Hope this is ok here, rather than in the Methu/Medra threads. Although we had methu as can’t or fail, I notice young people using “methu ti” as miss you. Actually it was “methuuuuu teeeeeeei”, but that’s another story 
. I think that I can see the link between fail and miss, as in fail being “to miss the mark” etc. Am I on the right lines?
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I would probably using “colli” (literally “to lose”) as in:
Dw i’n dy golli di - I’m missing (literally “losing”) you.
I think I would understand someone saying “methu” - even though this could be seen as applying Welsh words to an English idiom. But I also wonder if
Dw i’n dy fethu di could mean “I am failing you” as in “I’m letting you down”?
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I haven’t heard that usage - ‘gadael i lawr’ is more common (although less elegant!). ‘Methu ti’ as in to miss someone is very common usage.
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I heard this construction on Rownd a Rownd the other day, where Philip told Alwena that he had missed her while she was in Spain and he still in Wales!
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I had never come across “methu” in that context before, but according to Gweiadur.com it could mean “to miss” as in to fail to hit a target, but it could also mean to fail to meet someone, e.g. I suppose, as in English:
“I was hoping to see you when you looked in, but I was late arriving, and so I missed you”.
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Thank you for the answers.
Am I right in thinking that Aberystwyth is another one mispronounced?
I always hear people say “abuh-rist-wisth”…but I always say “ab-er-rust-with”…which people looked sometimes perplexed by…but if Mynydd (mountain) = mun-ith…surely ystwyth = uh-strith??? Or is the word ystwyth a corruption of an older spelling…hence “ist-with” sound?
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To confuse you even more, Sian James pronounces it Aberist-ooy-th in one of her songs, Ffarwel i Aberystwyth. Re the pronunciation of the river Ystwyth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Ystwyth, the suggestion istwith. There is no hard logic in spelling and pronunciation in any language 
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Doesn’t the choice of pronunciation of y have something to do with its position in the word? I recall having been told that some years ago. Of course, how people pronounce any vowel is distinctly individual, so even with rules or “correct” pronunciation, they come out sounding different from different people.
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Is that to do with the y being followed by an s in YStwyth then? Because in the vast majority of cases if the Y is NOT the final syllable it is pronounced “uh”…so “istwith” makes no sense in a Welsh context?
Here you go: https://forvo.com/word/ysbyty_ystwyth/ - sounds like your ‘uh’ I think. Could it be that the perplexed looks you receive are because people are used to hear the English pronunciation?
I touched on this in another thread some months ago I think.
I’ve heard the “English” pronunciation, and what I would imagine to be the “textbook” “Welsh” pronunciation from Welsh speaking people (mostly on the radio), but also just about everything in between.
So I keep an open mind on this one, and if push came to shove, would pronounce it in exactly the way that the last Welsh person I heard saying it pronounced it.
I did have one small lightbulb moment a while back when realising that the way northern speakers (or some of them ) pronouncy “y” in that context (and also “u”) may sound to English ears a bit like an “i”, but it isn’t really, or not quite.
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Something that came up in the group Skype call yesterday – how to say “on one’s own, by oneself, alone”?
John suggested something that sounded to me like ar dy ben dy hun.
In the context it was about a woman wanting to be by herself - would that be Oedd hi isio bod ar ei phen ei hun?
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As an English speaker from South Wales, I certainly would find it hard to change to adjust to using “ist” if that was correct, but I would do if someone told me that was how it was meant to be said. It would feel a bit like having to relearn to say London as Lon (as in Long) and Don (as in Dongle). Yst=Ust is common in a lot of places and words like Ystrad, Ystalyfera, Ystad. Can’t think of any that fall in the middle of words, except cwmystwyth, but that one doesn’t really help since the same issue probably applies. To me aberystwyth is actually two words put together so the ystwyth is like a discrete word, which starts with yst.
I do wonder how @iestyn pronounces it, since I do struggle a bit with saying some of the South Walian pronounciations correctly - things like eefed or ived for Yfed rather than uhfed, but I’m working on it.
Yes.
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Thank you!
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On radio Cymru yesterday i heard a traffic report saying “rhwng Glais a Phontardawe”. The question that i have is why is Pontardawe mutated like that. It sounded right when I heard it, but I don’t understand what rule this follows.
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Technically, I believe that sort of mutation (aspirant??) always follows ‘a’, meaning ‘and’. Not all people do it, even for non-place names. I don’t know if anyone does it for people’s names!! If he’s not too busy, maybe kind @garethrking could help here? Mam a Thad???
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Almost always, after ‘a’ and ‘â’ there is a Treiglad Llais, so
T becomes Th
C becomes Ch
and
P becomes Ph
So
Te a choffi (Tea and coffee)
Coffi a the (Coffee and tea)
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Yes, but what about names? Mam a Thad would be a bit like, say, Mary a Cholin! I tended to think names of people were left unmutated. Places used to be mutated, (poor Pontepool was Phont, Mont… depending on what came before it!), but I thought less so now?
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From what I know, personal names are never mutated. I wouldn’t call Tad a name…more of a title, I guess?
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