Use of "i" before verbs

I am coming to play is wi’n dod yn chwarae
I came to play is des i i chwarae
Why is the second i inserted with this tense of dod when chwarae means to play?

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I’d use it before every verb there. Might be short for i’w but not sure.

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Yes, I’d agree with John in this…

…I think it’s another situation where English uses the same word in multiple senses and debatably Welsh is a bit clearer because it doesn’t :smile:

There is a ‘to’ wrapped up in the sense of the verb - eg to want, to learn, to speak etc - and you can string the verbs together in either language and that sense comes through…

However when you say in English

I’m coming to fix the boiler - this isn’t that sort of ‘to’. This is a different sort of ‘to’ associated with the preceding verb - which could be thought of as a ‘for the purposes of’ - and this is what the Welsh ‘i’ is here…and it’s associated with the preceding verb.

So I would say that the first sentence above isn’t quite saying what is intended.

Rich :slight_smile:

Would help to see the full context but I agree with John and Rich that “wi’n dod yn chwarae” sounds odd to me. As Rich suggests, ‘i’ before verb generally has the sense of “in order to”.

Oh no. This is my first question to this forum.Thanks for the replies so far. I have just realised I have included a silly typo.
The first Welsh sentence should have read WI’N DOD CHWARAE. Sorry if I have wasted people’s time with my useless proof reading.
.

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Certainly no need to apologise, John! Things like this are always good to make you question what you think you know… :slight_smile:

Though even with your corrected version, I’d still say “wi’n dod i chwarae” rather than “wi’n dod chwarae” (if the intended meaning is “I’m coming to play”).

I’m not a first language Welsh speaker, though, so I stand to be corrected.