Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

The spelling seems fine; and saying it as “roobeth” is perfectly fine. Many people do, and your pronunciation will improve over time as you relax.

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Yes, this one exactly… :sunny:

The aspirate ‘rh’ can be a little tricky for English speakers - it might help a little if you try to imagine an H at the start of it - Hroobeth - but it is not one to worry about, because everyone will understand you just fine without the h… :sunny:

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The sound sample here might help if ever you want a quick reminder:

http://www.gweiadur.com/en/Pawb/rhywbeth

(Sorry, you have to register, but it’s free, and I don’t think there are any catches)

The Welsh voices here aren’t too bad for this kind of thing:
https://www.ivona.com
(make sure you choose one of the two Welsh voices, and not the English,Welsh)

An odd one here. Delwyn Siôn gave me a copy of his recent CD Chwilio am America, which I am enjoying very much. I have translated the liner notes and the song titles, but there’s one title that I’m really puzzled about - “Yn Dlysach na Swildod.” I can find the individual words and have some idea of the meaning, but don’t have a good idea how that title might be rendered in English. I do know that it is the about a man’s love for a woman, but that’s as far as I get. Can anyone give me a good idea here?

Thank you both Aran and Mike - I spent a while cleaning the chickens out, while practising my rhywbeth’s, and I think I did one properly ! Obviously the chickens were not able to give an actual mark out of 10, but once I was more relaxed, it seemed a lot easier !

Onwards and upwards.

Luckily I also have geese, so I am sorted for lesson 2 :slight_smile:

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When did pili pala first come into use?
I get the idea that pili pala, now very generally used instead of gloyn byw or ‘the little summer chicken!’ is one of those words that has become current recently (well, since the 60s!!!). True? False? Or is it de/gog? I actually like ‘iar bach yr haf’, but it is longer to say or write than pili pala!!!

It’s not very common usage, and those always sound a bit odd in translation (because they’re usually not common usage in the other language either) - so I’d just go for ‘Prettier than Shyness’.

Not the foggiest, sorry!

[quote=“aran, post:167, topic:3153”]
… so I’d just go for ‘Prettier than Shyness’ [/quote]
Cool! That’s what I had ended up with, but it sounded so odd I thought I might be missing something. Thanks!

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A question on ‘mo’:

I just listened to challenge 5 of level 2 on the way home and - having done course 3 - smugly came out with “chlywais i mo’r syniad diweddaraf” for “chlywais i ddim y syniad diweddaraf”. (“I didn’t hear the latest idea”.)

So either the “mo” bit is optional or I may have somewhat missed the point. (Which is entirely possible.) If it is optional, is there any difference in connotation between the two versions?

Thanks!

One reason could be that level 2 hasn’t covered “mo” yet, just as it hasn’t encouraged us to use “gweud” (or “deud” in the north) instead of “dweud” (I’m still saying gweud!).
“Mo” (or “mohono”) always caught me out as I thought it was “of” used in the negative - so your sentence “chlywais i mo’r syniad diweddaraf” would be “I didn’t hear of the latest idea”. In speech, I’ve always used “ohono” to represent “of” in positive form just because it sounded right, but always questioned if it was correct or not…then forget to check it later on! If it wasn’t so late I’d do it now but I need sleep I do! I will look into it at some point I’m sure…

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I am doing Northern rather than Southern, but I seem to remember (somewhere in the dim past) reading a discussion on the old forum about the southern contraction “mo.” If I remember correctly it is (sort of?) a contraction of “ddim o” so your suggestion that it relates to “of” seems right to me.

Ooh, is mo southern? I must say is something I’ve never actually succeeded in identifying in the wild!

it is also in the northern course…

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‘Mo’ is o used in the negative! It comes from dim o, so you are quite correct!

Indeed, I know for a fact you will be understood if you use dim o :blush:, and just the other day a teacher mentioned to me that apparently there are some areas in th South of Wales where people habitually use dim o. Apparently. :wink:

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Sorry, Sionned~ I didn`t see your answer there!

Sorry to harp on about it, but would it be correct to say any of the following permutations then?

Chlywais i mo’r syniad diweddaraf
Chlywais i ddim o’r syniad diweddaraf
Chlywais i ddim y syniad diweddaraf

I wonder what is more common?

You wouldn’t hear that in modern Welsh, but the other two are pretty much interchangeable… :sunny:

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Diolch!! Diddorol iawn, pawb… :grinning:
(I do like to clear these things up!)

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Is there a way to get notified of any updates & additions made to the welsh section so you know things like when a new lesson/vocab session, exercise etc has been posted? Diolch, Clairx

I think if you go into the News section you should be able to click on something in the top right to subscribe to notifications from it - @tatjana might be able to do a better job of explaining the process than I can!.. :sunny: