Hi! Recently, I was tired but still trying to practice my limited amount of Welsh, so I came up with “I want to go to sleep.” Then I realized I could think of two ways to say that phrase, and it got me wondering, what (if anything) is the difference between:
mae isio fi fynd i gysgu
and dwi’n moyn mynd i gysgu / dw i isio mynd i gysgu / dw i eisiau mynd i gysgu?
Is one phrasing more correct? Will one make me sound old fashioned or childish?
[bonus question: I get the north/south thing with moyn, but what’s up with eisau vs isio? They sound about the same to me, but are they not?]
Just to answer that one: they are one and the same. Eisiau is the formal dictionary spelling, isio is a reflection of one pronunciation, there are others, e.g. isie
In the Southern course, Iestyn and Cat use “Mae eisiau i fi (verb)” for when you need to do an action.
In your example, “I need to go to sleep” would be “Mae eisiau i fi fynd i gysgu.”
I think that in Course 2, Iestyn and Cat introduce “Mae eisiau (noun) arna i” for times when you need a thing/object.
So maybe with this structure, it would be “Mae eisiau cwsg arna i” to say that you need sleep.
(At least I think these were the distinctions between the “eisiau i” and “eisiau ar” structures.)
I’m not sure it matters, and you would be understood either way. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t confused about the mysterious “eisiau arna i” that you might not have heard of yet.
So many useful topics on this forum! In school as a child I was taught “Dw i eisiau …”, but also “Ga i …” as in “Can I have” - is that a valid question to ask, or is that actually too rude/blunt of a way to ask for something as an adult?
