Well, you probably didn’t know that we in Slovene also say “mi” and the sentence in Slovene would be
“Jutri mi ni treba (iti) v službo.”
“Tomorrow I don’t need to (go) to work.”
So you probably could understand that I had quite amount of trouble using “fi” at the beginning but now it finally stuck into my head. 
Now I am not used to use “mi” in Cymraeg at all.
and
CROESO!
Shwmae. Two questions:
On the lessons, they sometimes say what I think is the word ‘ffwrdd’. However, most often it sounds like they are pronouncing it as ‘for’ and leaving off the ‘th’ at the end. Have I got the word wrong or am mishearing the pronunciation?
I thought ‘How to do it’ would be 'Sut i neud’o (spelling might be wrong, but it’s the pronunciation that I’m wondering about). On the lesson recordings it often sounds like they’re saying sut “yw” neud’o, instead of sut “i” neud’o.
Any help gratefully received. Diolch!
Helo Gavin,
Not sure about your first question…can you give a more specific example from the lessons? I think I know the answer to the second one, but I’m not sure I’m right. I don’t want to mislead anyone, so I’ll be waiting to hear the answer, too…
@AnnaC from the looks of it, he’s doing the Northern course. We use bant in the South rather than ffwrdd.
As for #2, the ‘ei’ getting shortened to more of an ‘eh’ or ‘ih’ sound rather than ‘ee’ is common is normal speech.
[quote=“gavin, post:42, topic:3153”]
I thought ‘How to do it’ would be 'Sut i neud’o (spelling might be wrong, but it’s the pronunciation that I’m wondering about). On the lesson recordings it often sounds like they’re saying sut “yw” neud’o, instead of sut “i” neud’o.[/quote]
I think what you are hearing is actually “sut i wneud o” - the word “to do” is gwneud, which after “i” is softened to wneud, and sometimes the “w” also gets lost in quick speech, but not always.
On the first question, sometimes the “dd” sound at tthe end of a word is very hard to hear. In the midst of a sentence you might not hear it at all.
“to do it” is “ei wneud o” and the “ei” causes mutation. With an “i” before the “ei” the two words are contracted to “i’w”. So what you sometimes hear is “correct”, but the “ei” before gwneud is very often omitted (at least in the Northern course, not sure about the Southern version).
By the way, congratulations for your hearing. The difference between “i” and “i’w” is easy to overhear.
I’ve got a feeling that we actually say that ‘ffwrdd’ is very often said without the dd when we introduce it - so no, you haven’t got the word wrong at all, it is ‘ffwrdd’ and would usually be written like that (or maybe ffwr’ in very informal writing) - but the ‘dd’ is very often dropped. 
That makes sense, diolch. For those doing the South version, we use ‘e’ rather than ‘o’ so, “ei wneud e”.
Thanks, everyone.
So, is ‘ei’ pronounced ‘ee’? And the ‘e’ in ‘ei’ gets dropped and combined to form i’w when gwneud mutates?
I think I failed to notice it because gwneud seems to be pronounced ‘gneud’ without the mutation. But when it mutates the ‘w’ comes back onto the scene? It reminds me of the liaison between French words
I’m going by the Southern course, it may be different in the North.
Thanks, Brigitte. This is what I was thinking it was (but I’m not even sure where I learned this!) I am doing Southern, so as @craigf pointed out, I would use “sut i’w wneud e” . There are times when I hear Iestyn and Cat sound like they are saying “i’w”, and times when they sound like they are saying “i” (with the next word sounding like “neud” in both cases). So as Craig said, in the spoken language it doesn’t seem to be a big deal either way.
I missed that you are doing the Northern course, Gavin, so that explains why I had no idea about “ffordd”.
You hear it right. They say so. However I just sticked with “i neud” version all the rest I don’t bother with too much. It’s the same as with affirmative sentences with “ti” when if you use question word in it like os, pan etc, they say sentence like a question is said for example: “Dwi’n barod i siarad gyda ti os ti’n mwyn.” however they many times would say “Dwi’n barod i siarad gyda ti os ew ti’n mwyn.” However tohse (interestingly enough) are tinny differences for me which I don’t mind.
It is pronounced ‘ee’ everywhere, in natural speech. And indeed it was spelt ‘i’ in earlier times, and then some ‘expert’ decided that it came from the Latin ‘eius’ (which it doesn’t) which also means ‘his/her’, and so they altered the spelling accordingly. And now some people try and tell others that it should be pronounced as spelt. Well it shouldn’t. Keep saying ‘ee’, and you will sound authentic.
Thanks for the input. I love learning about the history.
[quote=“garethrking, post:53, topic:3153”]
It is pronounced ‘ee’ everywhere, in natural speech.[/quote]
Gareth - a question about this. Is the ‘ee’ pronunciation for “ei” only found when it is that word, or does it carry over into other words with “ei” in them? For example, the word “ceiniog” (penny). My understanding has been that in a word like that the “ei” would end up sounding more like an English ‘long a’ in speech. Can you enlighten me?
Hey everyone, I have a question about the pronunciation of “mae”.
I’m taking the Southern course, and the word seems to be pronounced as “mah” versus “my”. I checked other sources online, and most seem to agree it’s pronounced “my”.
Or, in rapid speech, is “mah” also correct? Thanks!
“Mah” is common in the South. Also, “Oes” is pronounced “Oss” rather than “Ois”, other “oe” containing words as well say “oe” as a sourt ‘o’, e.g. ddoe is thaw not thoi.
Thanks! So, in the South, both pronunciations are acceptable?
Use what you like. I tend to use “my” and “ois”. But, on some word combinations I copy Iestyn’s “Mah”.I also learned “thaw” not “thoi”.
Thanks!