Basic Welsh Course

[YngNghymru]

Y Bumedd Wers: Yr Amser Presennol

Time to do the present tense, I think.

Welsh doesn't really have an inflected present tense with a set of endings for each verb - instead, it uses the verb 'bod' (which we learned earlier on) combined with a verbnoun. A verbnoun is Welsh's answer to the infinitive - it can work as either a verb infinitive or as a noun (i.e. rhedeg, 'to run' or 'running'). In the present tense (and all of the other auxiliary tenses with 'bod'), a verbnoun is connected to bod with 'yn'. With verbnouns, 'yn' doesn't cause a mutation, so:

Dw i'n mynd i'r safle bws. - I go to the bus stop.

Dw i'n hoffi coffi. - I like coffee.

Mae ysmygu yn afiach. - Smoking is unhealthy.

We've seen already how to form the positive forms of 'bod'. However, all verbs in Welsh also have negative and question forms. In all inflected verbs other than 'bod', these are regular and are formed by the application of mutations, but 'bod' is highly irregular and thus formed differently (hurrah!) in the present and past. The forms are mainly predictable, however.

Negative present:

dydw i ddim (/dədu iː/, dud-oo ee) - I am not
dwyt ti ddim (/dʊit tiː/, doo-eet tee) - You aren't
dydy o/e/hi ddim (/dədiː oː/, /dədiː eː/, /dədiː hiː/, dud-ee oh/ey/hee) - He/He/She isn't
dydyn ni ddim (/dədən niː/, duh-dun nee) - We aren't
dydych chi ddim (/dədəx xiː/, duh-duch chi) - You aren't
dydyn nhw ddim (/dədən hu/, duh-dunn hw) - They aren't

In the spoken language, you will almost ALWAYS see the negative accompanied by 'ddim', so it's easy to spot. The 'yn' comes after the 'ddim', so:

Dydyn nhw ddim yn hoffi - They don't like

Interrogative present

ydw i (/ədu iː/, ud-oo ee) - am/do I?
wyt ti (/ʊit tiː/, oo-eet tee) - are/do you?
ydy o/e/hi (/ədiː oː/, /ədiː eː/, /ədiː hiː/, ud-ee oh/ey/hee) - Is/does he/he/she?
ydyn ni (/ədən niː/, uh-dun nee) - Are/do we?
ydych chi (/ədəx xiː/, uh-duch chi) - Are/do you?
ydyn nhw (/ədən hu/, uh-dunn hw) - Are/do they?

These are obviously used for questions. They work in all respects identically to normal present sentences:

Ydw i'n hoffi? - Do I like?
Wyt ti'n hapus? - Are you happy?

Is there?

There's also a special form of 'bod' used only for 'there is' sentences, like 'there is a shop in Caergwrle'. It is usually expressed as 'mae'n' or 'mae 'na' (is or there is), with the interrogative being 'oes' and the negative 'does dim'. Watch out for these last two, they come in handy for a lot of things including possession.

Exercise

To round it off, here're some questions.

Using y geiriadur, translate the following phrases:

1) I am happy.
2) Are you happy?
3) The dogs aren't happy.
4) I'm running.
5) Are you running?
6) Is there a shop in Caergwrle?
7) Sian likes chips.
8) Smoking isn't dangerous.

[Schultz]

Hi again,

Sorry for going AWOL, RL got in the way this last week.

Ok, right, the present tense. Well, first impressions are, it's nothing like German.

So, let's have a go at the exercise and see if I've still got some work to do:

1) I am happy. Dw i’n hapus.
2) Are you happy? Wyt ti’n hapus?
3) The dogs aren't happy. Dydyn cwn ddim yn hapus. (Not sure about this one [plural so i've used 'they aren't'?])
4) I'm running. Dw i’n rhedeg.
5) Are you running? Wyt ti’n rhedeg?
6) Is there a shop in Caergwrle? Oes siop yn Caergwrle? (Not sure here either, is 'yn Caergwrle' right for 'in Caergwrle'? It doesn't seem like it should be that easy )
7) Sian likes chips. Mae Sian yn hoffi sglodion.
8) Smoking isn't dangerous. Dydy ysmygu ddim yn enbyd (A bit of a guess here too, probably wrong.)

Well, all in all that was a good exercise as it was pretty tough, I'll be interested to see how badly i've faired.

[YngNghymru]

3) The dogs aren't happy. Dydy'r cwn ddim yn hapus. (Not sure about this one [plural so i've used 'they aren't'?])

Ahh. For everything other than the plural pronoun, Welsh uses the singular verb forms. So dydy'r cwn, not dydyn y cwn.

