Hi all! In challenge 20 on the Southern course, they introduce two things I’m unsure about.
The first is the Welsh for “sunday afternoon”, which is given as sonething like “b’nawn dydd Sul”. Why do we not say “prynhawn” as expected? And how are we spelling this “b’nawn” I’m hearing. Also, is it ever ok to say “prynhawn Sul”, the same as we do for “nos Sul”?
Second is the Welsh for “doesn’t it”, which sounds like “ond dw i” to me. But doesn’t this mean “but I am”?
Diolch!
Hefin
Bore da,
First one: b’nawn is short for “brynhawn” the mutation of prynhawn.
Other than nos, everything else takes “dydd” “bore/prynhawn/noswaith dydd Sul”
I’m not overly familiar with the challenges anymore but I suspect you’re hearing “On’d yw e”. Which means “isn’t it?”
Short for “onid yw e”
Onid - almost always shortened to “on’d” goes before any negative tag:
On’d dw i
On’d yw e/hi
On’d ydyn nhw/ni
…ydych chi
Hope that helps 
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense!
Ok so I’ve been trying to figure this one out, but I think I need some input!
I’ve seen this sort of thing all over the place: “Mae Tafwyl wedi eu chanslo” or “…cael eu ohirio” etc. I get it literally means that Tafwyl has had its cancellation (side note: female as its eu chanslo instead of eu ganslo?), but would something like “Mae Tafwyl wedi bod yn canslo” be good?
Well people would understand what you meant, but no, it’s a very 'literal-translation-from-English way to say it. “wedi bod yn canslo” actually says “has been cancelling”.
Although the “had had” sounds odd in English, it’s the correct informal* passive form to use in Welsh.
*there is a more formal way to say it too, but that’s mostly confined to print and official reports.
e.g
Mae Tafwyl wedi bod yn canslo perfformiadau = Tafwyl has been cancelling performances.
but
Mae’r perfformiadau wedi cael eu chanslo = The performances have been cancelled.
Ahh that makes a lot of sense, thanks Siaron
I knew I was doing a literal translation, which is why I suspected it wouldn’t work haha. To be honest, people in dorset use the “had had” format so seeing it like that helps. I think it’s gonna take a bit of practice to get this into my speaking though!
Diolch
I started to ask a question here about whether there was a difference between two words meaning “come”, but then I thought about how I usually find them in sentences, and wound up answering my own question. “Dod” is the base word, “tyrd” is the imperative. 
I’ll just, uh, come back here later when I have a harder question.
Excellent excellent progress! 
Another question from „Llyfr Glas Nebo“ (which I really enjoy, despite the dark theme):
„dynes fach denau a syth, ac yn edrych i fyw eich llygaid chi pan oedd hi‘n siarad“
I don‘t quite understand what „i fyw“ means here. Something like „directly“?
Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru translates byw llygaid as the quick of the eyes, a term I’m not familiar with as a non-native english speaker, and googling that doesn’t help either. So with that, you’d get
A small woman, thin and straight, and looking into the quick of your eyes when she was talking.
I would understand it like you do, that she was looking directly at you while speaking, but there may be nuances that I am missing, due to the unknown idiom here.
‘Quick’ is Old English for ‘alive’ - hence, ‘lively’, and so ‘fast’. (It is ultimately the same word as Welsh byw, Latin vivus.) It’s used in old-fashioned liturgical language - “the quick and the dead”, where modern English has “the living and the dead” - and for when you accidentally trim your nails too far down and cut them “to the quick” (ie. the really sensitive lower, living layer); similarly, for the heartwood of a tree, etc. It’s also found in the old name ‘quicksilver’ (Quecksilber) for mercury.
I don’t think ‘the quick of the eye’ is a set phrase in English - at least, it’s not familiar to me as a native speaker - but the sense is clearly just what you’ve both said - looking someone directly in the eye.
The phrase also appears in the intro song of the Welsh lessons.
Good morning All. Hope you’re all OK. Our friend originally from Corwen sent the greeting “Pob fendith” with an f. Is that dialectal? It sounds nice when you day it
pob doesn’t normally cause a mutation, so it’s either a mistake, a typo, or a dialectal version - so I’d say, yes, let’s go with dialectal because, after all, they knew what they meant, you knew what they meant, so no problem!
Yeah, I thought dialectal as she’s a very comfortable speaker. I felt guilty for not looking earlier at the GPC and it seems to stay as Bendith, Although I noticed some really old examples of vendith
Just saw the word “enid” on twitter and used the translate button to get the meaning of it in this context then tried to look it up for confirmation but couldn’t find it. Nothing to do with birth, etc.
“Oleiaf fod byd natur yn cael enid i anadlu.” … At least the natural world is allowed to breathe.
I’ve always used “caniatâd” as a permission type thing. Maybe I would have left it out altogether to mean “At least the world gets to breath.” or something similar, I don’t know.
Anyway, “enid” … allowed?
Could enid perhaps be an alternative spelling of enaid?
I think it could be a misspelling - ennyd = space, so “At least the world of nature gets space to breathe”
Of course, but short amount of time, so “at least the natural world gets a second to breathe.”
Thanks Siaron.
