Excellent – thanks, @garethrking!
It’s good to check this sort of thing, particularly when you’ve spent a couple hours on the past tense of cael, which Uned 27 of Basic Welsh Workbook assure me is gaethon ni unless it’s caethon ni if the wind is in the wrong direction, although if you’re in Machynlleth on market day, cawson ni is pretty much obligatory when you’re facing south and cafon ni if you can see Corris, which, of course, you can only do when it’s not raining. 
Thanks again!
Another (hopefully quick) question from my latest literary adventures in Welsh… I’m a bit stumped by ‘chwilan’ in the following sentence:
'Y busnas 'na sy’n gysylltiedig a Rhyd-y-felin, dyna’r chwilan ddiweddara sy gen ti, yn de?"
Would “That business connected to Rhyd-y-felin - that’s the latest bee in your bonnet, isn’t it?” be the literal English translation, or is my North Walian Welsh meaning I’m missing something obvious…
That’s right - spot on!
chwilan (/chwilen) is a beetle rather than a bee, but it equates to the same idiom
Hello all again, just a few questions. On one of the recent challenges there was a sentence that went something like “O’n i’n meddwl i ti ddweud fod ti’n moyn disgled o de”. I was just wondering is “O’n i’n meddwl fod ti’n dweud fod ti’n moyn disgled o de” also acceptable to say?
Also on the subject of informal imperatives I know officially to use the verbstem with ‘a’ on the end e.g ‘Cofia’ but I’ve heard that in normal speech this ‘a’ is often dropped and sometimes even just the verbnoun is used instead. What are your experiences with this?
Thanks!
People would likely understand you, but mixing the tenses llke this sounds odd. You’d rather get away with O’n i’n meddwl fod ti wedi dweud fod ti’n moyn disgled o de.
About the imperative losing the ending -a, the two verbs I hear that the most are aros and dal (favoring those forms over the correct arhosa and dala) … if it happens, it’s usually with verbs having their stems ending with a consonant (so for cofio you’ll always hear cofia, not “cofi” or even “cof”)
Thank you so much for answering both of much questions so quickly. You mention about mixing up the tenses, so am I right in saying that sentences starting in the imperfect usually don’t have ‘bod’ clauses? For example I should say “O’n i’n meddwl iddyn nhw ddod heddiw” rather than “O’n i’n meddwl bod nhw’n dod heddiw”? Thanks again!
Well, it depends on the context and the relative time of the components. In the case of “I thought they are coming today”, the second part is still in the future (relatively speaking), so in this case bod would be correct.
The thing with the clause after ‘bod’, as I understand it, is that it implies that the second half would originally have been a present/future tense, if that makes sense.
So “they’re coming/will come” = maen nhw’n dod
I think ‘they are coming today’ = Dw i’n meddwl bod nhw’n dod heddiw
I thought ‘they are coming today’ = O’n i’n meddwl bod nhw’n dod heddiw (but in English, in indirect speech, we’d change the tense to “I thought they were coming today.”)
I think ‘they came yesterday’ = Dw i’n meddwl iddyn nhw ddod ddoe (I think that they came yesterday)
I thought ‘they came yesterday’ = O’n i’n meddwl iddyn nhw ddod ddoe (I thought that they came yesterday)
Level 2 Challenge 18 - use of ‘i’ after adjectives like barod and fodlon
Happy New Year! Could anyone help me understand what the ‘rules’ are (if there are any) for when to use ‘i’ after adjectives like barod and fodlon (I’m not a grammar expert but I’m presuming these are adjectives). In Level 1 we came across ‘dw i’n barod i helpi chdi’, which uses ‘i’ after ‘barod’ and was easy to remember as it’s a straight translation from English. However, in Level 2 Challenge 18 the phrase ‘dw i’n fodlon’ has popped up, and I expected it to take ‘i’ as well but it doesn’t, instead it’s ‘dw i’n fodlon helpu chdi’. Grammatically I can’t see why barod and fodlon aren’t both followed by ‘i’. Is there a grammatical reason? Previously I’ve been told that it’s just something to get used to but I’d prefer to understand if there is a grammatical reason why. Maybe it’s just random which adjectives are followed by ‘i’ and which aren’t but I would love to know if there is a rationalise however nuanced it might be. @garethrking is this something you could advise on?