6) Is there a shop in Caergwrle? Oes siop yng Nghaergwrle? (Not sure here either, is 'yn Caergwrle' right for 'in Caergwrle'? It doesn't seem like it should be that easy )

As far as the present tense is concerned, this is fine, although there's a nasal mutation there for 'In Caergwrle'. This is nothing you need to worry about at the moment though.

8) Smoking isn't dangerous. Dydy ysmygu ddim yn enbyd (A bit of a guess here too, probably wrong.)

Fine, although I would've used peryglus instead of enbyd, because enbyd has other connotations. No worries though, you haven't had the advantage of seeing 'PERYGL!' written on signs.

Well, all in all that was a good exercise as it was pretty tough, I'll be interested to see how badly i've faired.

Other than the corrections I've made, perfectly! There's only one mistake you've made that's to do with the present tense, and that's an immensely common mistake, so don't worry about it.

[Schultz]

Ahh, not too bad at all. I had visions I'd be returning to a sea of red.

Thanks for the corrections and the explanation about the plurals, that one was bugging me as it didn't feel right, but I had no clue how else it could be put together.

you haven't had the advantage of seeing 'PERYGL!' written on signs.

This is true, though I certainly wouldn't forget it if I had, it's a great looking word.

[YngNghymru]

Y Chweched Wers: Gan a Cael

Before we move onto any other tenses, we should probably cover 'to have'. This is slightly complicated in Welsh because we have two ways of expressing what English expresses only one way. However, the two words - 'gan' and 'cael' are used predictably and at times interchangeably.

Cael

Cael is the easier of the two to use because it's a verbnoun, just like all other verbnouns, and can be used identically in the present tense (rydw i'n cael, rwyt ti'n cael etc). Cael means 'to receive' or 'to take', and whenever 'to have' is a synonym of those two words, cael is used. For example:

Dw i'n cael hanes nesa - I have history next.

Gan

Gan is a preposition which originally meant something like 'with', although outside of possession it now tends to mean 'by', as in 'Harry Potter, gan JK Rowling'. Like many prepositions in Welsh, it inflects for person - that is, it takes different forms depending on whether it's by me, you, him, her, us, you or they:

gen i
gen ti
ganddo fo
ganddi hi
gan Sian
ganddon/gennym ni
gennych chi
ganddyn nhw

There are several dialectal forms, but these are probably the most common. For possession, the preposition is combined with 'bod', the possessor and the possessed.

Mae gen i gath - I have a cat (by me is a cat)

Notice that this causes the soft mutation. In the south, gan is replaced by the all-purpose 'da, which tends to be placed after the possessed object:

Mae cath 'da fi.

This order can also be achieved with gan:

Mae cath gen i.

Gan is generally only used in the present tense. Sometimes it can also be seen in the past tense, but for the future and the conditional, it is replaced with 'cael'. The question form of 'gan' uses 'oes' instead of 'mae', and the negative 'does dim':

Oes gen ti...?
Does dim gen i.

Exercise

Write out the following sentences, using as always y geiriadur ar-lein:

1) I don't have sugar.
2) Do you have Iaw magazine?
3) I have three sisters.
4) I don't have any sisters.
5) What lesson (pa bwnc) do you have next?

This exercise is short because there aren't many productive questions I can ask you without first going over the other tenses. Be aware though, gan and cael will crop up over the next few lessons.

[linguoboy]

I'm bumping this thread up for the benefit of Llawygath and other Welsh learners.

[Llawygath]

I'm bumping this thread up for the benefit of Llawygath and other Welsh learners.

Aw, that's nice of you.

I'm only sort of here -- it's an interesting thread, in any case. I didn't know gyda contracted to 'da; are you all sure of that?
But let's see, I think I'll try the last set of exercises. We'll see how badly I can do them.

1) I don't have sugar. (Dydy ddim siwgr 'da fi.)
2) Do you have Iaw magazine? (Oes cylchgrawn Iaw 'da chi?)
3) I have three sisters. (Mae tair chwaer 'da fi.)
4) I don't have any sisters. (Does dim chwaer 'da fi.)
5) What lesson (pa bwnc) do you have next? (Pa bwnc ydy 'da chi nesa?)
Yes, I only used the "gyda + pronoun" construction, because that's what I learned first. No, I haven't done the earlier exercises (obviously), though I certainly could. I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

[YngNghymru]

I'm only sort of here -- it's an interesting thread, in any case. I didn't know gyda contracted to 'da; are you all sure of that?

Of course I'm sure. Although I wrote this a long time ago and a lot of the details I would disagree with now (I might go through it and edit it, perhaps) I don't think there's anything explicitly wrong in there. It doesn't HAVE to be shortened, although it is usual to shorten it in speech.

