Conditional confusion

Challenge 17 tells us that fydden/bydden means ‘I would’ but the various grammar books I have say the first person singular conditional is fyddwn/byddwn. Which is right?.

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…southern course?

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Yes, southern.

Yes I found this a little bit confusing - I also did south - I think I have seen Iestyn say that the endings in his area are ‘en’.

It is one of those things to ‘roll with’ as there are quite a few variations in widespread use, including baswn as well.

So I went along with the course but personally prefer baswn so I don’t get muddled with the future! …you will have your own favourite of course…but it is really useful to know the variants for when you are speaking with someone and they use it - so it doesn’t throw you.

So - all of these options are right!

Rich :slight_smile:

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Thanks Rich. That’s really useful. I thought that might be the case but it’s good to hear it from someone else. I’ll start practising with baswn as well.

I think I’m spending too much time doing this on my own. Maybe it’s time to join a group or start using it in the wild. I live in Cheltenham - does anyone else?

Tim

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@Deborah-SSi ‘s mastermind specialist subject is meet up groups she might be able to help on that.

Have you tried Slack, as well?

Rich :slight_smile:

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The answer is both - in casual, everyday speech. You’ll tend to see the ‘wn’ ending in writing, but you hear both and they’re so close when people are talking at speed that you’d be hard pressed to say which one someone used :slight_smile:

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The only trouble with using the (non-standard, to say the least) *bydden i for I would be is that it sounds identical to the (very definitely correct) bydden ni we would be.

I also suspect that while byddwn i and *bydden i may sound very similar to native speakers of English, with its general tendency to blur unstressed vowels anyway, they do not sound nearly so similar to native speakers of Welsh, which definitely does not share this tendency. :wink:

But in any case thank heaven for the Land of Gog, with its distinctive and dependable baswn i :slight_smile: (Not much good in Llanelli, mind - you’ll get funny looks).

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There isn’t a meetup in the Cheltenham area yet, though there is in Bristol. If you would like to find others in Cheltenham, start a separate thread for that, and I’ll flag it up in the weekly newsletter.
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True … and I have to confess that I learnt ‘byddwn i’ and I still tend to say ‘byddwn i’, but Iestyn says ‘bydden i’ so that’s what’s in the southern course :slight_smile:

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Email: admin@saysomethingin.com with the subject title “WSP” for an invite.

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By the way, I’m certainly not casting aspersions (or indeed nasturtiums - even worse!) on Iestyn’s use of the conditional. Non-standard usages and locutions abound throughout the country on the lips of native speakers, as indeed they do in England with native English speakers. All good fun, and nothing to worry about.

I do like baswn i / taswn i though… :wink:

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hmm…come to think, how does “southern” do “taswn i”?

The way I’ve learned it from Iestyn, baswn i and taswn i becomes 'sen i:
’sen i ddim yn yfed gormod, 'sen i’n tiI wouldn’t drink too much if I were you.

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pe byddwn i

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Or pe bawn i

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Oh is this where petawn comes from?

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This is the one they teach on DuoLingo and so is the one I’m more familiar with, but from what I’ve seen here it’s less common than the alternatives.

There’s also a meetup in Thornbury nr Bristol. We had 15 people attend the one the other day, (I shall post an update in ‘Cornel y Siaradwyr’ in the meetups section). The next one is likely to be on St David’s Day and of course you’d be welcome. You’re only about 25 minutes away.

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Can I ask about negating the pe bawn i etc - apart from adding ddim, are there other ways - is it OK to use “na” - pe na fyddwn i (and would it it be pe na bawn i or pe na fawn i?) etc or how else could it/should it be done??