Brynais/brynes or Phrynais?
I’m thoroughly enjoying working my way through the excellent “Modern Welsh” by @garethrking but have a question about 167: Un in idiomatic expressions.
The example is “Brynes i’r un llun”, I didn’t buy a single picture.
If I were using ddim for a negative without stressing the “un”, I’d expect “Phrynais i ddim llun”. So why no aspirate mutation for this negative? Is it the lack of the (implied) ddim?
It has nothing to do with whether the negative is implied or not. You are correct in your thinking that if you want to be grammatically correct, in case of negative statements you’d need the aspirate mutation for verbs beginning with p, c or t and the soft mutation only for letters not susceptible to aspirate mutation. But the fact of the matter is that in everyday spoken Welsh the aspirate mutation is gradually vanishing, so a lot of people will just use the soft mutation in such sentences.
(Or just ignore the mutation completely in things such as te a coffi instead of te a choffi)
Hi Chris - yes, it’s as Hendrik set out…the SM is generalised for verbs with endings in many spoken types, whether it’s on questions (the only one the standard language allows), or negatives (like your example), or indeed positive statements. So in speech, quite frequently, one might even say uncontroversially:
Brynodd hi gar She bought a car
Brynodd hi gar? Did she buy a car?
Brynodd hi ddim car She didn’t buy a car.
I do believe you’re going to love my new book. 
I’m going to use this excellent little sentence in the new book - diolch yn fawr Richard!
Good evening everyone. Sorry I’ve got 2 questions tonight.
First one…
In this translation I was looking to say “fod oedd e’n” for the “it was” bit but I guessed that you can’t have 2 forms of “bod” in the same statement, so “fod oedd e’n mynd"would be wrong? But is there any reason why it says “fod o’n mynd” instead of"fod e’n mynd” which I assumed was the South version?
My second question is about the use of “peidio” in this and some other translations.
The English says “so that I don’t..”
I was looking to say “er mwyn dw I ddim yn colli…”
I thought peidio had a sense of “must not” or "don’t when used as a imperative e.g. “don’t close the door” .
Can someone help me by explaining the use of “peidio” to mean “so that (I, you etc) don’t”?
Many thanks.
That seems to be the northern version being displayed in the southern course, as it should be fod e’n. We’ll have to check that - diolch!
peidio is just a way of saying “to refrain from doing something” - so it can be a ‘command’ - paid gwneud hynny! "Don’t do that! (Refrain from doing that!) or it can be a desire to refrain from something like your example “to refrain from missing the second half” which in natural English is “don’t miss the second half”.
Thanks for your answers
I am having a little look at Wales South, it explains that how is sut, the same as I’m used to. It says that it might be pronounced as shut, as someone from Northern England would pronounce it, would that be spelt siut?
It continues with sut, so perhaps it is just the pronunciation ?
Yes, sut is the standardized spelling. Sometimes you’ll see it written as shwd, to signify the southern pronunciation.
Although Welsh is largely phonetic (i.e. written as it sounds), some regional differences occur. A widespread example is the plural ending -au, which is pronounced -a by northern speakers and -e by southern speakers.
Aran and Catrin are the models for the North, who provide the Southern version?
