Hah, no I didn’t – I meant first person plural, of course, twp that I am… So busy concentrating on the endings, I missed checking that bit! I’ll change it now.
Thanks for pointing it out!
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I always get these mixed up & just say them indistinctly, or have to look them up.
-wn is, confusingly, the ending for the 1st singular conditional (I would) and for the 1st pl future (we will)
“We would” & “they would” are both officially -en (pronounced -an by some speakers).
“They will” is officially -an.
So as far as I can tell “we shall see” is welwn ni, but “we would be able to” is fedren ni.
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That is confusing, but I’m used to hearing the blurring between the sounds, and this is very distinctly ‘-an ni’, which means of course that it’s a common variant in the north, otherwise SSIW wouldn’t use it.
I’m just interested why they’ve only used the ‘-an ni’ for medru, when with other verbs they use -wn ni and -wn nhw, which is itself a variant of -ân nhw, if I’ve understood it correctly. These are all in the ‘future/present’, though: the unit doesn’t touch on conditionals at all.
It’s no big deal either way, of course, but it’s the sort of variation which interests me…
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Yes, this variant is very common in the north, and that is because some speakers in the north often pronounce “e” in the final syllable of a word as “a”. One famous example is the word that is officially written paned (cup), but you’ll hear it almost invariably pronounced as panad (as in the south, people rather say dishgled anyway 
)
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Thanks Hendrik!
It’s still a bit odd that it’s used as a substitute for ‘-wn ni’, though (I suppose it’s ‘-wn’ → ‘-en’ → ‘-an’.) Not that that matters at all – it’s just interesting.
My question was really whether this variation is used for all verbs in the 1PP Present/Future, not just medru, which is the only one that SSIW uses it with.
Thanks again!
Shwmae bawb,
I wanted to say the following the other day:
“I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be able to join you later on as I have too much work to do”
I went with
“O’n i ond yn moyn rhoi gwybod i ti na alla i ddim ymuno â ti nes ymlaen achos bod gyda fi ormod o waith i’w wneud”
as I didn’t know what as was or the equivalent in Welsh in this context. Anybody that can help with this please?
Diolch!
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Using achos there is fine, since in context the as could be replaced with because with no loss of meaning. However, there is a way to say as in the sense of giving a reason, and that is with gan fod, so in your example that would be “…gan fod gyda fi ormod o waith i’w wneud”
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Ah brilliant, that’s going on my ever growing list of flashcards :). Diolch yn fawr Siaron!
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Is that from the new book? If so, where did you get your crystal ball from? 
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It is! Spooky, aren’t I?
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Manuscript is with the publishers, and we’re just finalising the cover now.
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In Level 3, it says “wnaeth hi anghofio fe” (she forgot it) - could you also say “oedd hi anghofio fe”? Is there a difference between the two?
Diolch!
There is a difference, so they’re not entirely interchangeable. The preterite/short form (wnaeth hi anghofio fe) is used for something over and done - she forgot it - whereas the bod form (oedd hi’n anghofio fe) is used for a more continuous occurence - she was forgetting it
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@brynle ’co’ is widely used in Ceredigion - here/there
co fe - here it is
co ti - here you are ( when passing somthing to someone)
co fe fan’na - there he/it is there
co’r lle o’n i’n siarad amdano - here/ there’s the place I was talking about
‘co’ comes from dacw
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Yw’r dyn
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I’m working on a short video which will review the new Gêm Owain Glyndŵr and I’m going to show how you can use the camera in the Google translate app on Android phones to translate the Ffawd cards (which are Welsh only, not bilingual). I see that the iPhone also has a translate app, but is Welsh supported? Anyone know?
According to the lists I can find online, the iPhone only supports 11 languages and Welsh isn’t included. There is an Welsh translation app you can get from the Apple app store, but the reviews are poor and it doesn’t seem to do what the Google translate app does, i.e. instantly translate text if you hold the phone over it. I don’t want to say the iPhone can’t do it if it can, but googling doesn’t look hopeful.
I’m going to answer my own question, in case anyone is interested. I’ve discovered that iTranslate for iPhone does what I was talking about, i.e. you can hold your phone over some text, take a photo and it translates it into English. It does have Welsh on the list of languages it can handle. However, unlike Google Translate it’s not free and seems to need a subscription.
A quick pronunciation question, please.
I know that (in the North, at least), nouns and verbs ending in -au are commonly pronounced as -a in casual speech. (tridegau → tridega, maddau → madda etc)
But in the 6 levels of SSIW, I’ve never once heard them pronounce mwynhau as mwynha. (I’d guess this was because the imperative singular is mwynha which would be confusing. Not that being confusing has ever stopped a language…)
Does this pronunciation (-hau not -ha) also apply to all verbs ending in -hau, such as cadarnhau and sicrhau?
Diolch yn fawr!
Yes, it does. I’m not 100% certain, but I think it maybe because in these words the stress is on the final syllable (rather than the usual penultimate syllable), and therefore is not as ‘throw-away’ as the au > a in a final unstressed syllable.
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