Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

Is it the word order the teacher objects to? Or the gyda? Would she mind mae gyda fi bla? (or fla - don’t want her to get upset about mutations too - fla fla fla :joy::wink:)

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No, it’s the gyda, not the word order. And it’s my daughter who gets upset about it, I’m not sure about the teacher! (And yes I did have that thought about the mutation after writing it, but hey ho, we’re all SSIWers here… :slight_smile:)

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A trainee teacher from the Rhondda, told me that gyda was wrong once as well and my gen i was correct . I was a bit thrown by that and don’t know the truth of what’s right or wrong. I like the idea of gyda after because it’s the sort of construction that’s so very unlike anything in English and a bit different, whereas mae gen i seems a match up for I’ve got.

:joy: It’s nice to be able to mutate something when I know it doesn’t matter - I’m usually living in fear of having mutated the wrong thing in the wrong place, although SSIW has changed alot of that.

Oh yes - sorry - not plugged my eyes in!
Although I say gyda all the time, I do like the sound of mae gen i. I also like hearing oes gynt ti… on R&R because it sounds like skinty.

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Heh heh, I like that as well. But talking of RaR reminds me that there are several variations of the “mae gen i” form which makes me think of it as more like “proper Welsh” (because English doesn’t really do that). e.g. Mr Lloyd, who is a careful, old fashioned speaker, says “mae gynna i”.

And of course there are variations for he/she/they/you plural-polite and someone’s name. And I think the grammar books show variations on these variations.

“Gyda” is a lot less of a challenge for learners, of course.

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This would seem to be related to German “kennen” which is to know a person or a place (or more generally, to be familiar with someone or something), although I think Scots “ken” might have come from Scandinavian, rather than German per se.

The other German word for to “know” is “wissen”, to know a fact, or more generally, to have knowledge, hence “wissenschaft” - knowledge; “naturwissenschaft” - knowledge of nature -> science, and several other “wissenschafts”. English “wise” is probably related to “wissen”.

I’ve often wondered whether “gwybod” vs “(ad)nabod” had the same sort of division of meaning as “kennen” and “wissen” or “connaitre” and “savoir”, but I don’t think I’ve seen a definitive answer, except that you can use “nabod” about a place, as well as a person. But I’m not sure about wider usage. (Whilel I was thinking about this, I had a quick look at http://geiriadur.ac.uk/gpc/gpc.html for “adnabod”, and it does in fact seem to suggest a wider range of meaning).

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Yes I think so. Isn’t Scots derived from Old English, independently from Modern English? I mean they (English and Scots) split before Modern English.

I’m guessing that the original English of the Angles came from what is now the Netherlands, so a sort of Dutch Germanic.

I take your point on the Scandi influence though. Also plenty of AE (air) sounds (admittedly more towards Teeside), which seem to help me with speaking Glamorgan/Gwent. “Caerdiff”, “Penllegaer” etc. Was that Norse influence also?

And probably Flanders & Friesland. “Low German” you night say.

With more Scandi influence (a bit later) further north.

Good question, and “beyond my ken” :slight_smile: but those Norsemen got around, didn’t they? So not unlikely.

I cant seem to find the comment/thread on http://geiriaduracademi.org/
just now, but I have just given it a go and it seems to be live as a recent development (Post Beta?), without the need to register.

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Ah no, sorry it’s this one that needs registration:

https://www.gweiadur.com

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Ah, still not taking on new registrations for the present :frowning:
The ones that I have free of charge are: Geiriadur -
.net
yr Academi
and
Bangor.

Also Google Translate

Ducks for cover>
Sorry but it sort of works ok and Huw Edwards agrees with me :slight_smile:

There’s this dictionary for free too
http://www.geiriadur.ac.uk/

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A chap called…pronounced like Swane, is supposed to have invaded Gower & Swansea (reputed to be named Swane’s eye). The ancient monuments on Rholssili Down are called Sweyn’s Howes. As they are much earlier the Viking landings that is as true as Arthur’s stone on Cefn Bryn! But I think the Vikings did a lot of invading on the south coast of Gower and got labelled as nasty men, so blamed for anything bad!

If I’m on my desktop I use this one. If not I use the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (GPC) app on my phone.

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Diolch. Will be using that one

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Gareth King’s dictionary has a fair amount of good information about gwybod and nabod and their variations. He says that gwybod is (to know) a “fact, etc.” and nabod is (to know) a “person, place, etc.” He also notes that both:

As an example he gives: I new that = o’n i’n gwybod hynny

There’s also a box on the Welsh-to-English side of the dictionary for Gwybod - ‘to know’ that has a lot of grammatical information about its use (takes up nearly a whole page!).

As an aside, I looked up adnabod for which he gives recognize but there is also a note that [quote]In the literary language this verb tends to mean know (a person), for which the living language uses nabod.[/quote]

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I come on this forum sporadically, so apologies for this ‘job lot’ of questions, even if the’yre not in the right place.

What are the rules for using yntau and hithau?

How does one use pe as is pe cawn, petai etc and their variations, and how does it differ from other conditional forms like hoffwn, baswn etc?

Any reason the Spanish course uses the usted form for you instead of tu. Is it because its the same as 3rd person singular so it’s 2 birds one stone?

Diolch

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Hi Mihil.
Regarding your 3rd question:
In Spanish we are initially learning 2nd person (you) plural and polite (formal) singular: Usted. At a later stage we will learn you singular informal: tu.

I’ll leave the 1st & 2nd questions, which are out of my depth, for someone else, hoping that I have helped in some way.

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It’s basically an emphasis deal… :slight_smile:

That’s largely a written form - there’s a good intro/overview by Suw on CMC:

http://clwbmalucachu.co.uk/cmc/cheat/cheat_if.htm

Bit of that, bit of Gaby feeling that it was a bit more correct to be usteding with people you weren’t close friends with, plus a smidgeon of ‘gotta go with one of them’… :slight_smile:

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Hi Sionned

Thank you for that – but it’s not really the grammar so much as the sense that I’m after. For example, if I try searching for the phrase “gwybod y gair” I seem to get more results than if I search for “nabod y gair”: but there are some hits for the latter, including one from the old BBC Ysbyty Brynaber, where one character says to another Fyddech chi ddim yn nabod y gair ‘onest’ pe byddai e’n eich bwrw chi ar eich pen ‘da morthwyl… (“You wouldn’t know the word ‘honest’ if it hit you over the head with a hammer.”)

Now that is very much in the sense of ‘recognize’, but it isn’t a person. So, in the same way, I’m wondering if I would use nabod or gwybod where I want to say that I’ve come across a word before, but I don’t know its meaning. I’m happy that “I don’t know the Welsh word for X” would be gwybod (Dw i’m yn gwybod y gair Cymraeg am X, I think), but I’m less convinced by Dw i’n gwybod y gair, ond dw i’m yn gwybod ei ystyr – I think that in my head I’ve got nabod pinned as kind of “I am acquainted with”, which feels like it fits better there.

But I might be quite wrong, and I don’t really trust my intuition, which is why I asked :slight_smile: