Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

“Cwrw da” means “good beer” - not a traditional toast, but I dare say there would be some who might say it.

Hi Jayneede, sorry if we’ve missed your question until now. Brilliant question.

Mae and Dw are two of the forms of bod (to be/is). There are patterns of grammar which dictate which to use for a certain sentence. However, I found it easier to just go with the flow and let the sound of the different patterns in the challenges sink in. That way, I already knew the pattern of the grammar and I was voicing/speaking the correct patterns before I got around to learning the theory. :slight_smile:

Am I right in thinking that there are no participles in Welsh?

If that is so (and it might not!), how do you translate into Welsh expressions which, in English (or other languages), would use the second participle as an attribute, i.e. like an adjective, such as torn clothes, a painted face, grated cheese etc.?

And what about attributive first participle usage, such as dancing feet? I’m guessing at something like traed yn dawnsio?

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Usage such as these use the unconjugated verbnoun in different ways:
torn clothes -> dillad wedi’i dorri, literally “clothes after their tearing”. This is the same structure you’ll get for things like “smoked ham”, “roasted nuts” or “scrambled eggs”.

For the second I am not quite sure what sense you are after with “dancing feet”. Just be aware that verbnouns can be used like an adjective, so swimwear = dillad nofio, literally “swimming clothes”, but I am not sure if saying traed dawnsio expresses what you want.

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Great, thanks! So a knitted jumper would be siwmper wedi’i wau?

For the second I am not quite sure what sense you are after with “dancing feet”.

Not a good example, sorry. I meant things like a floating island, falling leaves, the howling wind etc.

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im having total brain freeze or some sort of senile moment ---- what is northern welsh for ’ im not’? i am just trying to do week 14 level one sentences and cannot for the life of me remember. help???

“I’m not” (as a statement by itself) is dwi ddim
“I’m not…” (followed by something e.g. I’m not going, I’m not tall) is dwi ddim yn… (can be shortened in speech to dwi’m yn)

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thanks siaron. i knew that! lol

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I suspect with all of those including “Dancing Feet” the movie and various academies named after it, you might be looking for the meaning : Feet that are dancing. I’m not totally sure but I think it might be Troed sy’n dawnsio. Falling leaves: Dail sy’n cympo
etc.

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Thanks, John!

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In Challenge 20 of Level 2, we are taught “ rwtsh” for the word “rubbish”. I used this word in a text to a Welsh born (first language Welsh) work colleague and she had no idea what I was talking about and said she has never in her life heard this word. We both live in Carmarthenshire. Just wondering about this, because I don’t want to be using a word that nobody locally would understand!

My colleague said “ I’ve never heard that word. We would say rybish, sbwriel or ysbwriel. I even looked in my Welsh dictionary and it does not give rwtsh at all :thinking: in my Collins Welsh dictionary is gwastraff, but to me gwastraff means waste, as in wasting food etc”

Any thoughts?

It’s all about context here - rwtsh is only ‘rubbish’ in the sense of ‘nonsense’, not a direct translation of ‘rubbish’, so no, your colleague would not use this word for ‘rubbish’ in it’s non-figurative sense and would indeed say rybish, sbwriel or ysbwriel. rwtsh is more equivalent to “lol” or “sothach” - she may use one of those as a preference to rwtsh, but rwtsh is just as valid. If it’s not used locally to you though, no problem - find out what people around you use and use that instead.

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Learning Welsh through English makes me thinking English first when I can’t remember the Welsh form.

I often find myself wondering how to say things like:

It’s (difficult/easy/nice…) to (do/speak/watch/learn…)

And I tend to get stuck almost every time wondering if I should use “i” for the verb, or something else or nothing?

But now I wonder if the verb-noun thing can be handy, and it’ easier than it seems, like:

Mae (gwneud/siarad/gwylio/dysgu) yn (anodd/hawdd/braf)?

Or does it sound odd?

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Regarding the question on i before verbs (or not), the forum members to help you are @siaronjames and @garethrking
Hopefully the following link and sub-link should pick up their earlier advice to us. I would start at the bottom of the linked topic to save time. There might be a more recent topic. happy reading :smiley:
When to use and when not to use 'i ' as a preposition before a verbnoun - Welsh / General / Questions - SSi Forum (saysomethingin.com)

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Yes :rofl:

Actually I think you can say “Mae’n annodd dweud…” Its hard to say
or I’m guessing perhaps even
“Mae 'r dysgu yn annodd”/The learning is difficult, although I’ve never heard anyone say it (yet). :slight_smile: That last one is a guess, mind.

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I would like to ask Gwilym Bowen Rhys for the lyrics to a song he sang “Dafydd Ifan” at a gig he did a week ago? It’s in reply to a clip of it so would like to say “this song”. Would this be right please?
Oes gynnoch chi’r geiriau i’r gan hwn os gwelwch yn dda?

The dictionary (GPC) says that “cân” can be feminine or masculine but, based on what I think I hear most often, my instinct would be to go for feminine in which case it would be “i’r gân hon”. If you did decide it should be masculine it would be “i’r cân hwn” i.e. no mutation after the definite article. It would also be valid to say “i’r gân yma”, but you can’t avoid the gender completely as you still need to decide on the mutation.

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Thank you. I’m not great with grammar and gender. Generally just go masculine/whatever sounds right and hope for the best :slightly_smiling_face:

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He replied, yey :smiley: Thanks again for your help.

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Great! So either what you said was right, GBRh isn’t enough of a stickler to refuse to answer people who make grammatical mistakes when emailing him, or both :grinning:.

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