Diolch Aran! 
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Shmae Cwningen, I like your picture!!
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S’mae henddraig 
Diolch!
Newyddion dda - Dw i wedi cwpla cwers 3! Diolch yn fawr iawn i bawb! D
Ond dw i’n bach becso…
What do I do now? I want to improve my vocab- but not sure about the best way to do so. How else can I improve?
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Whoo-hoo! Llongyfarchiadau mawr!.. 
First up - have you come dancing with the Levels yet? If not, definitely worth doing - start from L1 which you’ll whoosh through, and then get stuck into L2…
We have a post-L3 plan to help with vocab, but even if all goes well that’ll be towards the end of the year. In the meantime, your best bet now is just to get as many speaking partners as possible, and listen to as much Radio Cymru as possible (oh, and enjoy being a Welsh speaker )…
Did you ever make it to Yr Hen Lyfrgell? If not, if might be an idea to check them out and see what they have to offer. Other than that, I think if I lived in Cardiff, I think I’d be visiting the library and seeing what learner-friendly Welsh books they had (and possibly audiobooks), Also there’s the Mochyn Du, which some people here are regulars at, so I gather. This is the start of a (fairly long) thread, although I notice it hasn’t been updated this year:
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@Mihil
I just wish to add that the next meeting at Y Mochyn Du will be this coming Monday, 7th March, from 7pm, and then the 1st Monday of each month after that.
Also, if you happen to be in Cardiff tomorrow, The CACEN group from Sussex, England, will be meeting with a few of us from Cardiff and the Vale at St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life at 10:30 tomorrow morning. You will be more than welcome to come aoing and join us.
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Gwep - is a colloquial word for ‘face’ , can be used in less than nice ways haha
“cau dy wep” - is akin to saying shut your mouth
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Just a small usage question, but I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time already. So, in speaking we mostly use the shortened forms of bod like “dw i”. But what about those forms of writing that don’t imitate the colloquial language?
If we are writing a letter to someone we don’t know, which form of “bod” are we to use? The short one, the longer (rydw i) one or the super formal one? And what about essays? What do people write in their university assignments?
Thank you!
I wouldn’t go over the top with super-formal / super-literary forms.
The following refers to “standard form” (as opposed to “spoken”), and I think would be generally acceptable.
One could perhaps get some idea of what is acceptable in Academia by looking at some of the e-books online here:
(and I’m grateful to whoever posted a link to that website a week or so ago. Sorry, can’t remember who).
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Sometimes i would be interested to see some lines explaining the difference or source of what we say.
(formal -> spoken). In English examples like (i would -> i’d) must be really difficult for learners abroad to understand).
Cheers J.P.
Great, thanks! A Russian woman mentioned some time ago that her written Welsh (she specializes in Middle Welsh texts but knows Modern Welsh too) was described as very formal by her Welsh colleagues, so I wondered which forms she might have used “rydw i” or “yr ydwyf”.
This whole area was always a mystery to me when I started Welsh, and I am still by no means sure of my ground, but I’m getting the feeling now that there is a kind of spectrum of modern written Welsh, ranging from not much different to spoken, all the way to extremely formal with odd-looking verb forms that are never ever spoken.
Something like the BBC Cymru news site seems to be only slightly more formal looking that what we learn to say, e.g. this article:
e.g. “Dywedodd” is the proper short form past of “deud” - we learn something more informal (on the northern course something like “ddidodd” - there are other forms I think).
“gennym” - I think that’s a literary form for what we learn to say in the north as “gynnon ni” (there are other forms I think).
I can see pronouns being left off after “uchelgais” and “meddai” which I think is typical for the written form (as is “meddai” - we had a thread about that recently).
I was half-expecting to see impersonal verb forms (ending in “-ir” or “wyd”), but there don’t seem to be here. I think you do see them sometimes on the BBC website, and I think they use them in speech in the news…aha, sorry, I think “dylid” is one…from “dylu” (the verb we learn in the form “dylwn i” - I ought to). (I picked that one up thanks to http://www.gweiadur.com/ - very handy).
(Found a bit in Gareth King, Intermediate Grammar about the -id ending…see attached graphic)
But apart from those, and having to look up any unfamiliar words in a dictionary, it is not really all that different (all that more formal I mean) to what we learn on SSiW (I don’t think! 
);
.
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Helo! Cwestion - dwi wedi gorffen efo level 2 rwan a dwi’n gwybod mae vocab 10 yn dda I ymarfer y vocab yn unig. On lesson 24 a 25 it says they are good ones to come back and use to refresh level 2 but can I just do lesson 25 and the vocab 10 to refresh level 2 or do I need lesson 24 too? Just looking for the quickest way to stay on top of it like with level one’s vocab 10!
Shwmae Jenny,
I’m assuming you’re currently following the old course, if you’re going the Vocabs as well…
I can’t see any reason why you can’t just use lesson 25 of course 2 to refresh, other than (as far as I remember) there may have possibly been a few phrases in lesson 24 that may not appear in lesson 25 (possibly new words introduced in the lesson??). So If you feel your Welsh has come along rather well, and you’re getting to use your Welsh often, I would say just use lesson 25 and vocab 10, then get stuck into course 3.
Or, you can try the new course (with the ‘levels’ and no vocab units) and give them a go. You should breeze through level 1 as you will know many of the words, but there are many new ones thrown in too, as well as some of the word forms you will learn in course 3, only much easier to digest.
Well done for getting as far as you have, and best of luck with the rest of your Welsh language journey. 
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Hi Faitheless! Diolch yn fawr - syniad da - dwin’ mynd i ymarfer efo lesson 25 and vocab 10 in that case. Planning to do level 2 next (I started with course 1 then level 1 then course 2 - want to do cymaint a phosibl!
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At the tail end of Course 2, it’s not possible to fit everything you’ve covered into lesson 25 - so if you want to be certain that you’ve revisited everything, yes, you’ll need to do 24 and 25.
Having said that, if you’re pressing on with Level 2, you don’t need to worry too much about revising the older Course material, so it certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world to revisit 25 only…
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I have been searching, but cannot find an answer anywhere online, other than a direct word translation:
Beating the bounds: curo y terfynau?
Beating the bounds is something I used to do every year when I lived in Carmarthenshire. We would walk around the place where we lived/ the community, making noise by beating together various items to scare away evil spirits. I also think it was traditional in teaching parish boundaries
I was wondering if this translation sounds correct at all, and also whether anyone here has/has had a similar tradition?
I’d be extremely wary of it - that sort of specific name very, very rarely translates neatly. I’d have had no idea what it meant in English - so your best bet, by far, would be to try to find a Welsh speaker who is familiar with the tradition, and find out what they would call it in Welsh. You might find that they’d figure out what you meant by ‘curo’r terfynau’, and that might even be what they call it, but my bet would be there’s a different name for such a specific tradition…
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Thanks 
I was thinking it would be a difficult one to translate without knowing people who do the specific tradition. I’m not sure where I’ll find these Welshies, but who knows!
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