Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

Here is the full set for you.
I = Mae gen i
You (sing.) = Mae gent ti
She = Mae ganddi hi
He = Mae ganddo fo
We = Mae gynnon ni
You (Pl.) = Mae gynnoch chi
They = Mae ganddyn nhw

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Siaron is always so brilliant with these answers.

Just want to add that if you want to refer to an actual name/thing, you’ll also need “gan”, like

“Mae gan Siaron ymatebion gwych pob tro” (Siaron has always got great answers)

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Morning, I’m (slowly) working through ‘Modern Welsh: a comprehensive grammar’, and the author has it that, in colloquial speech:
Fy is pronounced ‘yn’
Ei / eu are pronounced ‘i’
Ein is pronounced ‘yn’

Is this really right? Does ‘fy’ sound formal/affected, or do both options sound normal?

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Yn is more natural, but you will def hear fy, especially in more formal settings.They both come from “fyn”, which you might hear in songs.
“Yn” is the normal spoken “street” form though, and it is used as an alternative in SSiW Southern.
If I recall correctly: Dwi’n mwyn yn arian nôl (I want my money back) :smile:

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Diolch! I obviously need more exposure to street Welsh… I’m not aware that I’ve ever heard it pronounced that way (either at school or in SSiW North… though maybe I just missed it).

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Also “i” is the historical pronunciation for “ei” - there’s some argument that the “ei” spelling was deliberately chosen in early Modern Welsh simply because Middle Welsh had so many words that were (at least sometimes) spelt “I” that it was just too confusing! (I, to, his, her - even ‘the’, where we’d expect “y”, because mediaeval spelling is like that.)
So yes, “ei” has been pronounced “i” for literally hundreds of years.

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Level 3, Challenge 17, There’s no point for me to get left without a new bed. Welsh is given as Does dîm pwynt cael fy ngadael heb wely newydd.

Would it be incorrect to say “Does dîm pwynt i mi cael fy ngadael” or does that also work?

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Not wholly sure - I think that it does, but that cael would then get softened to gael - Does dim pwynt i mi gael fy ngadael… And you will also hear i fi instead of mi - both are correct, but there are regional differences (I think fi is more Southern, but don’t quote me!)

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Simae bawb,

Is there a genetive construction in Welsh like in English like this?

My car is faster than John’s

My guess would be if there is it’d be

Mae fy nghar yn glouach nag un John

Or do you always have to specify? e.g

Mae fy nghar yn glouach na char John

Diolch!

Either construction is fine, you don’t always have to specify.
BTW, as a side note to others, you’re much more likely to hear gyflymach for ‘faster’ rather than glouach, - clou is a southern form of ‘fast’ not often heard in the North whereas cyflym is heard all over.

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hi, just a quick question, level 1 challenge 10
The Welsh for ‘to ask you’ is:
gofyn wrthot ti
The Welsh for ‘to ask you something’ is:
gofyn rhwybeth wrthot ti
‘to ask you something again’ is:
gofyn rhwybeth wrthot ti eto
what I wondered is, why does the ‘rhwybeth’ come before the ‘wrthot ti’ but ‘eto’ doesn’t?
how does this work in terms of verb - subject - object word order?
also why does the preposition ‘wrth’ change to ‘wrthot’?
I found in a dictionary ‘wrtho i, wrthot to, wrtho fe/fo, wrthi hi…’ etc
but why does it do that?
I know it might be a bit next-level for the stage I’m at but I’m getting curious about grammar and syntax.
thanks for your help
diolch yn fawr iawn!

The best way I can explain it is that here the eto is referring to the whole phrase, not just the rhywbeth - e.g. if you were to say “to ask you something else”, the ‘else’ would refer only to the rhywbeth, not to the whole phrase, so it would be gofyn rhywbeth arall wrthot ti. I hope the way I’ve explained it makes sense.

As for the preposition ‘wrth’ changing to ‘wrthot’, it’s very common in Welsh for prepositions to ‘run’ according to the pronoun used, and as you go through the course you’ll find this happens with lots of them, but in varying degrees as some ‘run’ more than others. It just something that Welsh (and a few other languages) does and English doesn’t, so it’ll take a bit of getting used to, but once the patterns start sticking it’ll get easier.

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hi Siaron,
thank you so much for explaining, yes, it does make sense.
I definitely think language learning is about pattern recognition, I’ve had a look at Welsh grammar, most of it is confusing, but I do like to look for and make sense of patterns, which is what grammar is about, even if I don’t need it at this stage!
diolch yn fawr iawn :smile:

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In a sentence of the first type, I would tend to say “nag yr un John”. I think that specifies John’s car (whereas “nag un John” to me suggests “than one of John’s cars”). But I couldn’t tell you why I think that, because it’s one of those things that “sounds right” to me and therefore could be totally wrong! In which case I’d love for someone to put me right…

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Level 3 Challenge 21

Beth allai fod wedi digwydd.

How would I word that with a subject? For instance, “what he might have done,” I don’t think would be “Beth mae o allai fod wedi gwneud,” but I can’t figure out how else to say this.

Bore da pawb,

I understand there are different ways to say the same thing, ond dw i’n eisiau helpu, os gallu i?

Level 2 - challenge 13

We’re introduced (well re introduced) to dwedest ti for ‘you said’

Immediately after learning this in sentence format the next new sentence is o’n i’n meddwl whereby it says

“I thought you said……”

In this example it says “o’n i’n meddwl i ti dweud …”

So I suppose I’m asking why is o’n i’n meddwl dwedest ti not used as opposed to dweud in this scenario?

Im sure it’s something simple I’m unaware of and I appreciate the whole app is for the speaking element rather than teaching the ‘why?’, but directly after learning how to use ‘you said’ a different format is used, this confused me.

O’n i’n meddwl dylen i gwybod :+1:

Diolch am helpu

“what he might have done” would be “beth allai fo/fe wedi gwneud”

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Unlike in English where both verbs go into past tense (thought, said), in Welsh the second one (dweud) doesn’t have to when the first one sets the tense (o’n i’n meddwl). So an “I said” beginning a sentence needs a past tense (dwedais i) but the ‘said’ in “I thought you said” doesn’t.

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Dw i’n deall nawr . Diolch am esponio. That really is helpful.

Have a great day.

Geraint

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Half-remembered Welsh.

My much missed late dad wasn’t a Welsh speaker, but he remembered bits and pieces from his childhood. Chiefly dog commands, I think because his mother (from Anglesey) spoke to the dog in Welsh. And he didn’t have a dog, so used them with his daughter instead.

I know what he meant and things like Ych a fi! really don’t need translating. But there are a couple of things he’d say where I’d like to disentangle what he was saying – if it was real Welsh, or a kind of melange, which is what is sounds like to me now (with decent book Welsh but no street Welsh).

  1. Ti dyma brysur (??) Pronounced ti duhma bru-sha. (Come here, was the general idea)
  2. Rhagian i mawr (??) Pronounced Rhag -yan - ee and the mawr just as in standard Welsh. (Awful! he meant. He’d say it in a very disapproving tone).

Any ideas appreciated.