Mostly literary, I think, but possessives like i’w are perfectly good spoken Welsh; and pleidiol wyf i’m gwlad might be a familiar phrase!
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I still do this in good writing…so maybe Im archaic!
“I’th gadw a’th gynnal o’r dydd hwn ymlaen”
for example in welsh wedding vows, translates to
“to have and to hold from this day forward”
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i’ch - i eich (more respectful form or plural use)
Thank you both. I was aware of the other possessive adjective contractions but that was a new one on me.
Please explain the use of ‘Mohono’ as in the Old Course 3, Lesson 10:
Chlywais mohonot ti’n siarad=I didn’t hear you speaking.
I thought that mohono is used with short form verbs for ohono in the negative when also replacing ddim, but if ‘o’ means from, so ‘ohonot it’ means from you and ‘mohonot ti’ means not from you, why does the Welsh above not translate as ‘I didn’t hear from you speaking’? That sounds odd. Why not ‘Chlywais i ddim…?
Diolch yn fawr,
Mari
Because that would give you the sentence *Chlywais i ddim ti’n siarad, but one rule is that “dim/ddim” can’t be followed by a specific entity, like “y gath” or any personal pronoun. In this case, you insert the preposition “o” (inflected as needed) and this “dim o” has shortened to “mo” over time, giving the correct sentence
Chlywais i mohonot ti’n siarad
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Gwych—I get it. Thank you so much.
Not sure if this is the right place for a beginner’s question, but I can’t get my head round why “I would like” is liciwn i, and “he would like” is byddai fo’n licio?
Well you could say byddwn i’n licio instead of liciwn i. And you could also say liciai fo instead of byddai fo’n licio. The one with bod + yn is the “long form” and the one without is the “short form”.
I don’t think there’s any particular difference in meaning with the conditional forms here,* so I would just use whichever comes to you in the moment.
*Happy to be corrected on this by those more in the know, but at the same time don’t want to lead anyone down a rabbit-hole…
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Diolch! They are both taught very early on, without any explanation why they are so different, and i kept on wondering (and getting distracted) about that. I get that liciwn i is a lot simpler in the beginning, but a small word of warning when byddai fo is introduced would be very helpful - even if it is just mentioning liciai fo, then saying that the other form is used more often 
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Is there a way to “pause” the course? I’m not ready to move onto Level 2 yet, there’s a lot of stuff I need to catch up on, but it will bother me if the week number the course says I’m on keeps going up whilst I’m trying to catch my breath/consolidate learning/ do the stuff I should have done weeks ago.
Yes, if you drop an request to admin@saysomethingin.com they will be able to pause the emails for you until you’re ready to move on.
Diolch!
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I’ve seen a handful of people mentioning the formal/plural chi and when to use it or not, but… as of (Southern) level 1 challenge 20 I have heard nothing of chi. So my curiosity so far is entirely around HOW to use it. I’m betting there’s more to it than just replacing the one word, and I can’t say “O ble wyt chi’n dod?” so…
When does it get taught?
I realise I’m likely in a minority wanting to be more formal, but the thing is, I was born about 200 years too late. You can tell me until the cows come home that people will understand and not feel offended, but the thing is I will know that there’s a more polite way to address people and I’m not doing it, I’m being so rude.
I am an actual English stereotype, I know.
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I think it starts comes in at the beginning of level 2.
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Where does the southern “sa i” etc. for the negative forms of “bod” come from? With difficulty I can find threads and sources online that describe it, but none explain it. Is it actually a completely different verb with a negative sense (like methu instead of ddim yn medru) or is it a contracted version of a longer construction?
Diolch!
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This, I think - certainly the smo fi version is short for does dim ohono fi “there is nothing of me (that does x)” = “I don’t (do x)”. But I’m not sure exactly where sa i comes from, so hopefully someone will comment with better information!
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As far as I heard, it’s just another contraction of more or less what you said, but going with ohona i instead of ohono fi, and using neb instead of dim:
Does neb ohona i … → Sa i
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