Noswaith dda (or for most of you a very early bore da)! Matthew ydw i, and I am a college (university) student in the United States.
Dw i newydd finished the final lesson of Level 1, a liciwn i ddeud a hearty “diolch yn fawr iawn” to the creators. I started in April and as someone who genuinely loves grammar and asking “why” things are said the way they are I anticipated that I would do a lesson or two and then decide to buy a Welsh grammar workbook and really get down to learning. That didn’t happen (obviously), and it’s been a joy to learn my second foreign language in a completely different way than my first (French). I think the course’s real strength is that it strikes a fine balance between useful sentences and providing building blocks for later sessions.
I am the son of a Welshman and it was the chance in August to go visit his family in and around Wrecsam that finally spurred me to learn the language. Although the more I’ve thought about it that’s a poor excuse since none of them siarad Cymraeg. He’s assured me we’re going to make a point of seeking out Welsh speakers in North Wales.
Knowing this might get me booted off the forum, I must admit I haven’t heeded Aran’s exhortations to speak Welsh in the real world, mainly because of the dearth of Welsh speakers in the Midwestern USA. However, I would love to find a regular way to use the language, so any help on that front would be appreciated. I also have a naive vision of wandering into some shop in North Wales and having my first-ever conversation with a total stranger, but I wouldn’t mind getting my feet wet before actually going there.
As I said, I really enjoyed Level 1, and I’m looking forward to Level 2 and beyond. I am going to try to augment my vocabulary, particularly in subjects I enjoy like football and politics (the Lib Dems sound so much cooler in Welsh). This would be another area I could use the advice of veterans in.
And I hope you’ll permit me, as someone who has been resisting the urge to ask grammatical questions for a long while now, to ask a couple:
Are the “nes i” forms interchangeable with the “ddudes i” forms? And is there any rhyme or reason to their formations?
Mae’n ddrwg gen i for the long rambling post, but I want to say again thank you for making this course, and I really can’t wait to build upon what I already know.
To quickly answer your question, there is definitely rhyme & reason behind the 2 forms:
you will see a definite pattern to the way that these work.
What’s happening is that with the “long forms” we are conjugating the auxilliary verb (gwneud in the case of “nes i”
In the short forms, there is no auxiliary verb and we conjugate the verb (dweud in that example) directly.
At some point, you might like to get hold of Gareth King’s "Modern Welsh:A Comprehensive Grammar " which lays it all out in detail. In the meantime, it is perhaps best to regard grammar as descriptive and not prescriptive. I think that is the point of view from which GK’s books are written. We are lucky enough to have Gareth as a regular contributor to the forum so watch out for his postings.
Croeso @matthew1858. There are folk in your area on the Forum! @Sionned maintains the SSiW Map! See, Sionned, here is a fellow countryman! The Saith Seren pub in Wrecsam is famous here! @gruntius is your man for this!
Indeed, welcome Matthew! Where in this huge country are you located? If you let me know I will add you to the map. And yes, if you look at the map(s) you will find that there are lots of people who are learning (or have learned) with SSiW, pretty much scattered all over the country, so you might find someone near you who would like to practice too.
Many thanks for the response on the past tense which makes total sense, and the book recommendation. It’s great to hear Mr. King is active on the forums; it seems to me that he has written every Welsh learning material created in the past ten years. Do you have any comments on good Welsh dictionaries, particularly as a method for augmenting vocabulary?
Thanks for the reply. I will make a point of stopping by Saith Seren while in Wrecsam!
Hello and thanks to you as well. I’m in Minnesota near the Twin Cities - not sure how much information you need for the map. I am glad to see so many Welsh learners around the country!
It depends on how accurate you want the location of your marker to be. I can put it just somewhere close to the Twin Cities, or on a specific block in a specific town. Because we can zoom in on the maps, I can get very accurate if you choose. It’s your choice how much you want to tell me. I will go ahead and add a very general marker now, and once you see where it is, you can ask me to move it if you like.
Thank you @aran. Perhaps I’ve missed it but is there a dedicated thread for this or is it a bit more haphazard? I ask because I wouldn’t want to put something in the wrong place or clutter the forum unnecessarily.
As I mentioned at the top, thanks again for all the work you’ve put into the course.
More or less everything was said so let me just say that if asking for Skype partner in General/Question category of Welsh part of the forum, it will be just fine. I believe at the moment there are not regular group Skyping as it’s Summer and people tend to go on holidays or are just a bit (too) lazy (might be I’m the one of those) to put too much energy into group skyping. However when Autumn comes it all become more and more alive and regular chat groups usually are in place again.
For other useful stuff you might like to know here’s the “Very useful stuff” thread where there are some "how to"s and a list of some resources you might find useful. You can find everything here. I hope it helps in a way.
Sorry, meant to reply to this before, but a printed dictionary which is ideal for learners is the Oxford University Press Pocket Modern Welsh Dictionary, edited by none other than Gareth King.
I found this extremely helpful when I was starting out (and I still refer to it from time to time).
There are quite a few good online dictionaries around these days. The one I always used to recommend was: http://www.gweiadur.com
However, I was disappointed to notice the other day that they had stopped taking new registrations (although it’s free to use, you do have to register). I hope this is only a temporary restriction, so bookmark the URL, and hopefully they will restart new registrations before too long.
It’s a bit more haphazard so far, I’m afraid - but if you type ‘Skype’ into the search box (that magnifying glass icon up in the top right) you should find the most recent discussions/requests…
