I’ve just started Level 1, Challenge 19. It starts with I didn’t do that = Wnes i ddim gwneud … followed by something that sounds like ‘honey’, but obviously isn’t.
It doesn’t appear in the vocabulary - please could someone tell me how it’s spelt?
I’m just starting to work my way through Course 3 Northern (sequence has been Level 1; Course 1 skipping every two or 3 lessons, just to fill in different coverage, plus some of the vocab; Level 2; Level 3 1-6).
Because it’s the old Course & I’ve done the Levels, there are some words and constructions that are new on me. In Lesson 3 I’ve just come across this: I’ll say what’s been prepared – Ddida i beth sydd wedi ei baratoi (I think).
Is that right? – I misheard the “ei baratoi” as some thing like “y” or “yn” baratoi, and was totally puzzled, but now I’ve listened again to type it here, I think I’ve got it…
ETA: However, that pronoun reminds me that I really don’t get “i’w” versus “i”: I’ve heard things like “Rhywbeth i’w fwyta” plenty of times in the course, but never “i’w yfed” as far as I can tell. However, it might just be the example sentences – I think that yfed normally comes up as “gormod i yfed”, and so I don’t know whether it’s more that ‘gormod’ behaves differently to ‘rhywbeth’, or that ‘bwyta’ works differently to ‘yfed’, or that I just haven’t listened well enough.
No, it just means “What are you doing?”. Don’t over think it - it’s just the way Welsh works!
To be a bit more detailed, “beth” is short for “pa beth” - what thing. So you are asking “what thing are you it (the thing) doing?” The prnoun (the ei) is disappearing in speech, probably under the influence of English, but the mutation is often still there!
OK – I’m afraid I do have an academic background and like to overthink things if possible
(I’ve actually found the SSi approach really refreshing and useful, making me think much more and much faster than a reading/writing/grammar approach would have done, and I think it’s incredibly effective – the thing about falle dylwn i 'di paratoi yn well that I asked about elsewhere is something I’d have struggled to say in Greek after several years of evening classes, yet I was able to produce it in Welsh after only 3-4 months – but I am now going to ask you about grammar…)
So, as I understand it, the pronoun is there because it’s picking up the fact that the object, the ‘thing’ in this case, is preceding the verb-noun (the pronoun is resumptive): if the object follows the verb (Dw i’n gwneud y brecwast) there’s no pronoun and no mutation; if it precedes it the pronoun is becoming optional but it’s more correct to use it. Is that right?
Does that mean it sounds old-fashioned / literary / formal or just another way of saying the same thing? And what happens if you have two verb-nouns (Be’ dach chi’n trio gwneud? -> Be’ dach chi’n trio ei wneud?) ?
Also also, as a result of dipping into Course 3 after doing Levels – I’m hearing lots of useful vocabulary that is kind of new, and I’m going to go back through again to try to catch it all, but can someone just tell me how people actually pronounce ysgrifennu in Gog – I’m sure I heard something like ysgriwnu, but I was multitasking at the time…