1) I don't have sugar. (Dydy ddim siwgr 'da fi.)
2) Do you have Iaw magazine? (Oes cylchgrawn Iaw 'da chi?)
3) I have three sisters. (Mae tair chwaer 'da fi.)
4) I don't have any sisters. (Does dim chwaer 'da fi.)
5) What lesson (pa bwnc) do you have next? (Pa bwnc ydy 'da chi nesa?)

Have a look at the first sentence again - you can work out why it's wrong by comparing it with other similarly structured sentences. The fifth sentence is also wrong although I think this is because the course does not adequately explain the structure required there.

[Llawygath]

I'm only sort of here -- it's an interesting thread, in any case. I didn't know gyda contracted to 'da; are you all sure of that?

Of course I'm sure. Although I wrote this a long time ago and a lot of the details I would disagree with now (I might go through it and edit it, perhaps) I don't think there's anything explicitly wrong in there. It doesn't HAVE to be shortened, although it is usual to shorten it in speech.

Fine then.

1) I don't have sugar. (Dydy ddim siwgr 'da fi.)
2) Do you have Iaw magazine? (Oes cylchgrawn Iaw 'da chi?)
3) I have three sisters. (Mae tair chwaer 'da fi.)
4) I don't have any sisters. (Does dim chwaer 'da fi.)
5) What lesson (pa bwnc) do you have next? (Pa bwnc ydy 'da chi nesa?)

Have a look at the first sentence again - you can work out why it's wrong by comparing it with other similarly structured sentences.

Oh, you're right. How could I have done that? It's supposed to be "does dim siwgr 'da fi", right?

The fifth sentence is also wrong although I think this is because the course does not adequately explain the structure required there.

I thought there might be something wrong there, but I still can't guess what for the life of me. What should I do?

Edit: How could the quotes have gotten so badly messed up? Anyway, I fixed them.

[YngNghymru]

Well, I think what I expected people to write was pa bwnc wyt ti'n cael nesa? but the equivalent with gan/gyda is fine too (I was far more prescriptive about usage when I wrote this, probably). The equivalent with gan though is a more complex structure, because you have to say, literally, "which lesson is with you next?" Bod has a bunch of weird forms, and this requires one of them:

Pa bwnc sydd 'da ti nesa?

This is because (as I explained vaguely here, but don't worry about that too much for now) interrogatives basically act as fronted nouns - which themselves basically act as relative clauses. With a normal verb, you'd use a relative pronoun a plus a verbal form - but for the present tense of bod there's another form, sydd, which replaces a hypothetical *a mae.

[Llawygath]

Well, I think what I expected people to write was pa bwnc wyt ti'n cael nesa?

Wait, so did you also want me to use ti rather than chi, or am I imagining things again?

but the equivalent with gan/gyda is fine too (I was far more prescriptive about usage when I wrote this, probably). The equivalent with gan though is a more complex structure, because you have to say, literally, "which lesson is with you next?" Bod has a bunch of weird forms, and this requires one of them:

Pa bwnc sydd 'da ti nesa?

Oh, okay. I see.

This is because (as I explained vaguely here, but don't worry about that too much for now) interrogatives basically act as fronted nouns - which themselves basically act as relative clauses. With a normal verb, you'd use a relative pronoun a plus a verbal form - but for the present tense of bod there's another form, sydd, which replaces a hypothetical *a mae.

I'm afraid I hadn't yet read the post you're referencing, but thanks for explaining.

[YngNghymru]

Wait, so did you also want me to use ti rather than chi, or am I imagining things again?

It doesn't really matter which one you use for the purposes of the exercises, I didn't specify either - this could equally have been pa bwnc ydych chi'n cael nesa?

[Llawygath]

Wait, so did you also want me to use ti rather than chi, or am I imagining things again?

It doesn't really matter which one you use for the purposes of the exercises, I didn't specify either - this could equally have been pa bwnc ydych chi'n cael nesa?

Sure, that makes sense.

[Llawygath]

Was anything supposed to be going on at this thread, or is nobody using it anymore? Is there no saithed wers or however that would go? Just wondering. Anyway, I'm bumping the thread for the benefit of anyone who might have been wanting to use it.

[YngNghymru]

There was no more interest so I stopped.

[Llawygath]

There was no more interest so I stopped.

There wasn't? I thought I was interested. I guess I was wrong.

[linguoboy]

There was no more interest so I stopped.

Could we talk you into doing an overview of relative clauses?

[Llawygath]

There was no more interest so I stopped.

Could we talk you into doing an overview of relative clauses?

Yes, I'd like that.

[YngNghymru]

There wasn't? I thought I was interested. I guess I was wrong.

