Yes…but from a Welsh grammar perspective, the first example there, using preterite of bod as an auxiliary, is not a preterite. The fact that the two examples can both be represented by the English preterite there shows simply that the English preterite is broader in meaning and use than the Welsh one. And incidentally, Buon ni’n palu’r ardd can also mean We have been digging the garden, which Fe balon ni’r ardd can’t.
§292 in the Grammar is still right: The preterite is the only tense of the verb in Welsh which makes no use of bod (the future uses bod as an option…)
I knew it was that I didn’t understand! It’s a completed event in the past. I can’t see why that isn’t the preterite - in terms of such things, it’s impossible to have a completed event in the past of being somewhere without coming back, as it were! But thank god it doesn’t matter, so my lack of understanding doesn’t matter! I’ll go by the explanation on ForumWales for now, which also (I’ve as well as what you say) fits in with the rare times I hear it used, but thanks for your as always instructive and useful answer!
I think one of the tricky things in this particular point of discussion is that the preterite of bod happens to have this additional very particularised (almost idiomatic, really) sense of travel to a place and coming back again. In fact the English have been similarly has this idiomatic usage, don’t know whether one of the languages has influenced the other at all.
I think I read somewhere there was a form in English “I’d beed or I beed”. I can imagine a west country yokel saying I beed over Taunton and somehow equating that to fues I Taunton sounds the best option. Maybe?
Hi guys! I’ve speak at one of the most prevalent language in the world, but it is not english.
So, I wonder: better start learning Welsh after I will be pretty good at english, or make sense to combine education?
Hi Kristin! I think the SaySomethingin Method would not work very well if you didn’t have a strong grasp of the language you learn through - it’s very fast-paced. What is your first language?
I hope this is a quick question, and doesn’t open up a can of worms, but I’ve been wondering about active and passive voices in Cymraeg. For example, the difference between ‘the cat ate the food’ and ‘the food was eaten by the cat.’ This is what I’ve come up with:
Active voice:
Bwyt oedd y gath y bwyd/ naeth y gath fwyta’r bwyd.
Passive voice:
Mae’r bwyd wedi bod yn bwyta gan y gath.
Is this correct, or is it not really used in Welsh at all? Diolch in advance!
Hopefully, Gareth will chip in. My impression is that there is more than one way of expressing what would be passive in English & that there isn’t an exact equivalent.
Here is one way of doing it, according to the BBC:
Ooh, lovely to have more learners from Russia! Yes, @seren is a Russian speaker, and is on here sometimes - and one of these days we’d love to have our Welsh course available through the medium of Russian (quite a bit of work to be done for that, but maybe next year!)…
Could someone help me with the ‘I shouldn’t’ in challenge 21/22 of level 1? I just can’t make out what is being said and when I looked up shouldn’t online it said there was no words for that in Welsh! It sounds like feloni to me but I’m not sure.
