Apologies. Me again… Whilst I continue to wage war with the Vocab Units, I’ve also been trying to whizz through Level 1 at the same time. Challenge 12 has got me scratching my head this evening.
“I think I’d like to go now” - “Dwi’n meddwl [sounds like y] liciwn i fynd rwan”
“I think I’d like to speak to speak Welsh with you” - "Dwi’n meddwl [sounds like y] liciwn i siarad Cymraeg efo ch’di.
Where does the [y sound] come from? Is this another case of just learning that it always belongs there in such a sentence?
Apologies - me again with another question about those pesky vocab units! Vocab 5 this time…
I noticed that “Meddyg" and “gwas sifil” (for example) are soft mutated in the following sentences - "Dwi’n feddyg” and “Dwi’n was sifil”. Am I right in thinking that is because they are predicate nouns after yn?
Yes, predicate nouns and adjectives mutate after yn (except a few recalcitrant ones such as braf) – but note that verbs do not, though they are predicates, too.
You know, the more I read comments like those above, the more I really appreciate @aran’s approach! If I had to learn about predicate nouns, the ergative case and other such, in order to learn Welsh, I would be sitting in a corner screaming with frustration by now!!!
Apologies! Studied a dead language through to MA level, which included forays into morphology. Had simply been looking down the list of reasons why you get a soft mutation on Wikipedia, spotted that “yn" causes a limited soft mutation with predicate nouns and adjectives and gone “a-ha, that looks the likely reason”. Just wanted to check I was thinking along the right lines…
That isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate the simplicity of the SSIW approach. It is just that the (repressed) linguist in me sometimes wants to understand the wider rules behind what we are being taught!
I was listening to challenge 2 in level 1, and I’m curious how to write thing I heard. It sound like ‘on i eisiau’, and I don’t know how to write the first word. I only know it means ‘I wanted’.
On Rownd a Rownd, I occasionally hear something like da (which is also how it’s subtitled) in a context such as *Beth ti’n da yma?, aparently meaning something like “What are you doing here?”. Usually in a kind of accusatory tone.
Is that short for something? I can’t find anything appropriate in the dictionary.
My wild guess (until someone else joins in): How about -
“( Mae’n) beth da (bod) ti’n yma” for Its a good thing that you’re here? Ok, I cheated by changing ti’n da into da 'ti’n.
The only other thing that comes to mind is 'da for gyda (with), but that still sounds a bit weird.
Snap! What are you good here- what are you with here- it must be slang! If only someone had been on the set lately!, @philipnewton!!! @aran can you help?
Not really short for anything - but it’s a common usage, which is a bit like the English ‘good for something’ or ‘good for nothing’ - so literally, ‘what are you good for here?’ - kind of odd that it doesn’t get mutated, either, but there we are…
