They aren’t cognates. Cym- is a prefix for loads of words. For example: cymod = reconciliation. As Siaron says Cymry has a difference lineage to cymryd
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And cymeraf is apparently from *kom-ber- where the second part meant something like “carry” or “steal” and is related to the English verb “bear” (carry).
cymryd, on the other hand, is from *kom-britu- but I don’t know what the second portion is, nor do I quite understand how cymryd with its different origin became used as part of the verb cymeraf. (Perhaps suppletion, like how “went”, from “wend (one’s way)”, became used as the past tense of the unrelated verb “go”.)
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Thank you, all,of you! I feel,much better now!
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This link may be of interest - not sure of it’s credentials, but fits with what you were saying?
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“gyda nos” means - in the night when talking about events etc.
Can you say “efo nos” too, or is it a kinda stand alone phrase?
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I’ve never heard anyone say that - I’d expect to hear ‘gyda’r nos’ up here, in that kind of context…
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Don’t suppose someone could help me understand what the “eu” does in the following sentence?
Roedd hi’n well peidio gofyn beth oedd y pethau roedd Dad yn eu gwneud
It’s referring to the “pethau” as “they”. So it’s “the things Dad had they done” (if you were to translate word for word rather than meaning). Does that make sense?
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Thanks, that’s really helpful. Is it a necessity in this instance then? If it wasn’t there would the sentence make less sense, or become ambiguous?
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To me, a native English speaker, it would still make sense but I don’t know if that’s me translating into English. My instinct says you could probably drop it. However, I’m not an authority on this. I’ll tag a few people who will be able to help 
@aran, @iestyn, @garethrking, @siaronjames (I’m sure there are others, sorry if I’ve left you out)
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I thought the meaning was to make it passive -instead of he saw, he was seen, instead of he heard, he was heard, I’m not sure in your example if it implies Dad had done or tjings were done to Dad
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No - it would be OK without the eu
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I have a question about my feeling I have become worse at speaking! I’m not sure if this is because I tried recording my answers to the five minute questions and I have always been so indecisive or I have become terribly slow. I’ve been reading and using duolingo to expand my vocabulary to fill in time between the new level three southern challenges appearing. I seem to be losing the ability to think in welsh and have been doing the mental translation thing fishing for words. I think duolingo encourages that asking continually for English to Welsh and Welsh to English. I have also used the old lessons for level one and two.
My question (apologies for long winded preamble) is how do I regain that fluidity without over practicing the SSIW lessons and learning them by wrote.
Also should I stop the duolingo?
I try and speak with my Welsh first language speaking neighbour for practice about once a fortnight. Listen to Radio Cymru and watch bits of S4C.
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Yeah I was doing the same, translating into english, it just didn’t feel right when i did. Thanks for the help. @garethrking and @henddraig thanks also!
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It’s become reflexive not passive.
Passive takes different endings:
-wyd
-ir
Codwyd y tŷ - the house was built
Agorir y llyfrgell - the library is opened
How long do you usually talk for?
But don’t worry - you’re feeling that you’ve ‘become worse’ is a common enough thing - as learners, we’re very bad at accurately assessing our own progress - if you do the ‘practice sentence’ exercise every day for a couple of weeks (making up new sentences on the fly each time) and then record again, you’ll almost certainly see a significant improvement, which will help you feel better about yourself…
But building that fortnightly chat into a weekly chat (even if you need two different neighbours!) and kicking it up to an hour or two is what will really get you flying…
Thanks, I do try to see my neighbour as often as I can. We dip in and out of Welsh to keep the conversation flowing but I always learn something new.
I’ll try the sentence practice each day too. Mostly, I’m trying to think of something to speak about rather than a monologue about learning Welsh!
Maybe I’ll try the list of topics to cut down on that so I’m more prepared.
Would stopping the duolingo focus my learning more on speaking?
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I can guarantee you that what you feel is a completely normal part of the learning process. Some days it really does feel like you have gone back to the beginning or have made no progress at all but keep on doing what you are doing and those days will become less and less frequent until you start to feel confident in most instances when speaking Welsh.
It sounds like you’re doing exactly the right things , doing the SSIW lessons , listening to radio Cymru , trying to speak it when you get chance. Do you have any more people that you can speak it with or a regular grwp sgwrs that you can go to ? I would carry on with Duolingo . I substitute my learning with Duolingo too and it is quite handy and useful in helping with spelling and a bit of vocabulary. You are constantly improving all the time even though it doesn’t usually feel like it
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Ah, that’s interesting - I’d recommend that you have a set amount of time each week/fortnight where you stay in Welsh only - even if it’s just for 5 or 10 minutes at first - because that ‘dipping out’ to keep the flow going is exactly where you need to be struggling to stay in Welsh, until more of those bits of common structure/vocab become more easy for you… otherwise, you’re using what comes quickly and easily to mind, which is good, but you’re not getting practice on the tougher stuff, which is the practice you most need…
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