What’s the word for home in lesson 21? Sounds like ‘gitre’. Can’t find it in dictionary. Was taught cartref for home or adre for homewards.
I was wondering the same Stuart. In class we had also been taught cartref and adre and when I asked the tutor she muttered something about gitre being from west Wales and not to bother with it. (However I don’t think she likes us doing SSIW!)
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This is how I see the matter, any or all of the following could be wrong!
“Officially”, in many dictionaries, you will see the following meanings-
“Cartref” - home, of course, but-
“Gartref”- at home
“Adref” - homewards, towards home.
But the differences aren’t always kept to in speech.
Now, you can get “gatre’/gitre’” as dialect forms of “gartref/gartre’”, to make matters more interesting! 
I think in the South there is more of a tendency to use “Gartref/gartre/gatre/gitre” for both, whilst in the North there is a tendency to use “adre” for both. But interchangeable and understandable and all that.
[Then, of course, there’s the possibility of using “tua thre’/sha thre’”, but that’s just an extra! ;-)]
Hope that doesn’t complicate matters, and it could be all wrong!
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It’s true, you won’t find the word “Gytre” in most Welsh dictionaries because it is very much a regional word for ‘Home’ (mainly in the south, but an exact region where it is heard I’m not entirely sure).
From what I can remember (it’s been a LOOONG time since I did the old course 1 where these words were introduced), we use “gytre” or “adre(f)” when we’re talking of going home or being at home. Cartref is more of a possessive word where you’re talking about your home or a home.
This said, someone may come along and correct this or give a better explanation as to how (or why) these words are used as they are!
Edit: …and there it is, just above my post! Didn’t see Owain’s post there! ^^
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It was not so long when I did old course so I can remember 100 % correctly this is exactly how you explained. For me can be mixing words when (quickly) speaking without to much thinking but otherwise I believe it’s pretty easy to understand and not to mix things.
It’s just a bit hard to get used to it as in my language there’s no difference between home (as going to) and home (as having one).
Got to admit this is the first time I’ve ever come across gytre. It was always adre, cartref and gartref when I used to speak to fellow learners in Wales.
I think someone wrote here that “gytre” is contracted from “tuag adre” tua or tuag before vowels means towards.
So “tuag adre” means towards home.
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Iestyn, on the old forum. Well, that’s a nuclear response to my ideas!
Please search for “old forum” on this site, then, when you follow the link to the old forum, search for “tuag adre” on the old forum to see why what I said is complete nonsense!
[Well, I did say it could all be wrong ;-)]
There I was reading this and planning how to respond, and it’s all done for me!
So to recap (cos I’ve already been thinking about it!)
Standard and northern Welsh:
You go adre, you live gartref, and you own a cartref (gartref is just cartref mutated, to show that you are there)
(Very) Southern Welsh (note, I don;t think it’s Western at all, but would have to check that)
you go towards home (tuag adre), which turns to gatre or gytre.
you live gartref (which, conveniently turns to gatre or gytre, because we’re too lazy to roll too many rrrs!)
you own a cartref (which can become cytre, or stay as cartref, or be anything in between)
As ever, if you use the wrong one, no-one will notice (except for your Welsh tutor, who’s job may depend on your test results!), so do not stress about getting it right, ever!
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[The following is irrelevant and useless with regards to learning or speaking Welsh! Useless to anyone else, come to that…]
Ouch! Now my brain hurts.
So, something standard like “dw i’n mynd adre”
becomes “dw i’n mynd gatre”
not because of an overuse of “gartref”, but because of an ‘intermediary’ “dw i’n mynd tuag adre”?
(I know ‘tuag adre’ is used for stuff, it’s just that I thought ‘mynd adre’ is simpler and more usual isn’t it? [That’s an ‘I thought it was, which means absolutely nothing’ ‘isn’t it’.])
I just took the idea from ‘stuff that I have read’, about the overuse of “gartref” in the South and “adref” in the North leading to this situation of affairs. It fitted in with my limited experience of “gatre etc”, [edit- meant to say here as it does with what Iestyn said, of course!] but I had and have no idea what it’s like in the North (which I took on trust, as it were!)
So, none of this matters, but it seems from what you say there isn’t a tendency for "adre (or adra or whatever ) to take over in the North?
And “mynd tuag adre” is where (eg) “mynd gatre” is from?
Oh, all this seemed so nice and simple when I was wrong about it!
As you know, none of this is of any importance,so no problem if no one answers!
I don’t really know about the north, but I have read (no, no idea where, I’m afraid!) about tuag adre >> gytre, and heard enough of tuag adre (pronounced shag adre) to believe that it is probable.
Having said that, what if your theory is true, Lurch? Then what has happened is that some southerner has got themselves an education and thought “Oh, we say this wrong, but it must be grammatical, therefore it must be that we’ve taken tuag adre and turned it into gytre…”, ie has reverse engineered the “problem” to prove it’s correctness, just like the 17th / 18th century grammarians dd with Welsh and Latin - fit stuff to latin patterns to “correct” it. It’s just as likely, in my view!
Of course, as you say, this is almost totally irrelevant, and is a conversation that we could be having in a pub after 12 pints (sometimes those really are the best conversations, arent they?), so everyone else, ignore us!
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‘Almost’?
As you say, sometimes we can never know about these things, but subtleties and feeling of language from people like you can go a long way to knowing it! Oh, what I read about the overuse of “gartre/gartre/…” for “adre” in the South as opposed to the overuse of “adre” for “gartre” in the north came from somebody from the North, so (ex arch-druid or not!) it is much better to have the thing from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Which sounds terribly rude.
Thanks for your answer and thoughts, as always!