Hmmm… I think ‘gofyn i’ would be the technically correct construction there, and in an ideal world it might be one we should standardise throughout the course - but you will hear ‘gofyn wrth’ from time to time, so there may be some linguistic shifts going on that we can try to claim we’re surfing on…
My question is, “Whatever was this program?”. I thought I had seen all the WIWOs, but it rings no bells and the website tells me this one has been withdrawn ‘for editorial reasons’!! This and the quote above sent by @owainlurch implies it was pretty far-out!! If the whole thing is ultra-sensitive, do PM me!!! In fact, it clearly doesn’t fit in this thread, so PM me even if it isn’t sensitive!!!
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I am wondering about this “Owain Cyfenw” chap more than about the missing person…
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How do you express the idea of “catching up” or “to catch up” in Welsh?
I have a feeling that it is going to be one of those phrases in which the way it is translated it depends on the way it is being used, and so there probably will not just be one simple way of translating it.
Usually just ‘dal i fyny’, I’d expect…
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I believe the German “gesundheit” means “good health.” I know “gesund” is definitely “health.”
Yes…it’s meant to be gofyn i… You do hear gofyn wrth… sometimes, and I imagine that this is by analogy (though wrong) with dweud wrth… since both are verbs of saying. But for gofyn I would advise i. And certainly a command like ‘Ask her!’ in Welsh would definitely be Gofyn iddi!, not Gofyn wrthi.
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Can you say ‘Gofyn iddi!’ just like that, as an imperative, or do you need to say something like ‘Gofyna iddi!’? Thanks!
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Yes netmouse you can…in the colloquial norm there’s a tendency for VNs ending in a consonant to just use the VN on its own for the ti-imperative. Similarly Meddwl! Think! (beside Meddylia!); Aros! Wait! (beside Arhosa!). Grammar 378, I think. 
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Interesting, thank you, I’d been wondering about that!
By the way I’m finally considering succumbing to the temptations of some kind of formal grammar now… wonder where to start? (The feeling may pass of course!)
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Mr King may be too modest to mention them, so please allow me:
(other sellers and other grammar books are available … ).
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There was a great line on Rownd a Rownd recently from Jac, the newish young hairdresser, who had an ill-advised one-night stand with the ex(?)-girlfriend of Barry Hardy. He’s now afraid of some vengeance being wreaked by Barry.
Jac confronted the lady in question, who had not told him they were back together, and told her he was afraid that Barry might slice him up into a Pepperoni Surprise (Barry runs a pizza joint). She said he had nothing to worry about, to which Jac replied:
"“Ni yn son am yr un Barry Hardy?
Tal, tywyll, edrych fel un o’r Krays.”
“We are talking about the same Barry Hardy?
Tall, dark, looks like one of the Krays”
A great line I thought. However (and I copied this bit from the subtitles), I’m wondering about that sentence beginning with “ni”, where I would normally expect “dan ni” or “dyn ni” (Jac is a southerner).
I think I’ve noticed other cases in RaR where people have just used the pronoun at the beginning, and then the main verb with no auxiliary, and I don’t mean “short forms”.
I was wondering if this was one of those cases where English has begun to influence the structure of spoken Welsh.
Or is this a southernism, like “wi” for “dw i”?
Thank you Mike! (I’ve been periforarily aware of these for a while and I’m sure they are excellent!!)
Having done the ‘southern’ courses, I didn’t bat an eyelid reading the sentence starting with ‘ni’, which implies it is perhaps more of a southernism…
I may be wrong, but I suspect a habit of not bothering with words which are not strictly necessary when the context makes the meaning clear! This happens in English too. I’ll probably think of an example when I’m making dinner!!
p.s. To @mikeellwood Ioved the Kray line too, although I’d say Barry is far better looking than either of the Krays!! (No, Bach, my age doesn’t stop me looking!!!)
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Grammar is good. And grammar helps.
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I’ve no idea how English has influenced Welsh in this case, and probably impossible tot tell, but this looks to me mostly a natural Welsh thing. The verb “to be” gets knocked about a bit in as it does in English. Combine this with the situation where the original form of the verb “to be” didn’t have the “yd” in front, giving the forms wy(f) i, wyt ti, ym ni, ych chi etc, it’s not really that strange that “wy i’n” gives “w i’n”, and “wyt ti”, “ych chi” or “yn ni” can be various forms of “ti’n” “(y)ch chi’n”/“chi’n”, “(y)ni’n / ni’n” or whatever!
[Possible spoken, colloquial pronunciations of the English verb “to be” in such things as “they’re going” (Th-air going, as it were) - meaning the verb “to be” disappears in pronunciation (assuming you don’t trill “r’s” before a consonant in English) and is only shown in a change in the vowel sound of “They” show a similar amount of battering about of the verb “to be”! It’s a well beaten verb, poor thing…]
“We talking about the same Barry hardy?” sounds like something you could hear in quick, natural speech. I probably use the form sometimes myself.
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Gareth - please! We are all friends in here, I sense.
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Me too, or even “we talking 'bout…”.
However, I think what I was getting at was that, apart from in focused sentences, I thought “verb first” was quite a strong rule in Welsh. If you were emphasising the “we”/“ni”, I could understand it coming first, but I didn’t think that was the case here.
Although I have never so far bothered to check carefully, i think I’ve heard the occasional sentence on RaR beginning “fi” - could be focused sentences I suppose.
Diolch Gareth!
Yndan siwr!