Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

yes, it’s a real idiom and the equivalent of “at the top of his voice”, but yes, literally “his head bones” :laughing:

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Diolch yn fawr eto! Dw i’n ei garu!

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When you’re speaking to someone who organizes anything you’re interested in, and you want to tell them something like:

I’m going to check your Facebook page for updates
I’m going to keep an eye on your website, then
Can you keep me updated on events through the e-mail?

I’m not too sure of the exact way to say it in English, I expect my attempts of word-by-word translations to go even worse!!! :laughing:

Is there any ready-made expression I might use?

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Hi Gisella,

Sorry I’m not sure I follow the question. Are you looking for a translation of “could I be added to your mailing list please?”

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Well a translation of the following sentences actually or similar.meanings:

I’m going to check your Facebook page for updates

I’m going to keep an eye on your website

Can you keep me updated on events through the e-mail? (Or the one you wrote instead of this!)

As usual, there are a few ways to say this, so I’m just going to go with ones I hear regularly - although please note, these are very spoken-wenglish- rather than pure-literary- Welsh! :wink:

Bydda’n sbio dy dudalen Facebook am ypdêts.

Bydda’n cadw llygad ar dy wefan.

Ga i fy ychwanegu at dy restr ebost?

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Oh that’s my kinda Welsh!. :wink:
Thanks!

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Sorry, that was obvious, I was being slow :see_no_evil:

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Gad i mi gwybod plis … Is quite useful for please let me know (if/about blah blah blah)

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Incidentally, I know this is a topic about Welsh, but your command of English is impressive.

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Oh, well, thanks! :blush:
I guess I can blame it on the Beatles and Cullercoats! :wink: :smiley:

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I absolutely love this sentence! Sbio is fun to say, dy dudalen is fun to say, and the way ypdêts looks just cracks me up! (Okay, yes, I’m quite overtired at the moment :joy:)

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Quick Harri Potter-related pronunciation question: melynddu ‘yellowish-brown’. Mélinddí or melýnddu (mel@nddu)? I realise it’s not a very common word, but these sort of obvious compounds always throw me slightly.
(Dark or clear y, where does the stress go)

The stress almost always* goes on the penultimate syllable, so the stress in melyn is on the mel (think of it as the penultimate syllable rather than the first syllable :wink: ) but when you add the ddu making it a compound word, the stress moves up one syllable to land on the yn.

*apart from exceptions of course! But in these the stress usually moves all the way to the end - e.g. caniatâd = 3 syllables but stressed on the tâd / cadarnhau = 3 syllables but stressed on the hau / loaned English words like carafan = stressed on the fan

And ‘dark’ y, then, too? (Asking because of place-names like, well, Rhydychen being rhyd- rather than rhỳd-.)

For words with two y’s, think of the word ‘mynydd’ - the sound pattern on the y’s is always that way around - uh followed by ih (times like this I wish I knew how to read & write in IPA!).

When there’s only one y, it’s a bit trickier! I’m not sure of a ‘rule’ but will see what I can look up. The only thing for sure is if there’s a rule, there’s an exception! :joy:

I’ve no clue what that’s all about but the letter ‘y’ changes its sound depending on where it is in the word. Last letter as in leek, in the last syllable as in lick, before that as in luck.

Think of mynydd vs mynyddoedd, and ysbyty is an example of the last letter change too.

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Sometimes I’m convinced that words that adhere to the ‘rules’ are actually the exceptions! :rofl:

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OK, trying again (IPA is hard on a phone, and only helpful if it’s meaningful to the person reading it, anyway) - ‘dark’ y is a schwa, the uh-sound of non-final y and some monosyllables; ‘clear’ y is like a Welsh u.
So mynydd is dark then clear, but mynyddoedd dark then dark, because that’s what Welsh does when the stress-accent moves.
So I used to say Rhydychen (Oxford) with dark + dark, like mynyddoedd – but then I learnt that it’s apparently ‘clear’ in the first syllable after all, because it’s just the word rhyd = ‘ford’ i.e. the y-s get pronounced as if it were two separate words - Rhyd Ychen. (This isn’t what we do in English - it’s Oxfud not Ox Ford, so go figure…)

So, in an obvious compound like melynddu, I wasn’t sure whether to say it ‘clear’ like melyn ddu or ‘dark’ like mynyddoedd. But I’m assuming now that if the stress moves to the usual place, presumably the y becomes ‘dark’. (?)

I think it probably does become ‘dark’, but I think we need the opinion of a first language speaker to confirm :thinking:

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