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 
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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 
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).
- Ti dyma brysur (??) Pronounced ti duhma bru-sha. (Come here, was the general idea)
- 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.
-
- tyrd yma, brysia (come here, hurry)
-
- 'rargian mawr (Good gracious/Good Lord)
- 'rargian mawr (Good gracious/Good Lord)
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Fantastic! : ) Really makes my day to know exactly what my dad was actually saying. Diolch o galon.
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I need help with a compound word (cyfansoddair)
I love the idea of compound words but not all are obvious!
Any idea as to what ‘caletsyth’ pertains ? It was regarding a description of a Catamaran boat…
I am assuming it means stiff or rigid? (unbending etc)
" Mae dur yn fwy caletsyth , yn gryfach a nid yw’n plygu" is another sentence seen
I can’t find it in GPC, Ap Geiriaduron, or Gweiadur, but it is one of the options in Geiriadur yr Academi for the English word “rigid”, so it looks like you’re spot on.
Etymologically it’s just going to be caled + syth (with a little caletach on the end of caled), so “hard-straight”, which seems like a pretty good way to say “rigid”.
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Quite surprised to see it used of catamarans. Would have expected to see it about inflatable boats.
(Amusingly, a reference to caletsyth in a 1939 edition of Y Llenor used it to describe trousers. Hope they hadn’t been starched too high up the leg for the sake of the wearer!)
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No, it’s purely an orthographic convention - in Welsh double consonants like n + n are not pronounced any differently from singles, even across a word-boundary (this is true in Russian as well, by the way - fun fact!). So not only is tynnu pronounced as if spelt tynu, but also by the same token byddwn i I would (be) and byddwn ni we will (be) are pronounced identically.
I like the spelling inni, but the choice between that and i ni is purely a personal one. And really there is no argument against ini except that it’s not an accepted spelling.
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Obviously I defer to your much greater knowledge, but I’d like to emphasise that I was absolutely not suggesting that the doubled consonants in writing represent a different pronounciation to a single consonant. My phrasing it as “doubling of the n sound” is a blatant mistake, for which I apologise.
No need for apologies, Rob - and I DID wonder if that was really what you meant.
No regional difference, I think. They both can mean “easy”, but there’s also a connotation with “rhwydd” of something being loose and free. Personally, it’s in that latter meaning that I’d tend to use it - so a quiz might be “hawdd” but something might be “rhwydd” to mix (it flows freely so mixes easily). But it wouldn’t be wrong to use “hawdd” for the second one here!
If you have more than a passing interest in this sort of thing, I can recommend the (fairly new) national corpus - it’s the first time we’ve had a proper, thorough record of how people actually use the language. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but just in case it’s of interest:
https://corpus.corcencc.org/?language=en
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Here’s an obscure question for 5 points!
Why in UK media do I sometimes see Welsh placenames with hyphens but not the same with names in England or Scotland.
A common example is ‘Betws-y-coed’ yet ‘Barrow in Furness’
Is this a peculiarly Welsh thing by origin/history … or just something the UK/English media do because it is not English language?
I just want to know if there’s deeper meaning to hyphen usage and how it affects place name meanings?!
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Semi-educated guess here, but I think it’s to do with aiding the reader with stress.
Wales tends to compound place names - Pontarddulais, Rhydaman, Abertridwr. When it does this, the stress is on the normal, penultimate syllable. However, for those place names where this doesn’t apply, they are traditionally semi-compounded using hyphens (see what I did there?). So, Llanfair-ym-Muallt, Cil-y-coed, Castell-paen. However, this isn’t always the case - Rhaeadr Gwy, for example, and don’t ask me what’s going on with Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr.
I’ve also noticed that names that are hyphenated on old maps are not necessarily the same on more modern maps, though this may be under the influence of the English practice.
I hope someone with a bit more depth of knowledge comes along, because, as I admitted, I can only scratch the surface of this.
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Found this. I suspect it’s where my semi-remembered knowledge above originally came from.
https://www.welshlanguagecommissioner.wales/news/why-do-we-need-hyphens-in-place-nameseur
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