Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

Thank you, I shall let the language flow over me whilst working and not worry so much. Jill13

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Level 1 challenge 22 (southern)

I’m not quite catching the middle of the welsh spoken in this sentence (at around the 12:50 mark)

My mother told me that your mother doesn’t like football

**Dwedodd fy mam wrtha’i na??? dy fam di yn hoffi pêl-droed. **

Sounds like nago? I’m sure it’ll be obvious when pointed out, but I’m stunted! Diolch yn fawr iawn!

Cat says nagyw and Iestyn says nagw (nagw is just a quicker form of nagyw).

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Diolch!

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Me again! :see_no_evil:

I need a little help deciphering what was said… level 2 challenge 1 (southern)

The oldest told me that you needed something

Dwedodd yr hynaf wrtha’i bod eisiau rhywbeth (yno??) i ti

I appreciate any insight! Diolch!

I’m sure someone more capable will confirm, but is that “arnot ti”? Literally “on you” i think

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Diolch! And that just made me realize that this is the first time (I believe) that we’ve been asked to say “I need SOMETHING” as opposed to “I need TO DO something”. Makes sense that the structure would be a bit different, but it wasn’t explained.

Da iawn @EricaDawn! You’ve worked out the difference for yourself, an essential skill when you’re picking up Welsh from hearing it spoken :star2:

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Hi @EricaDawn! Transcriptions are available for the challenges:) Here’s a screenshot from my laptop showing the “Vocabulary” link to use, and one from my iphone where you’ll see a little speech bubble in the top right - tapping on the speech bubble reveals the transcript. (This might be different on Android phones though). Hope that helps!

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You’re so kind to point that out! Diolch!!

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And now this grammar point will surely stick in my mind! :grinning::+1:t2:

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Yw or oes?
In Old Course level 1, bwtcamp vocab, one of the questions is:
“Have you got everything? Yw popeth gyda ti?”
My answer was “Oes popeth gyda ti?” I am guessing this is wrong because popeth is not a noun or a concrete object that can be possessed but can someone please explain it in grammatical terms?
Diolch!

Oes is used when it is an existential question - i.e. when “there” comes as the second word in the English sentence (or if it would in the literal rendering of the English sentence). As there is no ‘there’ in “Have you got everything”, the Welsh uses yw (or ydy) and not the existential verb ‘oes’.

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Thanks Siaron, that makes a lot of sense and is also an easy way to remember it!

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I always ask the truck drivers in work if they have the paperwork (Oes gen ti’r gwaith paper?) and they always answer with “oes”. Is this just for the SW version using “gyda”? Using Yw/ydy just feels wrong to me.

It’s more to do with being existential than a N/S thing. An existential sentence is information about the existence of something (that you don’t know if they possess), a non-existential sentence is information about something we are already aware of (that you know they do - or should! - possess). It can be a bit subtle because English doesn’t differentiate between existential and non-existential, so we’re not really used to figuring it out in English.
So for your example, it’s oes because you’re simply asking if they have the (necessary) paperwork, but if you were asking “have you got the paperwork (which I gave you this morning)”, it would be ydy because it’s specific paperwork you are aware of before, and in the N using gan, the word order changes to be more like the S using gyda: Ydy’r gwaith papur gen ti.
Does that make sense?

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Not 100% but I’ll work on it. Thanks for the explanation. Always appreciated.

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Level 2 challenge 22 (southern)

Just wondering… why is it Ddweudodd e… Ddwedodd hi… Ddweudest ti (all beginning with a SM) BUT Dweudes i without the soft mutation?

Diolch!

I’m not familiar with the challenge but if you give me the timecodes that they appear, I can check to see if there’s another word causing the mutation.

In the meantime, if they all start a positive sentence sometimes the mutations may be residual after the positive particle ‘fe’ has been omitted in speech and that is simply personal preference - e.g. Iestyn might say them with a residual mutation and Cat may say them without.

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Ah! I went back and all the examples with the SM started a negative sentence. So that must be why…

So, would this be correct then-

Dwedodd e wrtha’i fod e’n moyn bwyta cyn i ni fynd.
BUT
Ddwedodd e ddim wrtha’i beth i wneud.

Diolch :grinning: