Thinking pauses

In English conversation young people especially punctuate their speech with phrases such as ‘I mean’ . What do Welsh speakers say that interrupts the flow ?

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I say (a lot!): “T’mod?” or “Ch’mod?” (which is sort of “you know?”)

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In North Wales, you sometimes hear people using “sti” in a similar way to @sara-peacock-1’s comment above.

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Diolch yn. Other irritating filter words in Saesneg are of course y’know, sort of, like and I mean. Learners need to be able to recognise the equivalent in Cymraeg so as not to be confused!

I once had a conversation with a farmer who ended almost every sentence with “o’nd ife?” - covering “isn’t it?” “aren’t you?” “shouldn’t I?” - in fact it took the place of any of the usual tag questions :slight_smile:

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You’ll hear “fatha”, meaning “sorta”, mainly from people in the north (and those like me in the south who’ve sorta picked it up…) You’ll also hear “fel” for “like” (“Oedd yn bach yn … fel … ddiflas, t’mod?”)

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In North Wales, when I was little in the 60’s - 70’s, everyone at school used to use something that sounded like. 'Un Nigh… ’ at the end of almost every sentence.

Not sure what this was - or how to spell it…

We were always told off for using it (in English and Welsh).

Any ideas?

Diolch

Would that have been in the Bangor area? There are certain tagwords in certain dialects and Bangor has what some people jokingly/endearingly refer to as the ‘Bangor Aye’ where aye / 'n aye / yn aye is tagged on.
Alternatively, in the north east, you’d get the “Mostyn Nye”, which is very similar.

La is another one but I can’t remember which area that’s from, and you also get the ‘Bala Wa’, where wa is their tagword.

Tagwords / tailwords don’t really have meanings in themselves as such, though they may have derived from other tagged-on phrases like how “isn’t it” in English became “innit”.

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Diolch!

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