking up the word “wise” (as in full of knowledge) and the best fit seems to be call. In Gareth King’s dictionary, in the English-to-Welsh side, he has the example: dw i fawr callach = I’m none the wiser.
Almost always when I’m looking for a word I don’t know, I go to check the word in the Welsh-to-English side to see what it says there. For call the example given there is dyn ni fawr callach = we’re none the wiser.
I don’t understand how those phrases work. Especially, where’s the negative sense?
Largely because almost all the other stuff is ti… 
Want to keep you practising both, and tea/coffee seemed like a good environment for that.
Mawr doesn’t fit the English very neatly in these kind of structures - kind of feels a bit negative itself in some contexts - also sometimes supported by a negative, like ‘does gynnon ni fawr o amser’. Just one to let it roll past until it feels familiar to you…
I’d also offer ‘doeth’ as a very common fit for a lot of the ways you’d use ‘wise’ in English - ‘call’ can overlap with stuff like sensible - ‘dwyt ti ddim yn gall’ is a common way to say something like ‘you’re nuts’, etc…
Interesting one. I looked up “callach” in Gweiadur, and it gave the following:
fawr callach (mewn brawddeg negyddol) dim callach (Hyd yn oed ar ôl cael gafael yn y ddogfen, nid oedd fawr callach.) none the wiser
So in those examples, a negative element is introduced (“dim” or “nid”).
I wonder if Gareth’s examples should have had a negative element in them, or perhaps is it the case that this is sometimes just understood? (Not quite the same, but as in the American (slangy, I think) expression “I could care less” (which really means “I couldn’t care less”)?
Perhaps it’s sarcastic, like English “fat chance”, which means the same as “slim chance”?
Or German ganz gut, which means “completely good” if you translate word for word, but in practice means something like “not bad” (a reasonable standard, but not necessarily something to break out the champagne for) – the ganz does not have its literal meaning there.
OK – I thought remembered coming across a lot of fawr seeming to mean ‘not much’ in the last Manon Steffan Ros I read – Prism. Fortunately, I’ve got it as an e-book, so was able to search, with these results:
But I did find one good, clear example where there doesn’t seem to be any negative word anywhere in the sentence, but the meaning does seem to be ‘not much’:
Roedd Math yn falch iawn o weld mai ond ambell berson a grwydrai’r strydoedd, a hynny’n dawel ac yn cymryd fawr o sylw o ddau fel ni. (‘Math was very glad to see that there were only a few people wandering in the streets, and they were quiet and not taking much notice of two [lads] like us.’)
My instinct is that it’s like dim (or French rien) changing from meaning ‘anything’ to meaning ‘nothing’ from being used in negative sentences; but that the change is (as yet) only partial, and so has to be inferred from context. I’m also wondering vaguely, though, why it always seems to be fawr and not mawr…
Which verb is used in Welsh for “the sun is shining”? Mae’r haul yn …?
Gweiadur has eight different translations for “shine”…
yn gwenu? yn tywynnu?
My instant reaction was disgleirio…but I don’t know for sure
You’ll hear lots of different ways - tywynnu, disgleirio - gwenu maybe a bit more ‘talking to children’…
Gareth King’s dictionary has tywynnu and disgleirio when talking about the sun or moon. Disgleirio is also the word for general uses of “giving out light.”
Hoping somebody can help me with this - on Level 3 Challenge 4 I’m confused as to when “hyd yn oed” comes before or after the action it is referring to
even before I answer = cyn i mi ateb hyd yn oed
but
even if you knew = hyd yn oed 'set yn gwbod
or does it really matter?
Diolch
Couple of things that are bugging me, while reading some books and could do with a bit of help.
Naws and nacie. Naws comes up a lot and can’t a sense for it, despite looking on GPC, where it says (nature, disposition, temper (also of metal), temperament, form; tinge; savour, aroma; feel or feeling, mood, spirit, atmosphere; tincture).
nacie is just an informal Tag I think at the end of a sentence and a bit dialectal I think as well, but can’t place it next to a more standard form.
(also thinking about recording something, but haven’t got around to it yet).