Thank you for this Siaron, this helps a lot 
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In Southern/Challenge 1 vocabulary list, I see:
“Ma eisiau i fi”
In the example it becomes “mae”.
“Mae dal eisiau i fi”
Why?
I’ll try to guess just for fun.
I’ve seen “mae” before (although I haven’t figured what it means exactly).
Maybe in the first sentence it would be “ma(e) eisiau” but you want to avoid two “e” in a row when writing it?
Ma’ is the spoken form of mae, but in informal writing you’ll see people using ma’. It’s just a natural shortening in speech and there are no rules regarding when to do it.
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Hi Gisella. I can see where you are coming from (does that even make sense in English? )
Anyway, Ma is just how they pronounce mae in SE Wales. It’s totally optional. In fact many words and place names with “ae” in them just come out as “a”. As I said it’s local and optional. Both pronunciations are ok.
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As many of you know, this is the building opposite Ty Tawe. A nice appetite whetter as you visit Ty Tawe. The preceding clause is in English “Came to Swansea " then what you see. So I,m taking it as something like” I’m settling for life with contentment".
Any thoughts? About the meaning, that is.
(Loaded from phone, edited spelling on laptop)
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Mae is the third person singular form of the verb “to be”. Generally, the verb comes first in a Welsh sentence, so it’s verb-subject-object. Literally the sentence Mae eisiau i fi… means There is a need for me to… (I think Iestyn mentions that somewhere). You may also see eisiau spelled as isie - same kind of thing as mae/ma as explained above.
You don’t really need to know any of that to do SSiW, definitely no need to worry about it. I just thought I’d explain since you asked. Just carry on with the SSiW method and you’ll do great!
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What a puzzle - I looked in GPC and it says “setlo ar” can mean settled (estate etc) on. The Settled here maybe the sort of thing that might match up to the nature of the building and why it was established? If it was a refuge or a place for people who need to find peace and contentment then that might sort of make sense? I can’t think of another way of translating it literally apart from along the lines of your attempt.
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You can also say - ers faint for “how long have you been learning?” - ers faint wyt ti’n dysgu?
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Hi Anthony. Great to see you back on here… You have just reminded me that I heard a young woman on BBC Question Time (Caernarfon?), Who said that she had lived there since x years.
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Thanks @AnnaC, even though it’s not necessary for SSiW , I’m very interested in knowing more about what I’m learning and the language in general. So I very much appreciate!
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A few tiny questions about what I seemed to hear while following captions or written text:
I read c, I hear g (as in Cymraeg = Gymraeg, but happened really often)
I read “unryw”, I hear “undryw”
I read “reit lawr”, I hear “reit glawr”
I was wondering if it can happen or it’s my untrained ears’ mistakes!
As to the Cymraeg/Gymraeg C does often change to G. Sometimes to Ch, sometimes to Ngh. The reason for the change is that some initial letters change according to what comes before. First if all, don’t worry about it. Second of all, your ears may be mishearing. Third of all, who ever is writing the subtitles may just be incorrect. I believe that sometimes, at least for English language subtitles, it’s done by computer, audio recognition and can be fairly random anyway.
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Alright!
As for subtitles, you’re absolutely right. Therefore that can be often the case.
However my two examples above are from song lyrics, so I know they’re correct. What I don’t know if it’s just the singer who pronounce them in a weird way or it’s- maybe - some sounds change when they’re next to each other (as now you say it may happen).
Welsh still seems full of unusual sounds for me so I’m trying to understand how it works!
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I love those little giveaways when people revert to constructions from their first or main language.
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I think understand how Welsh really works is akin to discovering the mysteries behind myths and legends! In other words: it’s a complicated old business! (But fun though. ).
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I see regularly “Sut mae gweithio” - for “How it works” or similar meaning…but not Sut i … which I see or read more colloquially.
I assume the mae construct is the more Welsh (less ‘anglicised’) version?
I think your ‘undryw’, if it’s not mis-heard, may just be an articulatory phenomenon - that sticking a ‘d’ in there makes it easier to get from an ‘n’ to an ‘r’ (like the way most English speakers pronounce ‘hamster’ as ‘hampster’).
You get a similar thing in Romance languages, when a Latin vowel disappears - dies Veneris (venerdi, dydd Gwener) becomes French vendredi because it’s easier to say than venredi.
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It makes sense.
Although for dies Veneris…I find our Venerdì solution simpler. Why take the e away in the first place if then you have to add another d to pronounce it? 
But I like the Welsh version!
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Hi All, sorry if I’m jumping in here without reading the background. But on face value:
“Sut mae('n) gweithio” - “How it works”
Sut i (weithio…) - How to work …
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