I’m new to the forum so I’d like to say hello to everyone.
I started learning Welsh (North Version) with SSIW about 2-3 months ago. It is the most amazing course!!! I’m finding it very effective and easy to learn. There is a clear structure so I never feel lost. It is a pleasure to listen to the recordings whilst doing household chores or getting ready in the morning .Then to be able to practice what I’m learning with people in the community. They are amazed at how fast I’ve picked it up and how clearly I can pronounce the words. They actually assume I know a lot more Welsh than I do, and they often start to waffle on before I have to explain that I’ve not been learning for long. So what I’m learning really is high quality! Thank you so much for all of the hard work that has gone into creating this course and offering it to us for free. It really is brilliant and will help me to keep up with my children who are also learning Welsh in school.
It is the first time I’ve posted on such a forum, so I’m not sure how to search to check if anyone else has already asked this question.
I have completed Level 1 and now I’m making my way through Course 1. But what I’m struggling a little with at the moment, is knowing when to use ‘yn’ before a verb. It seems to change depending on past tense, whether there is ‘dim’ in the sentence. I’d be very grateful for an overview on the rules.
Thank you so much again for giving us the opportunity to speak Welsh.
The default answer here is to not worry about it; you’ll get used to it.
However, if you want a little more detail, Welsh is a Verb Subject Object language, as compared to English which is Subject Verb Object (it’s fairly simple - in English we would say “The subject verbs the object” while in Welsh the order is “Verbs the subject the object”). “Dw i” is quite literally “I am”. Most verbs have a couple of ways they can be said: the “to” version (to be, and so on) is the one you hear after “yn” (usually), and this pattern is roughly equivalent to “I am verbing” (mostly). Now “eisiau” and “angen” are a little different, and I have absolutely no idea why. All I can say regarding those is that you’ll get used to it. However, with those two exceptions aside, any time you use “Dw i”, you’ll put an “yn” in front of the verb that follows.
Hi @Andrear, welcome to the forum. I don’t have any advice to add other than that you have above, but would like,to reiterate the don’t worry about it and also Welcome to the Forum!
Croeso, Welcome from me too, and no yn after dim, as well as no yn before isio or angen. I guess dim/ddim negate yn. But dwi ddim isio is I don’t want and dwi isio is I want, so I. like Hector, have no idea why no yn in that case!! It just is like that - I bet there are a load of things in every langauge that don’t follow rules! Probably because they got picked up from yet different languages!!
Welcome to the forum @Andrear! And well done for getting off to such a great start…
At this stage, most of the uncertainty here is probably because ‘isio/eisiau’ doesn’t take ‘yn’ - perhaps coupled with some ‘past tense doesn’t need yn’…
So…
Dwi’n cerdded - your standard pattern - if in doubt, stick the yn in like this and most of the time you’ll be right.
But… dwi isio, dwi angen… just happen not to take it.
Also…
Wnes i gerdded - no need for yn with this particular construction.
But… o’n i’n cerdded - there it is, ‘oeddwn i yn cerdded’…
Key point: I can’t think of an example, off the top of my head, where using/not using ‘yn’ would stop you being understood, so Don’t Worry About It…
Jeff’s rule: If the first verb is a form of “bod” (“to be”) then use “yn” before any following verbs.
Exception: no “yn” before “isio” or “angen” (I think there’s some story about how “isio” and “angen” weren’t originally considered verbs)
So, “dw i”, “ti”, “o’n i”, “sydd” etc (“I am”, “you are”, “I was”, “who is”): yup - use “yn”
examples: “dw i’n trio”, “ti’n cerdded”, “o’n i’n siarad”, “sydd yn nabod” / “sy’n nabod”
(and just to be clear, the “yn” has been shortened to “'n” in most of my examples)
But, “nes i”, “fedra i ddim”, “liciwn i”, etc (“I did”, “I can’t”, “I’d like”): nope - no need for “yn”
examples: “nes i wylio”, “fedra i ddim amarfer”, “liciwn i siarad”
Full disclaimer: Jeff probably stole his “rule” from Gareth King …
I just wanted to say thank you all very much for the wonderful replies!!! It is really helpful and will save me scratching my head in relation to this subject. I will also happily take on board the advice ‘not to worry too much’ in future ’ :
Thank you for making me feel very welcome here on the forum and I look forward to sharing notes with you in future +1:
You’ve had some great explanations of when to use ‘yn’, but could I go against the grain and say yes, you should worry, or at least be curious, about grammatical questions like this.
