Oh, @aran thank you for this from me aswell! Now I know … but this
I just had to read 3 times to see the difference as we in Slovene don’t use equivalent to “a” and “the” much although we have them.
“The old dog” would be “ta stari pes” and “An old dog” it would be just “stari pes”. (hmmm … quite similar to Cymraeg though)
Diolch yn fawr iawn! 
Diolch Karla,
Dw i newydd ‘listened’ eto, a ti’n’right’. Byddi di’n ymarfer nawr.
Hywl,
Marilyn
Ps sorry if I mix English words into this, but better that and to leap along with what have learned rather than stumble or stop dead in my tracks over what I do not know yet.
Bore da Tatjana, a da indeed to have your advice.
S’mae?
Diolch yn fawr eto,
Marilyn
Great advice Aran, but also diolch yn fawr for translating those phrases.
Perhaps it is one of those idiosycracies of those of us who are hard of hearing–we listen to what we can very intently, seeking clues. Years of doing this may make us, or should I say me, seem a bit pedantic. We are just wanting to communicate properly through the mist of noise in our heads. Hey, but on the good side we really do listen to people, and in other situations they really appreciate being heard. The only exception to that may be husbands, wives and partners–mine reckons I have selective hearing, but never fail to hear 'Wyt ti’n hoffi gwin 
Byddi
Ps
Oops Aran,… Byddi di’n trio ‘loosen up’ ond dw i’n joio Cymraeg so much.
Hehe …
“Ewt ti’n hoffi coffi?” would probably be phrase for me which I’d never let not to be heard in deed.
Dim problem. Dwi’n gwneud hynni eto!
[quote=“aran, post:20, topic:3736, full:true”]
Don’t overthink it, Marilyn - it’ll settle down for you in time… 
I took your advice, and instead of overthinking everything went on a couple of long hikes with several lessons (Gwers 11-13) on an MP3 player streaming directly into my magic hearing devices (this learning Welsh has the spin-off benefit of inspiring me to get help from the experts in how to harness all kinds of technologies…).
Between walks, I relaxed and tried to consolidate the patterns, then kept going and blasted through them in 24 hours I think. Somehow, I got “in the groove” and found myself talking to squirrels and chipmunks–anything that moved, and some things that don’t. What a blast.
Funny how patterns fell into place, partly because of the ongoing revisions so cleverly woven into the lessons, partly because what various of you wonder-workers have explained, or interpreted for me, and partly by just relaxing into the process.
Can any of you with good hearing have any idea what it feels like for someone like me to discover such sheer bliss in sounds? When I speak English, I am aware of what I have lost to deafness, but learning Welsh is daring me to reassess what I can do, imaking me so grateful for the sounds starting to make a symphony in my head–a brand new composition. It is fantastic!!! Thank you one and all–take a bow!
But now a trivia question… I mentioned the squirrels,… well when the world was young, and I was too, I was in the Urdd (sp?). I have a vague memory of being #1001 reciting something like 'Y Wiwer" (sp?)–The Squirrel? How funny that memory should suddenly be triggered today–nice though
Me as visually impaired I can somehow perfectly understand you. It was the same, just on visual part when I’ve got involved with computers for the first time. I went to the course of computer basics (when I was much much younger) with the preposition that I surely am not able to work with computers, that I surely won’t see anything at all and even before I came into the class I imagined myself being banned from the course even in the middle of the first hour of it! The fact that something like this didn’t happen and even more, that I was actually the best student in the class opened wide horizons for me, new worlds which I’ve slowly explored … It did magic, not only to my soul, to my humble existence but to my whole life! I’ve got the job I love, got wonderful friends through it and most important: I’ve stumbled upon SSi which I never would of weren’t my prepositions proved wrong that day in my early 20s.
So, @MarilynHames, I can imagine what those findings and re-seting your mind did to you. This is wonderful and yes, this is a symphony which should play from now on over and over again! Chiers to you! and best of luck!
Are you one of this forum’s Angels? You must be, because you have the gift of transforming others by your ever-ready practical advice, inexhaustible support and encouragement–and now this wonderful, humble, inspiring revelation about your overcoming struggles with poor eyesight to be the happy, great person you are today. How many other kindred spirits have you awoken, or fellow travellers have you helped along the way? Very, very many I am sure. Da Iawn, a diolch!
A few years ago I walked the final stages of the Camino.