Hi Sara, you may find this previous thread of use…
See what you think
Thanks - I had already found this and read it a few times over a few months but still didn’t understand. Thanks anyway 
Well now, this inspires me too to have another think.
The question here is: why do we say dw i’n barod i helpu (which we certainly do) but not *dw i’n fodlon i helpu (which we certainly don’t)? Let’s survey the ground:
Further examples with i + VN (off the top of my Nadolig/Blwyddyn Newydd head):
awyddus i eager/keen to
hapus i happy to
Then examples with o + VN:
yn rhwym o bound to
yn benderfynol o determined to
yn debyg o likely to
yn sicr o certain to
And then an example with immediately following VN, no linking preposition:
yn fodlon willing (to)
No obvious theme anywhere as far as I can judge. I would have said that perhaps i is preferred whn there is a subjective or intention element, but I think penderfynol o determined to knocks that on the head, doesn’t it? Determined is definitely subjective.
And now (perhaps because of said Nadolig/BN head) I’m struggling to think of further adjectives in English that precede a to-form verb…perhaps others here can suggest more. At the moment, then, it rather looks, if this really is the relatively small extent of this type of adjective, that we should perhaps abandon any theories on the why and wherefore (after all, there’s no obvious reason why, in English for example, we listen ‘to’ but look ‘at’, is there?) and simply learn those half-dozen examples as they stand.
I’m willing to field any further adjectives that less seasonally addled heads here may care to bung at me, in our collective Quest For The Truth, obviously.
tueddu i but tueddol o “(be) inclined to”.
GPC has examples of tueddol with both i and o; Geiriadur yr Academi seems to prefer i, Dysgu Cymraeg Uwch ii comes down solidly in favour of o. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
Be honest, if your Welsh were really basic, wouldn’t you be more likely to say something like “I only speak a little bit of Welsh”? But if you really want to say it like this, the term for “basic Welsh” would be “Cymraeg sylfaenol”.
While “hanfodion” does mean “essentials”, the connotation is quite different – “Mae Gymraeg yn hanfodol” is a phrase you find in job adverts when the ability to speak Welsh is essential for the job.
Hi @garethrking, thanks so much for a really comprehensive answer. I feel much happier knowing that there isn’t some rule out there that explains why some adjectives are followed by ‘i’ in front of a verb-noun and others aren’t - I can now rest easy and just learn each pattern individually. Very grateful to have access to the expertise of this community via this forum. Thanks again
Yes, a little bit of randomness in language can be quite a relief, can’t it?
Bore da, bawb.
I’ve noticed that the translators at work often use verb nouns instead of imperatives. e.g. Diweddaru’ch manylion not Diweddarwch eich manylion. Is the formal/plural imperative considered overly – well – imperious in Welsh?
Thank you.
Hwyl,
I’m learning the North variety. In Level 1, Challenge 2 at 21 min 38 sec, the phrase is: But I can’t remember what to say. The Welsh is: Ond fedra i ddim cofio beth i ddweud.
Could someone explain why the “i” is there before ddweud please? Up to now, verb use has been just the word e. g. I want to remember… Dw i isio cofio, not “i cofio”, so “i ddweud” jumped out and threw me.
Hi
I’d say, just soak in the verbal patterns for now.
However, as mentioned further back in this thread and the link to the older thread -
Some words have an “i” between them and the following verb.
So, “beth” is one such word, but cofio isn’t.
So it’s: Cofio dweud, but: Cofio beth i ddweud