I’m not sure I’m posting this in the correct place, so my apologies, if not!
I have loved SSIW and think it’s amazing! When I started using the course, I used the old forum frequently, because I could go to a specific lesson and see people’s questions and answers. I often had my own questions answered, but I also learned so much from questions that I wouldn’t have thought to ask. Is there anything like that on this new forum? I haven’t found it yet, so I was wondering. I was curious about Q&A regarding the new levels’ lessons.
Hi Jennifer - nope, not yet, I’m afraid, although we have looked at ways to tie the threads into the lessons so you see them on the lesson pages - not quite there yet, though!
@aran I am very bad at putting ‘i’ into sentences when and where it should be and almost as bad with ‘n’. Apart from noticing how badly I speak Cymraeg, would folk still understand me? OK, it’s academic, I’m not likely to cross Hadrian’s Wall, never mind Offa’s Dyke, but I’d like to know!!!
Given 30 minutes to an hour of free time, with the goal of learning new words or understanding spoken Welsh, what would be best? Listening to Welsh podcasts and looking up unfamiliar words? Reviewing an existing word list?
Every other Saturday I find myself with the aforementioned chunk of time…which is why I wonder. Sometimes I think it would be better to review words, but…since I’m increasingly able to ‘get’ spoken words and phrases in context (i.e. ‘gweddill y croen’ (from listening to a podcast on sun awareness and skin cancre) or ‘craidd ydy lawr yn y haul’ (from same) ) sometimes I think listening would be better.
Well it could mean that as well of course @aran - it would depend on context, wouldn’t it? In the same way, Dw i’n cael torri ngwallt could mean I am being allowed to cut my hair in the appropriate context.
I suspect (in fact, thinking about it, I’m sure) the pattern Dan ni’n cael sied wedi’i adeiladu that you mention is really a translation of the English pattern (I’m not being critical here, by the way). But from a Welsh grammar perspective it does look and feel faintly illogical because of that wedi, which is so associated with the idea of something that has happened in the past. The English past participle (‘built’) is, though past, not so openly past in feel, mainly because it doesn’t use a separate explicitly past tense indicator, which the Welsh wedi definitely is. Still…I am sure plenty of people say it.
Of course it may just be that I need to go and sit down with a nice cup of tea.
This is something I’ve been meaning to ask about. I get the idea that there are more and more idioms and grammatical habits from English creeping into Cymraeg. I am very dubious about translating anything I have no recollection of saying before, because a literal translation is almost certainly not the way it should be!! This leaves me doing a goldfish impression, or would, if i came home and tried to hold a conversation!
Which is the worse sin - spreading Wenglsh or slipping into English when in extremis?
p.s. I saw something on TV about the change in Caerdydd - someone mentioning ‘the days when virtually no Welsh was spoken here’, which, of course, are the days I remember!! I am so used to nasty census results saying “Welsh speakers down!”, are there other parts like the capital where numbers are actually up??
My feeling, @henddraig, is that word-for-word translations of idioms or phrases from another language (we call them calques in the trade) are simply part of language change. We do it all the time in English, mostly unwittingly - anyone who says, for example, ‘I wouldn’t know’ meaning ‘I don’t know’ is using a German calque. So what? In Welsh, the tendency is going to be all the greater in areas like Cardiff where there is a strong English substrate and Welsh, while thriving now, is still a second language for most speakers. Nothing wrong with any of this, by the way. Up in the North, perhaps, you are less likely to hear calques, but you still do, just like you hear it the other way - English speakers using Welsh phrasings and idioms. Many Wenglish phrasing are exactly this. So my feeling is to be relaxed about it. The purists will always complain about (for example) cymryd lle for take place, saying it should be digwydd. Which perhaps it should. The problem is that word ‘should’, isn’t it? I like using more Welsh phrasings if I can (and remember to), but I wouldn’t go to war over it.
On your other related point - well, keep in Welsh as much as you can - even with English phrasings - rather than simply switch to English, which should (there’s that word ‘should’ again! ) be a last resort. Perhaps.
Diolch, @garethrking, I found that very interesting.
As an American learning Welsh, I find that the differences between American English and British English make it interesting for me to try to phrase things in Welsh at times. So, from now on, if I say something that sounds funny in Welsh because it is an American idiom, I’m just going to call it a calque! It sounds quite official
Exactly. If anyone thinks that this is a problem in Welsh, they should take comfort in the widespread use of “calques” in Dutch. Not only from English (the French calque ‘anglicisme’ is used to describe these), but also from French and German. Some people get upset about it, but it is just part of the language to the extent that many people don’t realise they are using them. Dutch is still Dutch, nevertheless, and I daresay Welsh is still Welsh even with calques.
Yes of course @louis Calques are a part of any living language, aren’t they? It’s only the purists who complain, but who cares about the views of fanatics? I know I don’t.
The vast majority of the time, yes (I can’t think of any examples where anyone wouldn’t, off the top of my head, but it’s impossible to be perfectly certain with this kind of stuff, of course).
Diolch yn fawr… I realise that even this happens rather a lot. On R&R recently, I heard ‘lot’ (the English word) at the end of a sentence. I am sorry I have forgotten the context, but it reminded me of an overheard conversation on a bus in mid Wales many years ago, Two ladies chatting about their neighbours in Welsh, except that about one word in every four or five was English! Also, I had some Sikh friends with whom I stayed once in London. They had a visit one afternoon from some fellow Sikhs. After a while, I commented on something in the conversation. At this point, they realised that they had slipped into Punjabi. Visitor, “Oh, you speak Punjabi! I’m so sorry we should have checked before…” Me, “Well, no actually, but there was enough English in the conversation for me to follow it!” They were amazed! None realised they used any English at all!
Yes, @henddraig - this is just a natural function of bilingualism, isn’t it? I remember way back seeing the occasional programme in Hindi on the BBC (they don’t do them now), and being struck by the English terms regularly dropped into the conversation. The technical term is ‘code-switching’. Many learned (and largely unreadable) books have been written on it.
Lot is fine - it’s barely thought of as a loanword even, it’s been around so long. Also lot fawr (= llawer iawn) - Mi oedd 'na lot fawr o bobol ynoThere were a great many people there.
Actually one almost sounds more native using lot than using llawer (which is the word promoted by the second-language industry). I think practically practically every native speaker instinctively uses lot unless they make a conscious effort to use llawer instead.
I came out of Wlpan using ‘lot’ All The Time - now every once in a while Catrin and I will tut at ourselves and the children and give ‘llawer’ the love it deserves - ebb and flow, though…
Yes, @aran, I like llawer as well. One just has to be careful to remember that when you ratchet it up a notch it’s lot fawr but llawer iawn and never the other way round!
