Me again - sorry. Got my tail up today! Can someone explain when you use ‘do’ and when you use ‘ydw’ for ‘yes’? I can’t work out the pattern.
Thanks.
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generally (very generally), ‘do’ answers a question in a past tense, ‘ydw’ answers questions in the present that start with ‘wyt’.
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Hi Chris,
Nice to meet you!
You use do when talking about the past and ydw in the present.
Eg Did you eat the cake? Do
Are you eating the cake? Ydw
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Good gracious - how simple was that? Thanks so much - I think I was overthinking it! I’ve got byddaf firmly stuck in my head for some reason - but just didn’t see the link to the past and present tenses. Jeepers I LOVE this forum and the SSI Welsh course is genius.
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The reason is the “future”. Byddaf you use in the future tense.
Eg Will you eat the cake?
Byddaf, bydda i’n …
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Oh I know the rule on that one - that byddaf is for the future - 'tis the only version of ‘yes’ that I was sure of until I asked this question earlier. Also, it’s such an odd looking word, it’s just stuck. Thank goodness something has!
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Snap! 
Full of the loveliest people I’ve ever found on the interwebs… 
P.S. Don’t worry too much about yes and no - if you only ever say ‘ia’ and ‘na’, you’ll always be understood perfectly…
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‘ia’??? Oh no - not another word for ‘yes’? I knew I should have started learning Lithuanian!
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Indeed! The joke in Welsh is that there are a hundred ways to say yes and no, which from what I can tell is only a slight exaggeration! 
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One more to the mix … “ie”
No is always “na” for me but yes … (this is another story) (well, let’s forget about nagyw and such things… )
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