I think most people would use the correct inflected/conjugated form of the preposition, though there are probably new speakers who forget to do so (all part of the learning curve). But one thing that struck me as possible is that without the end of the sentence, it might be possible to confuse fi and fy i.e. mae llun ohono fi… yn yr albwm but mae llun o fy… nhad yn yr albwm - the end of the sentence gives more context of course.
Hope that’s not overthinking the question!
In general, you’d just reverse the sequence blaidd da dulwyd mawr (note that in Welsh we often have one word for ‘dark/light+colour’! )
but watch out for the adjectives that don’t follow the ‘after-the-noun rule’, like hen=old, that would change the order.
an old big dark grey good wolf = hen flaidd da dulwyd mawr
Do mean reverse the sequence from the correct English sequence?
I may have developed a bit of a feeling of what sounds right and what doesn’t, but
I don’t really remember the correct English sequence!
But I can find it and just use it in the opposite order!
However while having a look around this morning, I saw this on Duolingo grammar notes:
"Where a colour is used with an adjective of size, the adjective of size comes before the colour: • car mawr gwyn - a large white car • ci bach brown a gwyn - a small brown and white dog"
And “ci mawr du” would sound ok to me.
But so does “blaidd dulwyd mawr” as in your translation.
And if I do a quick search I find an old newspaper in the National Library archive mentioning “Carlo, y ci du mawr” (worth mentioning even just for it being hilarious!), along with more examples. But also (just a few more) “ci mawr du”
For some reason
“coffi du mawr” just seems more correct than “coffi mawr du” - but “coffi bach du” actually sounds ok.
And would it be “coffi du da mawr” or “coffi da du mawr” or “coffi mawr du da”?
Maybe there in Welsh it’s not that strict for every element?
p.s. I’m quite ok with exceptions like hen, and I’d keep it aside now not to complicate things further, but of course it’s worth mentioning for anyone else reading and following the discussion)
p.p.s. I’ve recently joined a course that I thought would be about Cynganedd, while it turned out to be to about how to cynganeddu. So I’ve been focused on words, sounds and sequences this week, sorry if my questions probably ended up being influenced by it, even though not related to it!
In English, the rule is opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. Sentences sound odd when the order is changed. I don’t think the word order in Welsh is quite as strict though - coffi mawr du and coffi du mawr both sound right to me, the difference being that I’d hear the emphasis falling on the last adjective in the Welsh version i.e. in English “A large black coffee” as opposed to “A large black coffee”.
But I could be wrong - there might be a rule that has over time become slack, or that the subconscious English rule has overwhelmed the Welsh one.
This document may help. I can’t remember where I got it from, but Deborah McCarney is the original author according to the doc properties, so I probably found it on this forum, as I think that’s our Deborah! Order of Adjectives in Welsh.pdf (38.8 KB)
I had done a search in the forum before asking, but I hadn’t found anything.
Maybe it was some Bwtcamp or Garth Newydd, but since you tracked down who did it, we’ll find out sooner or later.
p.s. some sequences will still sound ok to me, as we were saying with @siaronjames but if I have to write something official I can refer to this
Yes, that was me a while back. There was some discussion on the order of adjectives and I found the relevant section in my big book on Welsh grammar and wrote that document. It was rather remiss of me not to reference the book, so I’ll check the title for you when I find it.
EDIT: The book was Gramadeg y Gymraeg by Peter Wynn Thomas
Dw i newydd sylweddoli (tra o’n i’n trio darllen llythyr yn uchel) bod dw i ddim yn gwybod sut i galw y ‘/’ mewn cyfeiriad gwefan yn y Gymraeg. Unrhyw help, os gwelwch yn dda?
It just occured to me (while I was trying to read a letter aloud) that I have no idea how to say the slash (‘/’) in a website address in Welsh. Any help please?
Well, according to GPC, you’re right, but I suspect as it’s normally spoken rather than written down, whether it has the mutation or not is probably not noticed.
Now we’re on this topic: many languages have an interesting name for the @ sign. Does Cymraeg as well? (just for those interested: we call it a ‘monkey-tail’)
You’ve reminded me that in Catalan, while it is officially arrova, informally it can be a snail (cargol) or an ensaïmada (a spiral pastry containing saïm, lard, which is saim in Welsh). But I’m not aware of anything similar yn y Gymraeg.
In Spanish it’s arroba, but I haven’t heard anything in Cymraeg either. It would make sense to use “at” though, as you send things “at” y person, e.g. na i anfon y neges at fy ffrind - “I’ll send the message to my friend”, so ‘person - AT - server address’. (Just my own thinking, which could be wildly wrong )
I have just taken a look at the advanced content, I have listened to the first Northern clip. I have found the transcript and vocab, where might the translation be?