We don't HAVE to help you, you know. I stopped writing lessons for this course probably more than a year ago because at the time there was no more interest. I am now a lot busier than I was then, and it's not like they're paying me to produce this course. So you could at least try asking politely, instead of assuming we're all here solely to contribute all our time to you.

Could we talk you into doing an overview of relative clauses?

I had written an overview on the wiki, but the wiki doesn't seem to exist anymore. There's a few things I'm not sure Llawygath is necessarily aware of yet which might make this explanation harder to understand, but here's a short summary:

Relative clauses in Welsh can either be 'direct' or 'indirect'. 'Direct' relative clauses are those where the argument extracted is either the subject or direct object of a verb - note, not a verbnoun. These are formed with the relative pronoun a, which causes soft mutation:

Y ci a welais i - the dog I saw
Y ci a welodd i - the dog that saw me

With bod there is no present tense form *a mae, you need a form sydd (which never appears with the relative pronoun):

Y dyn sydd yn chwilio am ei gi - the man who's searching for his dog

Indirect relative clauses are those where the argument extracted is anything other than the subject or direct object of a verb. This includes the objects of verbnouns (which are treated as genitives), the objects of prepositions, and so on. These are formed with the particle y, which does not cause mutation. Note that y is not a relative pronoun - it does not replace the argument extracted, which has to be echoed with an appropriate pronoun:

Y dyn y mae'i dad wedi cael ei arestio - the man whose father has been arrested
Y dyn yr oeddet ti'n chwilio amdano fo - the man you were looking for
Y ferch y bydd rhaid ei lladd - the woman who we'll need to kill

These clauses can be negated as normal with ddim. Also possible is negation with na(d), which triggers negative forms of bod and which can replace either a or y, causes mutation, and leaves the two different types of structure otherwise largely intact (i.e. indirects still have resumptive pronouns):

Y ci na welaist ti - the dog you didn't see
Y dyn nad ydy ei dad wedi cael ei arestio - the man whose father was not arrested

[Llawygath]

There wasn't? I thought I was interested. I guess I was wrong.

We don't HAVE to help you, you know. I stopped writing lessons for this course probably more than a year ago because at the time there was no more interest. I am now a lot busier than I was then, and it's not like they're paying me to produce this course. So you could at least try asking politely, instead of assuming we're all here solely to contribute all our time to you.

I'm sorry I came across as offensive -- that was not the intention. Of course I'm not assuming you're all here solely to contribute your time to me; I was only pointing out that it was too bad you'd stopped doing the lessons because I was interested in them. (If you were here solely to contribute your time to me, I'd not like that very much because I would feel like I was imposing on you.) I understand that one can be too busy to do certain things, but the reason you gave for stopping the lessons was that there was no more interest, and I was politely (I thought; I guess I was wrong here) pointing out that yes, there was interest at least from me. Again, I'm sorry I gave the wrong impression, and I hope you can see now what I was really trying to say.

Could we talk you into doing an overview of relative clauses?

I had written an overview on the wiki, but the wiki doesn't seem to exist anymore. There's a few things I'm not sure Llawygath is necessarily aware of yet which might make this explanation harder to understand, but here's a short summary:

Relative clauses in Welsh can either be 'direct' or 'indirect'. 'Direct' relative clauses are those where the argument extracted is either the subject or direct object of a verb - note, not a verbnoun. These are formed with the relative pronoun a, which causes soft mutation:

Y ci a welais i - the dog I saw
Y ci a welodd i - the dog that saw me

With bod there is no present tense form *a mae, you need a form sydd (which never appears with the relative pronoun):

Y dyn sydd yn chwilio am ei gi - the man who's searching for his dog

Indirect relative clauses are those where the argument extracted is anything other than the subject or direct object of a verb. This includes the objects of verbnouns (which are treated as genitives), the objects of prepositions, and so on. These are formed with the particle y, which does not cause mutation. Note that y is not a relative pronoun - it does not replace the argument extracted, which has to be echoed with an appropriate pronoun:

Y dyn y mae'i dad wedi cael ei arestio - the man whose father has been arrested
Y dyn yr oeddet ti'n chwilio amdano fo - the man you were looking for
Y ferch y bydd rhaid ei lladd - the woman who we'll need to kill

These clauses can be negated as normal with ddim. Also possible is negation with na(d), which triggers negative forms of bod and which can replace either a or y, causes mutation, and leaves the two different types of structure otherwise largely intact (i.e. indirects still have resumptive pronouns):

Y ci na welaist ti - the dog you didn't see
Y dyn nad ydy ei dad wedi cael ei arestio - the man whose father was not arrested

Thanks much for the explanation. I think I understand -- so a direct relative clause is one that refers to the thing it's attached to, and an indirect clause is one that doesn't refer to the thing it's attached to, right? That makes sense.
(Why do we need to kill the woman? )