Oops, keep pressing the wrong key, so sending a half-finished thought
Done it again… About the Camino… Like learning to speak Welsh it was an adventure, but also the most challenging, uplifting and I the end spiritual experiences
Hm, next instalment… Well, on the Camino, I met all sorts and saw all kinds of people–pilgrims come in all shapes and sizes from groups of fit folk laughing and joking along the Way, a teenage boy pushing his granny who sat in a wheelchair, parents with kids in tow or strapped to the backs, peletons of cyclists zooming past in their eye-popping spandex, nuns in full habits and folk like me in their ‘let’s hike Snowdonia in the pouring rain’ gear (is there any other way, on Snowdon she asks with memories of soggy feet). No matter who you met, everyone said, or rather wished you ‘Buen Camino’–a good Walk. So what is the Welsh equivalent please? If the very roots of Cymraeg lies in the notion of comrades, of fellow folk, it would be nice to use and appropriate salutation that carries with the notion of one fellow companion wishing another a ‘good journey’ as we each move towards our goal. Any ideas?
(Ah, gotcha–my reply screen jumps about as it scrolls down, so that’s why this post took 4 attempts as I kept hitting reply-another lesson learned 
)
Anyhow, to all you fellow travellers today, let us ‘cerdded yn da’ 
stay with me Tatjana
Did it again… My computer has a mind of its own today, but keep reading–eventually you will get the message in 4-5 episodes–mae’n ddrwg 'da fi!
Have “watched” all episodes of your mini series and … THANK YOU!
I’m not the saint neither an angel. I just try to help people the best way I can. I won’t say that I always succeed in this atempt. Many times I do just oposite despite I have my best intentions and I feel awful when this happens. Well, the fact is I’m partly disabled myself + I’m the cheef of staff of the department with 9 also partly disabled pepole at my work so it’s not rear occassion when I have to put all my efforts mindset and energies into helping them all (except one of my co-workers who is also my friend who many times helps me aswell - we are a team).
Oh, and here surely are quite some more “angels” of this forum … they were here for me, they are here for you … 
I won’t go anywhere (as long as I’m wanted here), don’t worry. I’m here for you and all the rest just as there’s always someone here for me when needed.
Now you just reminded me that I didn’t post anything about editing posts on this forum in “useful stuff”. I have to check this out.
[quote=“MarilynHames, post:33, topic:3736”]
No, no idea, not really. Should explore this or shall we wait on someone other with more knowledge to answer this question.
And that sounds to me like someone who now has nothing left standing between her and fluency (except carrying on blasting as playfully as possible!)… 
Hello,
Dim and ddim–sometimes I think I hear a ‘d’ sometimes the softer ‘dd’ in a negative response. Am I imagining this, or is the softer sound only directly after fi/ti/fe/hi?
To be precise, with hearing assistance, I actually hear something else, but that is how I am interpreting it, so trying to reproduce it when I speak. The d, t, th, f sounds lie within frequencies being artificially simulated or enhanced for me.
The great news is that with your help I am on Gwers 17 and it seems to be getting easier all the time as if I broke through some barrier. It helps that I have had the one-on-one pleasure of Skyping with a wonderful lady who has overcome similar hearing challenges–and she is quite fluent now. I am not sure if my great mentor would be embarrassed if I named her, so I will not without her permission, but diolch yn fawr.
You are not imagening, you hear both however I’m not 100 % sure where they really appear. I took a lead that (almost) every “i” at the end of the word softens “d” in dim. But yes, I’d be glad to know when and where exactly too. Good question. (Let me be ashamed that I went through that much material and I don’t know this though …)
Not only after those, but that’s definitely when you will hear it softened.
If you want a rule, there is one, at least according to Gareth King (although not everyone seems to agree with him on this), but he says the most frequent reason for a word soft-mutating is that it comes after the subject (or the “notional subject”) of the sentence. Now, not to get hung up on this since that’s not the SSiW way, but if you want to know why it is, well, that’s one reason. There are others though, A simple example, which we learn fairly early on is “nes i ddim”
(or “wnes i ddim”). The “i” in that case happens to be the same as “I” in English.
However, in other constructions you will see the word “i” being used where it is the preposition “to”, and that also causes softening (although I can’t think off the top of my head of an example where “dim/ddim” would come after it). An example we will have come across in Course 1 I think would be “dw i’n mynd i brynu llefrith / llaeth”. (“prynu” is softened). I think they call this “contact mutation”, and other prepositions do it as well, and probably other types of words.