Oooh THANK YOU! This is what I’ve been thinking too but couldn’t imagine there being such a simple explanation!
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@johnwilliams_6 is spot on.
The “official” rule is that you use both, but in speech you tend to find people use one or the other. It will chop and change in speech, sometimes even during the same sentence!
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Thank you! I’ll try to say both every time. Forgetting the last bit sometimes will happen automatically 
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English: I love you.
Welsh: Dwi’n dy garu di.
English: “I your love you”? What does that even mean?
Welsh: There you go again, criticizing me…
In other news, I had the insane idea of writing “something simple” on another forum. I looked up a couple of things when I wasn’t sure what word to use. All was going well until I double-checked “Liciwn i gwn a gathau, ond fy mam yw alergedd i nhw” in Google Translate. It gives me “Rwy’n hoffi cŵn a chathod, ond mae gan fy mam alergedd”.
Aside from the implication that I may have used the wrong mutation of “cathau/cathod”, I’m not sure about the purpose of “mae gan”. Are there multiple ways of phrasing it, or is my sentence just not grammatically correct?
I tend to find it sounds more natural when you just say one. But really don’t worry!
For example, my wife and I tend to say “caru ti” rather than “dy garu di”. Read a series of books by T Llew Jones (West Wales), he writes “nhad i” without the first bit. So go with the feel 
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Geiriadur yr Academi says “alergaidd iddyn nhw” or “mae fy mam yn alergaidd i gathod”
It looks like Google is trying to say “has an allergy”. Hence the gan. But it doesn’t really work in Welsh that way.
So the sentence would be “Liciwn i gŵn a chathau, ond fy mam yn alergaidd i nhw”? (Drat, my worry was whether I needed “yw”, and I didn’t even think of “yn” for some reason.)
Also, is it “a chathau” rather than “a gathau”? I’ve never been too sure how to tell when C should mutate into CH. And when I checked on the search engine, I found both “alergaidd i” and “alergedd i”. Is one just a variant of the other?
The plural of cath is cathod - “Liciwn i gŵn a chathod”
Well, when I looked up the plural of “cath” on Wiktionary, it said both “cathau” and “cathod” are used. Of course, I just Googled “cathau” and the search results didn’t look too impressive, so apparently both Google Translate and Wiktionary hate me tonight. Google Translate is hit-and-miss sometimes, so I often cross-reference stuff on Wiktionary, but…
And ironically, I was using them to double-check words and phrases to decrease the chances of making mistakes.
I just checked with Geiriadur yr Academi and I must apologise… -au is a plural ending after all, apparently!
I have to say, though, I have never heard anyone use it, or indeed seen it used in writing, but there we are - I’ve learnt something new today!
Then I suppose it might be better to use “cathod”, since it’s the more common form.
Yeah I agree with Siaron. Cathod for me.
So back to your question -
C -> ch after a, â, gyda/efo, tri and when things become negative. So clywais i becomes chlywais i ddim
One explanation that I have heard, is that sometimes you need both parts in speech to make it clear who you are talking about… for example ei means both his and her, so you might need the ending (ei arian hi - her money/ei arian o - his money) to show who you are speaking about, and also in speech the ei (his/her) sounds very similar to eu (their) so you might need the ending for clarification (eu arian nhw - their money). If it’s already clear (dy arian - your money) the ending becomes more ‘optional’. I’m not an expert btw, just something that was mentioned to me once!
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Can someone please help clarify the following idioms for me?
Mae gen i - I have got
Rhaid i mi - I must
Mae’n well gen i - I prefer/I would rather
Mae’n well i mi - this is where I get stuck - is this prefer again? Or ‘it would be better for me’, as in healthier, for example… basically is it a different meaning to the option above?
Diolch!
Mae gen i - I have got… yes
Rhaid i mi - I must…yes
Mae’n well gen i - I prefer/I would rather…yes
Mae’n well i mi - I’d better… e.g. Mae’n well i mi fynd = I’d better go
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This is very cool! Thank you!
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Thanks a lot, so ‘I’d better go’ as in ‘I’d better go or I’ll be late.’ (doesn’t necessarily mean you’d like to).
Or Mae’n well i mi fwyta fy lysiau = I’d better eat my vegetables…?
Yes, that’s it. Another useful one is “mae’n well i mi beidio” = “I’d better not” 
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Normally this is sorted by context in conversation, as well as mutations. So for example, if you were talking about an individual “ei” would be heard as “ei”. If talking about a group “eu” would be heard as such.
I’m terms of the male/female, this is helped by context and mutation. So using your example:
This would be “ei arian (o)” or “ei harian (hi)”. If it were a word that can be mutated then this would happen: “ei frawd (o)” or “ei brawd hi”.
The context would help in that people would know to whom you’re referring. So I was talking to someone the other day in reference to a boy. I mis-mutated and said “ei mam” but the context removed any ambiguity.
Of course, if you are in a situation that could be misunderstood, using both removes all doubt.
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For some reason my “Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru” app has stopped working, it opens but then comes up with an error message “dim cysylltiad allanol” and won’t let me search … even after I got home and tried again using wi-fi connection.
I looked for an update (there wasn’t one) so reinstalled to try to fix it … it didn’t work.
Is anyone else having trouble with their’s or know of a fix for mine please? Diolch o flaen llaw.