It’s worth picking up a good grammar book and looking stuff up when you stumble on it, because understanding grammar will really help you develop confidence in the language. Anything by Gareth King is brilliant, BBC Learn’s Grammar Rules is a good reference book, Heini Gruffudd’s Welsh Rules is also decent.
But I would encourage you to be curious about grammar – grammar, done properly, is like a cheat code and understanding it will supercharge your learning.
I think it’s common for people to have strongly held different opinions about this
In my experience to date, I’ve met more people who believe that they should study grammar even though they struggle with it and find it unhelpful (and become demotivated as a result) than people who believe that they don’t need to study grammar and are struggling as a result of that.
In other words, I think ‘you should study grammar’ is already an established societal expectation, and one that can be unhelpful - that’s why I’m always keen to make sure that people know they don’t have to focus on grammar unless they happen to enjoy it
Grammar itself isn’t the problem – it’s more about how it’s presented. Having curiosity about grammar is a good thing, imho, and I think it’s valuable to have an open mind about learning it explicitly (as opposed to picking it up through other modes of study).
But I’ve definitely seen and met people who’ve, for eg, spent hours on Duolingo but have no idea how to form a basic sentence in Welsh. And on Reddit, there are a lot of people who are trying avoid grammar completely or who even argue that trying to learn grammar will damage your understanding of your target language.
Everyone’s mileage may vary, but I guess there’s a different between “don’t worry about it” and “don’t bother with it”. “Worrying” enough to get curious and look stuff up can be helpful. Ignoring all grammar can just result in difficulties where there need be none.
Yes, horses for courses and all that - and I strongly agree that grammar doesn’t damage your understanding of the target language!
I haven’t yet met anyone myself who has been running into difficulties because of ignoring all grammar with us, though - and I have met quite a few people who stopped learning because they felt overwhelmed.
I think you’ve got a nice, elegant distinction there between ‘don’t worry about it’ and ‘don’t bother about it’ - I think I’d put myself in a third camp, which is ‘don’t bother about it unless you enjoy it’
Honestly, some of the stuff people say on Reddit is just shockingly daft. But there are folks there who genuinely believe it.
Personally, I’ve got to the point in my learning journey where I need to stop and nail down some grammar stuff that I didn’t learn properly first time round, because not having it nicely internalised is hampering my progress. So for me it’s about finding a way to do that which is engaging and fun.
If I’d done that 10 years ago, I’d be a lot closer to fluency than I am.
In all honesty, I came very close to quitting SSiW very early on because of the lack of grammatical explanations. Especially given the fact that words like “i” and “yn” behaved in such strange ways… What helped in the end was indeed, looking up gramadeg and noticing that “i” was actually two completely different words that could be both “I” and “to”, etc.
I believe that (controversial!) for a lot of people, SSi(W) could work a lot better if there was an optional help/explanation button available - without indeed forcing people to learn long lists of grammar.
I also believe that (even more controversial!) Aran’s voice would be particularly well suited to explain small nuggets of grammar throughout the course, especially given his attitude towards the subject - a bit like the “have you noticed the t being softened to d” messages in the beginning of the course.
I think you’re right that there is more that we could do without tripping up our main aim of encouraging people not to worry about overt learning of grammar - but there are so many other improvements we’d like to make as well, it’s probably not going to bubble up to the surface in the very immediate future, I’m afraid!
That’s what you get for trying to teach everybody ALL the languages in the world
On a more serious note: I really hope that one of the improvements is the integration of the “6 minutes” and “deep end” tasks into the new learning flows. While you absolutely struck gold with the newest editions of the app as to getting the “language matter” across, I think the extras like the listening to chipmunks and the “forced creation” of - for example - the five sentence stories is SO valuable to new learners (especially for those outside of Welsh speaking areas). I’m very aware that this is a huge task to actually implement, but please do allow me a gentle reminder from time to time
(Apologies - this is getting very off topic for the “yn before a verb” thread - feel free to fork off to somewhere more relevant if needed)
I hope you keep on reminding me! I do agree about (many) of the task ideas - we’ve got some ideas about improved listening work that will effectively supercede the chipmunks, but it would definitely be a Good Thing to go back through all the previous content at some point and make sure that we’re not missing any useful stuff in the new flows.
But it’s a big piece of work, and I’m a very lazy bear at heart…
.Then to be able to practice what I’m learning with people in the community. They are amazed at how fast I’ve picked it up and how clearly I can pronounce the words. They actually assume I know a lot more Welsh than I do, and they often start to waffle on before I have to explain that I’ve not been learning for long. So what I’m learning really is high quality! Thank you so much for all of the hard work that has gone into creating this course and offering it to us for free. It really is brilliant and will help me to keep up with my children who are also learning Welsh in school.
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