The direct equivalent of the gerund form in English would be to use “wrth”, followed by a soft mutation of the verbnoun, so “Wrth weld y golau yn yr awyr, dechreuodd Sioned gynllunio prynhawn ar y traeth”. I think the “Ar ôl” one is also correct, but perhaps says something subtly different. “Wedi” would also do the same job here.
Going on instinct, and as a second language speaker, using “yn” in this context doesn’t feel quite right to me but it’s the sort of thing you might get in things like song lyrics.
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Diolch, Gareth. Oddly enough, I started my example with ‘Wrth’ before swiching to ‘ar ôl’ - reasoning that
Wrth gweld y golau yn yr awyr, dechreuodd Sioned gynllunio prynhawn ar y traeth.
would mean something more like “While seeing the light in the sky, Sioned began etc.” whereas I think the English form with just the gerund is closer to “Upon seeing the light in the sky…”
Hmm I’m a bit out of my depth now. People do say things like “Wrth ddweud hynny” for “Saying that” in Welsh, but maybe that’s equivalent to “while” rather than “upon” too. I must admit I’ve never thought about the difference in English.
Instinctively, I think that ‘wrth’ can mean ‘upon’ depending on context, but of course I’m a 2nd language speaker, and my instincts talk a lot of rwtsh half the time.
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Hello all, first post on the SSiW forum :). I was just wondering on what the general consensus is on doing more than 1 challenge a week. I’ve found the first 2 weeks straightforward so should I progress to further challenges, or keep myself at the pace I receive emails? Thanks guys
The consensus is to do it as fast as you like. There is someone hereabouts who did the whole of Spanish level 1 in a weekend, with someone feeding them as they went along! At a boot camp I went to a fellow attendee said they’d been learning for 2.5 months and later in the week confessed it was 2.5 weeks (and attendees need to finish level 1 before coming)! If you can do it faster, there’s nothing wrong with that, but, unless you have a particular reason for going very quickly, don’t beat yourself up for going at one challenge a week, or slower. Stuff happens, you can put the brakes on if you need to. I expect some of the emails have particular challenges so you would miss out on doing those in conjunction with the lesson, but you can always do them later on, when your language skills have improved even more. Just my tuppence worth. Other people may have different tuppences. 
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Ah, appreciate the response! I’m definitely going to crack on then (although not quite at level 1 in one weekend speeds haha) 
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I would agree with Margaret, as fast as you like. If you have a way of practicing too you will never go too fast in my opinion (a Welsh speaking partner or friend perhaps?).
Back in the days of the old course I would do between 6 and 10 lessons quite regularly on a night shift but things were different back then with the 80/80 theory (anyone else remember that?) but now you are encouraged to carry on with the next challenge regardless.
Good luck, keep us posted as to how it’s going for you.
Hey everyone!
I just revisited challenge 12 of level one (north):
Could someone explain to me why „the young woman had better…“ is Well i‘r ddynes ifanc (if I’m even hearing it correctly)?
Is this just a shortening of iddi in casual speech?
Thanks for your help and have a great weekend!
Yea, you’ve heard it correctly. In fact i is one of the conjugated prepositions, so that iddi = i hi, iddo= i fo/fe, imi = i mi, iti = i ti, inni=i ni, ichi=i chi, iddyn nhw = i nhw
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Thanks for the quick reply!
But now I really want to know, vocab list says that she‘d better is well iddi hi, so it’s like well i hi hi? what? Could someone explain that structure to me? I mean I’ll just remember it and it’ll just work out fine, but solving grammar mysteries is so much fun!
All those contractions can really throw you off (they often do me…). The one in the original clip you posted was “… i’r (ddynes)…” which can (I think) be broken out to “..iddi yr (ddynes)…” So you were actually right (I think) to wonder if it was just a casual shortening.
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Good question! I think more correctly it’s iddi hi = i hi but the hi is often (usually?) omitted as iddi on it’s own makes it clear enough what’s meant without adding the formally necessary hi (same goes for iddo which strictly speaking shoud be iddo fo/fe). Hope my attempt at explanation helps rather than confuses!
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But rather than saying “…well iddi hi…” (…she had better…) they’re saying “…well iddi yr ddynes ifanc…” (…the young woman had better…)
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Prepositions only inflect for personal pronouns, so as soon as you’re talking about “y ddynes ifanc” or whoever rather than “hi”, the preposition “i” stops inflecting.
I’m fairly sure this isn’t just a colloquial shortening that has become part of the standard language - other celtic languages have something similar, although as far as I know Irish and Scottish Gaelic never use pronouns with inflected prepositions whereas in Welsh they’re sort of optional.
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Thank you all for the replys! I really enjoyed trying to wrap my head around it
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I think actually it’s the other way round really, John - iddi and iddo are historically correct and indeed unambiguous for to him and to her, and never needed the (redundant) pronoun, which I think was added later, no doubt as a sort of hypercorrection.
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I haven’t listened to it, but it shouldn’t use iddi there. You only need that if you’re just referring to “She’d better” without stating who, but if it’s “the young woman” that had better, then it’s just well i’r ddynes ifanc
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Which is exactly where this round about started - with a question from @hannah-deuchler about three days ago!
Have you listened to it, Sionned? Are you saying that the recording says well iddi’r ddynes? Or have I misunderstood your comment?