Thanks for explaining. My other question would then be how do you choose between ro’n i and o’n i when it’s not a question? I think if I understand correctly with SSiW you use o’n i?
The “official” way of saying it would be ro’n i with o’n i reserved for questions, but in real life heaps of people leave the ‘r’ off the beginning and use o’n i for both statements and questions, with tone of voice and context telling you which it is.
A few questions:
1.) Level 2, Lesson 18
Taswn i’n gofyn i ti’n helpu fi. Could you say here also Taswn i’n gofyn i ti FY helpu fi? The same way you would say dy helpu dy etc.?
2.) I’m confused about which of the following sentences are correct and which aren’t as I keep getting SSiW and Dysgu Cymraeg confused for “on X morning”:
-ar fore dydd Iau
-fore dydd Iau
-fore Iau
-ar fore Iau
3.) When you ‘link’ [yes I know that’s not the correct grammatical term] the two parts of the sentences below, do you need to use y and does it cause treiglad meddal?
-Dw i’n gwybod [y? ] baset ti’n dweud wrtha i
-Rwyt ti’n meddwl [y? ] dylwn i fynd
I think I’m confused because I know you would use na to make these sentences negative, plus treiglad llais/meddal but I not sure if you need to in the ‘positive’ form, or use y/yr.
4.) Level 2, Lesson 23
Dyn ni’n moyn iddyn nhw wneud yn siŵr amdani
In a sentence like this, how do you know what ‘it’ to use if you don’t know what it’s referring to?
I hope the way I’ve worded everything makes sense, please ask if anyone needs me to clarify!
Yes, you could, but especially in the south, the pronoun fy becomes 'n in colloquial speech: my sister → fy chwaer → 'nwâr
These shouldn’t really differ between SSiW and Dysgu Cymraeg. A specific Thursday morning is fore (dydd) Iau. (The dydd can be dropped or used to personal taste). ar fore (dydd) Iau means regularly on Thursday mornings.
Grammatically correct is to use the linking y in these cases, but in speech you don’t need it. And at any rate it doesn’t cause any mutation.
Abstract or unknown entities take the female form amdani, like in your example. If you know that you are speaking about something/someone male, you should use amdano (fe)
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Thanks very much for your answers.
Just one more question about this bit:
I don’t think I understand what’s happening here when chwaer becomes 'nwâr. Is it n (=fy) AND a mutation?
To be honest I’m finding the southern dialect really hard to get to grips with, especially the pronunciation, even though I live in Cardiff. I have been pronouncing things the way I hear from people around me even if the narrators on SSiW say it differently- not sure if I should be doing that or not!
Well fy takes nasal mutation, but ch isn’t susceptible to NM. The disappearance of the initial ch is just a quirk of how some southern people naturally speak. chwarae becomes whare, chwilio becomes whilo, and so on.
And it’s completely up to you how you want to shape your own Welsh pronounciation. But usually you’ll subconsciously assimilate your way of speaking to the people around you anyway, that’s only natural.
A question about yn fyddet in Lesson 24 of Level 2.
How is it pronounced?
I can’t make out which syllable is stressed, but it seems different from fyddet ti.
Also, is it OK to say yn faset instead? I use baswn, baset etc. so I’ve been substituting those for the SSiW versions.
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Two questions - sorry.
Firstly if I stop monthly payments (I have already downloaded and worked through Levels 1&2) do i lose access to the forum?
Second - I do the challenges while out walking. If I stop to eg take a photo/video my lesson goes back to the beginning. I might have been 3/4 way into a lesson by then which is so frustrating. Is it something i am doing wrong?
@Snufkinsbf It tends to be pronounced as if it were all one word with the stress on the yn - YN fyddet?
You’ll hear on for that too from some people.
And yes, it’s fine to say yn faset? / yn fyset? - whatever you hear around you the most and feel most comfortable with.
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@denise-6 you don’t lose access to the forum. It’s open to anyone, whether you have a subscription or not.
What you need to do is click on the little download arrow at the left of the player and save the audio file as an mp3 on your device. That will allow you to stop and do something else and it will keep your place. Otherwise, if you have an iPhone or an older model Android, you can install the current SSiW app.
There is a new one around the corner based on AutoMagic that will take the place of what is available now.
Great, thank you.
And just to check, is the baset/byddet etc. difference a geographical/dialect one or something else?
yes, generally it’s baset in the N dialects and byddet in the S dialects.
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Oh no, looks like I have been using the wrong forms! Thanks for clearing that up
There aren’t really any wrong forms with these - you’ll hear people use baset in the south and you’ll hear people use byddet in the north, it just depends where they’re from or who they’ve been taught by, so it’s fine to pick the version you find it easiest to remember and stick with that.
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Tan y.e. nes
I have heard Iestyn say “tan tro nesa” to mean until next time, but sometimes he will use “nes”, is there an huge difference between them, or are they more or less interchangeable?
Diolch, Tony
They’re pretty much interchangeable. “Tan y tro nesa” is a common phrase, so that’s usually “tan”. One difference between them is that “tan” causes the soft mutation, whereas “nes” doesn’t.
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Is “caru” for “to love” used for both romantic and family love in Welsh, or is there a different way to express the latter?
Thanks Deborah
In my experience caru seems to be used in Welsh in a very similar way to “love” in English these days. So you’ll hear things like dw i’n caru’r lle 'ma “I love this place” etc
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I’ve recently noticed dy turning into 'th after vowels in a couple of places:
As one is a prayer and the other is the lyrics to an old-fashioned song on the soundtrack to “Pren Ar Y Bryn”, and it doesn’t seem to appear in Gareth King’s magisterial Modern Welsh Grammar, I’m wondering if it’s literary or archaic. Can anyone enlighten me about this? Thanks.
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