In last week’s Beca a’i phobl, Trystan Lewis uses it several times. Trying to remember from his first talk where he is from. I seem to think he was born in Sir Fflint in northeast Wales, but he didn’t have a Fflint accent because his parents were from somewhere else. Can you help us out here, @beca-brown?
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Well whoever ‘taught’ you that needs to get out of teaching Welsh and go into insurance or petroleum distribution or something.
Ddaru (I am just at this very moment writing the article on it, as it happens) is perfectly OK and, as you mention Margaret, widely and routinely used in many regions of the North.
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I live in Penmaenmawr and all native speakers here use it but I don’t hear it at all in areas such as Bethesda , Caernarfon , Pen Llyn , Ynys Mon . I hear it used to the east of Penmaenmawr , right up the Conwy Valley all the way to places like Corwen. Everyone in Blaenau Ffestiniog seems to use it and in the Trawsfynydd area. Not too sure about Bala as I have only ever been there once but I would assume they do. This is only my experience though and would happily be corrected if I’m wrong
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Hi Catriona, Trystan lives in Deganwy, near Llandudno, but considers himself as having a rural Conwy county accent as he comes from a farming family. Ddaru is very commonly used across the north. Hope that helps.
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Am I right in thinking there are at least 6 ways of saying “I didn’t see” in Welsh? E.g. do’n i ddim yn gweld, nes i ddim gweld, ddaru i ddim gweld, weles i ddim, ni welais, and dw i ddim wedi gweld although the last one means I haven’t seen? Quite important if one has to say ‘I don’t see what you mean” so often!
Well, of that list I’d say you’re least likely to run into Ni welais in spoken Welsh. And in the south you might also hear Dw i heb weld and Sa i wedi gweld, too.
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if we’re playing a bit loose with tenses and stuff, then I’ll throw in “on i ffili gweld” as well.
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I think you’re about right - weles i ddim, nes i ddim gweld, dwi ddim wedi gweld, ddaru fi ddim gweld, sa’i wedi gweld, fi ddim wedi gweld, nagw i wedi gweld. Off the top of my head!
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Then you have “welais i mohono fe” = “I didn’t see him” 
(Bet you didn;t see that coming 
)
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I never see that mohono fe thing coming…someday it’ll come naturally, but so far…nope! 
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Thanks for the link! I do understand it in theory, it was in the old courses that I did first…it’s just that I never seem to remember to actually use it 
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I never seem to remember to actually use it
Same here
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smo fi wedi gweld = does dim ohono fi wedi gweld doesn’t it - no wonder it got shortened to smo and sai similarly.
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Nobody does.
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My tutor at Lampeter-Pont-Stefan was Christine Jones whose book on Welsh Grammar does not mention ddaru at all! Oh well, Mae y Gramadeg
Cymraeg fel perfedd moch! ,meddai nhw!
Well there you go, then… 
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I was speaking to a couple of youngsters from Waunfawr (a village next to Caernarfon) yesterday and they were using “ddaru” so I guess it must be used in that area as well
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It could be said that the section on defective verbs, is, well…
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Yes, but I think that a more precise statement is that Welsh has at least six ways of saying “I didn’t see”/"I wasn’t seeing/“I haven’t seen”/“I hadn’t seen”/“I saw not”.
Welsh is a lot like English in the varied ways of expressing verb tense and aspect. Learning Welsh gave me a lot of sympathy for others who were learning English as a foreign language.
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