Hi Seastian. Wlcone from a fellow student. No, you definitely haven’t, in fact you have shown how observant you are. Both forms are ok. Gen tends to be used more up North, with gyda or just 'da being favoured down South. Someone from Mid Wales will probably advise you of their local situation. You will here both on the TV and radio. Cheers, John.
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No one having a go at Welsh is making a fool of themselves. Only the people that don’t try 
With ‘gyda’ what you’re after is:
Mae gyda fi ffrind or Mae ffrind gyda fi
Mae gyda Morgan ffrind or Mae ffrind gyda Morgan
Take your pick 
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I have a question about “wyt”. I’ve been learning Welsh on DuoLingo for a few months, but their approach is much less natural than this course. On that course, for affirmitive sentences in the informal second person, they include “wyt”: “Wyt ti’n siarad cymraeg”, for “You speak Welsh”, for example.
For lesson 2 here, Iestyn omits the “wyt” for affirmitive sentences, so it becomes “Ti’n siarad cymraeg”. My question is simply: is this a colloquial thing, to drop the verb like this? The only time I’ve seen this otherwise is with “Ti’n iawn!”. Is it more “correct” but less common to include it, as I’ve been taught previously? And is this a North vs South thing?
Sorry, rather more than the short question I indended, there!
As you have noticed, SSiW uses forms you will hear in conversations whereas Duolingo is more standardised. It is very common for the wyt to be dropped in speech and there are no ‘rules’ as to when it is or isn’t missing, nor is it a North/South thing, so don’t overthink it - in speech, just go with whatever feels natural for you
(but remember, you may have to keep it in every time on duolingo for it to accept it as ‘correct’)
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@stephenbranley : My perception had been that the "“Wyt ti’n…” form in affirmative (non question) statements was more a writing thing.
However, one case where you will need to be aware of it in speech, and maybe use it sometimes is if someone asks a question of the form “am I …something?”, and the answer is “Yes”, then the Welsh answer would be “wyt”.
Another small question that’s just come to mind: how would I say “I have some news for you”? I know that there’s no verb for “to have” as in “to possess” something, and that we use the gyda / gan construction to say something is “with” something else, but does that translate to a concept such as having something for someone else?
“Mae newyddion gyda fi i di”? Or am I making this too simplistic?
Diolch.
“Mae gen i newyddion i ti” is how I’d say it (in Gog), and it’s a while since I’ve used ‘Hwntw’ (though I am one!) constructions, but I’d say that would be “Mae gyda fi newyddion i ti” - I’m sure someone will confirm/correct soon!
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Ta, Siaron. I was taught that gyda usually comes after the thing being possessed, whereas gan usually comes before… although I’ve also been told that this is pretty flexible! But gyda/gan is still the right thing to use for something abstract like news, by the looks of it. Is there’s no mutation of “ti” to “di” after the “i” then?
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Yes, that’s what normally happens with gyda, but (and maybe it’s only because I’m now so used to the gan construction) the “gyda fi i di” sounds odd to me - but maybe that’s just me, maybe it doesn’t sound so odd to others!
Not neccesarily in this case, although if you wanted to emphasise the ‘you’ i.e. “I’ve got some news for you”, then you would definitely use di.
Yes, I agree that the “fi i ti” does sound a bit strange. “Mae gyda fi newyddion i ti” does kind of have a better flow to it.
Mmmmmm… that’s one for the ‘not actually correct usage’ pile… although of course if you’re hearing it in the wild, it’s a real thing, but not, I’d suggest, at the ‘fine for learners’ stage of common usage…
‘Mae newyddion gyda fi i ti’ works fine for me - I’m fairly sure I’ve actually heard Iestyn say that! - and it doesn’t sound as clunky as you might expect when the constituent parts still feel a little unfamiliar to you…
Oh oh oh! Another one! (Sorry, I’m now hijacking this thread every time a silly little question comes to mind)
How do you pronounce “Sir” as in “Shire”? I pass the sign for “Sir Fynwy” about once a month, and it bugs me every time. The Si combination usually produces a “sh” sound, as I understand it (siwgr, siwr, siop), but those examples all have another vowel after the i.
That’s where I’m from!
The Welsh ‘sir’ rhymes with the English ‘sear’ (as in ‘searing hot’), and yes you are right to notice that when si is followed by another vowel it usually becomes sh.
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I’m afraid I usually pass straight through on my way from the second Severn crossing to Cardiff to pick my step daughter up from university. She’s the reason I’m learning Welsh… I told her she ought to take advantage of free Welsh lessons at university, and she scoffed at the idea and told me “If you love Welsh so much, you bloody learn it!” so I am 
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I thought I had always heard (e.g. on Radio Cymru) “sir” as though it were the English word “sheer” (or “shear”). So not unlike the English word “shire”, which some people actually do pronounce “sheer” when it’s at the end of a county name, like “Lancashire”.
I could be wrong though, and/or it might not be the universal way of saying it.
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I learned it by osmosis as ‘sheer’! Not sure where… Llanelli likely? Sir Gar.
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You’ll hear ‘sear’ and ‘sheer’ - sometimes from the same person…
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Diolch yn fawr
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Diolch yn fawr i ti hefyd
No there isn’t
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