How to say “day” and “dayful” in Welsh
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Really interesting, thanks! However, the video gives ‘TRIDIAU ydy gair y dydd’ in the test at the end, at 5:38. Is that right? I guess I need to watch again and pay more attention! I would have thought ‘gair y diwrnod’, like the thread with that title.
Or would ‘y dydd’ be more like ‘of the time’, as in ‘the fashion of the day’, as opposed to a specific daily event?
Hey folks. I’ve just started listening to @Nicky’s podcast, https://soundcloud.com/myndambeintgyda
It’s a bit of blur at this stage, but I can pick out just enough that it’s a tough, but enjoyable challenge for me, which is really, really cool. Awesome stuff, thanks!
Anyway, it sounds like I’m hearing ‘ti bod’ quite a lot, mostly at the end of a sentence I think. Is that a thing, or have I misheard? ‘Y’know’, perhaps?
Cheers, --Antony
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AFAIK it’s ti’mod (or something like that) and is, I think, an ultra-compact version of ti’n gwybod - so your stab at “y’know” is spot on 
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So I’ve been watching the Bocs Set of Pen Talar on S4C Clic, and I noticed something in the penultimate episode, at about 29 minutes in. Avoiding spoilers, Doug is talking to his old friend’s daughter, who is then about 4 years old – not a toddler, but still really quite a little girl – about her parents. To start off with he says Fan hyn o’n i a dy dad yn dod pan o’n ni’n fach – “Your dad and I used to come here when we were little.” A moment later he says to her Falle ddeiff dadi ti a ti yma i siarad a mami ti – “Maybe you and your daddy could come here to talk to your mummy.”
So I noticed the switch from the expected dy dad to dadi ti and mami ti – is this a recognised semi-baby-talk way of doing things – the way one speaks to small children in Welsh? What else might happen in Welsh mother-ese?
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Yes, Id say very normal for that age and older in West Wales. Im not sure where in West Wales it’s set, but Id say typical from Llanelli Westwards even in English: Mamie and Dadie with a little e kick at the end. Also Mammy and Daddy in Ireland, incidentally.
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I dont get it … think its a sly joke … tridiau is an old quick way of saying “three days”…dont sweat it though…this channel likes the odd quirky interjection 
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Question … Does the English word Dad come directly from the Brythonic Welsh … “Tad”
Same question again but with “Nan” from “Nain”
Last most obscure question for 100 points … Howcome northern England retained the old Welsh and old European spelling “mam” for mother…but southern England never seems to have used it? - in context consider how few Welsh words are in English (Crag, Penguin etc)
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Yeah, I was really thinking about the shift away from “your + SM + father” to “daddy (of) you (no SM)” – not the words mami and dadi so much as the structure of the phrase. Mami ti as being more child-friendly than dy fami? – but first-language speakers grow up with mutations and even (according to @aran) fail to notice they’re doing them, so I’m not sure why dy fami sounds so off…
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Happens a lot with those sort of colloquialisms like “caru ti” not “garu di” or “methu ti” not “fethu di”. I don’t know why it happens but I’ve noticed those.
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There are a few regional variances of this, depending on where you end up in Wales but you’re right - it is very similar to the English “y’know?”
May also be heard as…
Ti’bod
Ti’mod
Ch’bod
Chi’mod
and many more slightly different variations
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How would I say ‘I’m not sure if anything I say is right’?
And how would I say ‘I’m not sure that anything I say is right’?
I’m meaning to imply with the first that I just don’t know one way or
the other, and with the second that I believe it to be so, but I don’t
know for certain. (I hope I’ve got that right: learning Welsh has made
me realise that I know surprisingly little about English grammar!)
I don’t know how to say either sentence, funnily enough, and I’m
probably trying to move ahead too quickly, but I’ll take a nervous
swing at it myself first, because there’s a gap right here:
Dw i ddim yn siŵr bod unrhywbeth dw i’n ei ddweud yn iawn.
And you have to say something in the gap. Is that even anywhere in the
ballpark for either sentence?
I know that you know but wasn’t actually said so just for clarity … it is literally “you know”, short for “ti’n gwybod”.
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Yep! This 100 times!
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Dw i ddim yn siŵr os unrhywbeth bo’ fi’n deud yn gywir
Dw i ddim yn sicr os unrhywbeth mod i’n deud yn iawn
Dw i ddim yn siŵr/sicr nad/mai/taw unrhywbeth ‘mod i’n/bo’ fi’n dweud yn gywir/iawn
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I feel like there’s a mae or an ydy/yw needed here, after your os, as if it were:
Mae rhywbeth bo 'fi’n (d)deud yn gywir
I think it’s still going to be mae here, although the os is making me hesitate, so maybe:
Dw i’m yn siŵr os mae unrhywbeth bo’ fi’n deud yn gywir
And similarly in the others, I think.
On a side note: if I ever, ever feel that I have 100% conquered the difference between mae and ydy in all plausible contexts and without second-guessing myself, I swear to God I’m going to declare myself fluent at that point, I really am… 
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To tell the truth, my feeling here would be that we need oes here, i.e. Dw I ddim yn siwr os oes unrhywbeth…, as It’s talking about the existence or not of unrhywbeth
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Hmmm… I saw this, and thought “D’oh! Of course!” – but I’ve since had Second and even Third Thoughts, and now I’m starting to think of how American children in school are taught to understand syntax by diagramming sentences…
[Arrgh! Fourth Thoughts now. I have a feeling that what you said was fine after all: I’ve searched for, and found, examples of oes unrhywbeth yn that match your suggestion quite closely, e.g. os oes unrhywbeth yn aneglur “if there’s anything unclear.” I’m leaving this here rather than deleting it in the hope someone more knowledgable steps in to clarify it all… Paging @garethrking!]
I think you could do it just as you say, but only if we understand yn gywir to be an adverb:
Dw i’m yn siŵr os oes unrhywbeth bo’ fi’n deud yn gywir – “I’m not sure if there’s anything that I say correctly”
Otherwise, I’m still fretting about the lack of a verb to link the unrhywbeth with the gywir, and I’m going to want to see your oes and raise you a sy’n:
Dw i’m yn siŵr os oes unrhywbeth bo’ fi’n deud sy’n gywir – “I’m not sure if there’s anything that I say that’s right.”
But I feel like this is starting to get a bit… convoluted? If I were to say, instead, that I’m not sure if everything I say is wrong, I think we’d get back to something more like what Anthony said:
Dw i’m yn siŵr os mae popeth bo’ fi’n deud yn rong… (Sorry: anghywir 
)
[Think I’m gonna make that Dw i’n eitha siŵr bod popeth bo’ fi’n deud yn rong…]
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Yes, I think you maybe right here that you could look at it in two ways. Now I’m wondering though whether we have an ‘indirect speech conjunction’ construction situation (sorry, got carried away with the ‘-ions’ there 
), so that maybe it should be:
Dw i’m yn siŵr os oes unrhywbeth ydw i’n deud yn gywir
OR
Dw i’m yn siŵr os oes unrhywbeth ydw i’n deud sy’n gywir
Yes, please!
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I don’t think it is oes - becuase that mean’s “there is”,
To change the order:
I’m not sure that anything I have said is correct:
Dw i ddim yn siwr nad ydy unrhywbeth dw/bo’ fi/mod i wedi deud yn gywir
so it’d be “os nad ydy…” wouldn’t it?