Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

Conjugations are pronoun specific so you don’t really need them to understand.

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A really quick question - how to translate the word “spirit” where it means “a set of characteristics” or “a fashion”. As in “the spirit of the time”, “the spirit of contradiction”. Will it be “ysbryd” or something else?

that’s kind of the point, the sentence doesn’t seem to have the pronoun, e.g.:

ond teimlwn yn rhyfedd braidd

Ac eto, daliwn ati bobl etc.

is this just a shortening, or is there something else I am missing?

I’d want to see the context to be 100% sure, because some of those might be ‘we’, but in most circumstances I would expect that you’re right - ‘I would…[verb]’… :sunny:

My gut instinct is that would tend towards the kind of meaning that would be language specific - to English, in this case - and that you’d probably have a range of options in Welsh for stuff that would fit neatly under the ‘set of characteristics’ approach in English.

Bruce (aka Geiriadur yr Academi) is very good on this sort of stuff - go here http://geiriaduracademi.org/?lang=en and stick ‘spirit’ in and you’ll see that ‘ysbryd’ is common usage for some not-a-ghost meanings (‘the spirit of the age’, ‘party spirit’) but not for others (‘a spirit of mischief’, ‘a kindred spirit’)… :sunny:

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Oh, good examples here - ‘teimlwn yn rhyfedd braidd’ has you firmly into the realms of literary Welsh - have a play around with https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/teimlo and you’ll see there’s more than one option - but I’d still expect it to be ‘I felt rather strange’…

But with ‘daliwn ati bobl’ it’s probably the plural - ‘we’ll keep at it, folks!’ - with all this stuff, you can either spend a lot of time studying literary grammars or (my approach!) plough on regardless until your grasp of the context is good enough for them to work themselves out for you… :sunny:

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Oh, what a fantastic dictionary, thank you so very much!
I thought I’d solve the problem by writing Zeitgeist:) Since it’s an acceptable international term. But it’s much more interesting to find a Welsh alternative.

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Thanks :smile:

It’s also relieving to realise it is a literary thing, I’m not going to have to figure out even more spoken Welsh from context!

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I haven’t read that book, but from what I have read, this leaving off of the pronoun is a sort of feature of written Welsh. Where I have seen it most (and it wasn’t in books that I’d think of as being particularly “literary” (or not with a capital “L” anyway)) is in the 3rd person past - the -odd ending. It confused me a lot at first, but after a while you get to kind of expect it.

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Is it, perhaps, because, when written, it is clear with or without the pronoun?

I suppose. It has to be either “he” or “she” (did something) and I think you just look back at the last person referred to and that’s (presumably) who they mean. I suppose it could also be “it” (did something).

I think I have seen the first person version as well, but as far as I remember, not so frequently.

No doubt this has been answered, but it’s hard to search for “the”. I’m trying to understand the rule for when to use “y” versus “yr”, assuming I’ve got that spelled right.

The classic SSIW response is - don’t worry about that too much round here, it will all come out in the wash!

But if you really must know, read this. :grinning:

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Thanks, netmouse, that’s helpful and clears up the confusion. I mean, I notice these things but then applying them to a word I want to use but haven’t heard in the lessons–well, I wouldn’t want to make a MISTAKE or anything. When I get to Wales, that is.

…!!!..:wink:

For some reason, that link is a bit iffy and clunky (may well be the device I am using), so for anyone else wanting to know-

It’s “yr” before vowels (and ‘h’)
And “y” before consonants
[like “an” and “a” in English]

[but after a vowel it becomes 'r, whether followed by a vowel or not.]

One of those complex results caused by a nice simple rule which is nice to know.

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The context makes it clear, usually. Also, in spoken Welsh, it is sometimes omitted as well, for example in answers to questions, like “Fyddi di’n dod i’r dafarn yfory? Byddaf!”

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Is it? My guess would be that it is masculine, or at least masculine and/or feminine, seeing it is the plural of the Latin neutral word opus - work

Good call, but it seems to be listed as feminine in all the dictionaries. I wonder if there is a difference between the two meanings of “opera”?
I mean, the national opera of Wales is “Hywel a Blodwen”,
But the National Opera of Wales is situated in Cardiff.
We say the National Theatre to cover the body and building instead of the National Play. “Opera” covers the musical with large women and a lot of instruments, along with the body which produces them and the building related to it. Wonder if that makes a difference. A complete guess.

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Isn’t that just leaving out the word ‘house’? Oh, I guess in Paris it’s the Opera, not Maison d’Opera. but we do talk of Covent Garden Opera House. No?

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Yes. I was talking of the way we speak of “The National Opera” as an organisation similar to “The National Theatre”, whereas we go to see a “play”. They both cover different meanings. It is “Theatre” which covers the organisations, the abstract concept of the whole thing rather than “play”. It is “opera” (ie, the equivalent of “play” which does it with the large women warbling in Viking hats). Whether this has an effect on the soft mutation in Welsh I have no idea.

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