Mae wedi gofyn am rywun sy'n rhugl yn y Gymraeg, ond mae'r rhan fwyaf o atebion gan Saeson neu ddysgwyr!
Dylet ti wybod yn well- Yn STW dan ni i gyd yn arbenigwyr mewn popeth 🙂
helpu'r dysgwyr plis!
Welsh is structured differently to English - it has more in common with French ie a 'Romance' language, rather than English, which is Germanic in origin.
For example, there are several ways to say YES and NO, depending on how the question is phrased...
Well it's a mix - you can conjugate verbs as in romance languages (cerddais i) or use auxiliary verbs like in germanic (Nes i cerdded). I find it a lot easier than learning all the Spanish tenses.
Loads of similarities to English in the way tenses are used, things that you struggle with learning other languages are more, "oh, that's just like in English "
Yes and no are just ie and na. Learning to mirror the question tenses takes a while to come in speaking and nobody will care if you just say ie or na, or whether you remember the mutations.
These kids are nailing it in just 12 weeks!
https://twitter.com/NewyddionS4C/status/1603444685003005952?t=G5N99S2L1I761gIBxL6Gdw&s=19
Learning to mirror the question tenses takes a while to come in speaking
I dunno - it applies just as well in English.
"Did you unpack the dishwasher?"
"I did".
"Will you do it tomorrow?"
"I will."
Isn't that the same thing?
Yea, this is where my limit currently is - very basic! I thought for Yes and No, you could use
Oes/Nagoes if the question begins with oes...
Ydw/Nacydw if the question begins with ydw...
But we need more of that where I live (Powys) - people just piling in + having a go!
Easy to write, yeah. During a conversation as a learner, trying to understand thr gist of the question and still having the capacity to correctly mirror the tense of the question and change the subject and verb ending... Bit more of a "her"
Yea, this is where my limit currently is – very basic! I thought for Yes and No, you could use
Oes/Nagoes if the question begins with oes…
Ydw/Nacydw if the question begins with ydw…But we need more of that where I live (Powys) – people just piling in + having a go!
Posted 6 minutes ago
Agree. But the mental gymnastics for a new learner to successfully answer a question are quite involved. Eg.
Would you say..? No, I wouldn't
Faset ti'n deud...? Na, na faswn
Will you help? Yes, I will
Wnei di helpu? Ie, gwna
You'll be understood with ie and na, and the rest will come naturally later.
It’s really not. I mean, any language you don’t speak is hard, but there are far harder ones out there.
Like Irish Gaelic. My late partner moved to Barmouth with her family when she was nine, and had to learn Welsh, her best friend there was a Welsh speaker and they stayed friends once they left school. Heulwen lives in Llanddewi Brefi now - if I was still riding, I’d take advantage of her new AirBnB and take the bike up.
About twenty years ago she moved to Schull, near Cork with her then partner and her daughters, and tried to get to grips with Gaelic, but just couldn’t manage it; she found it far too difficult to understand; she kept telling me Welsh is really simple, but there are so many things in Gaelic involving tenses, and modifiers she just couldn’t grasp it.
Bless her, when she came to live with me, she tried to teach me Welsh. A forlorn hope, I struggle to remember everyday words in my native language, my spell-check has learned to speak English better than I can, and can understand complex words in context, which is a blessing. 🫠
it has more in common with French ie a ‘Romance’ language, rather than English
It is very, very similar to Breton.
Oes/Nagoes if the question begins with oes…
Ydw/Nacydw if the question begins with ydw…
Would you say..? No, I wouldn’t
Faset ti’n deud…? Na, na faswn
Will you help? Yes, I will
Wnei di helpu? Ie, gwna
Is this bike yours? Ia / na
Have you fixed your bike? Do / naddo
Do you have a bike? Oes / nac oes
Shall we go for a ride? Iawn / na
Are you going for a ride? ydw / nac ydw
Is he coming for a ride? Ydi / nac ydi
In the 2022 census returns Welsh speakers had dropped by around 24,000 despite a lot of effort being put into promoting the language https://theconversation.com/number-of-welsh-speakers-has-declined-pandemic-disruption-to-education-may-be-a-cause-196184
This forum has a wide range of experts and fields of knowledge
Welsh is a wonderfully prosaic language, the word for oven or bakery is popty, the word for microwave is popty ping (actually an urban myth) but ironing translating as smwthio is correct.
Trying to find positives in the census result - the huge decrease in very young speakers is worrying but possibly a pandemic related anomoly, but it seems to be on the up in cities which is where the battle will have to be fought now. Rural Wales is stuffed, as residents get priced out. The future of yr hen iaith is now in good, Welsh-medium urban schools. The boomer generation, huge numbers of largely non-Welsh speaking people, is living longer than ever but as their numbers drop off the ratio will start to look different.
People born in the Welsh language movement of the 60s brought up their kids in the language (hence growth in age 16+ speakers), and there's no reason not to think that their grandkids in 2031 will also be.
That's my sprinkle of glitter on the turd anyway.
Disclaimer: Welsh speaker but don't live there. But can draw certain parallels with how it's panned out here with the Basque language.
Welsh is written phonetically, for the most part, which is handy for speakers. In languages where this isn't the case, like English, it's far more difficult to teach kids to read. This shouldn't be under-estimated, in my opinion. Our kids, especially the slower learners, have to put an enormous amount of time into learning to read and write because there are so many bonkers rules and exceptions that make no sense. It's very confusing. Compare that to Finnish which has a 1-1 mapping between sounds and letters and is very simple to write down (not to learn, as a foreigner, but that's a different issue).
I wonder if the reason Finnish kids start later and achieve more is because they have to spend less time having stupid language spelling/reading rules hammered into their brains and can spend more time learning other stuff.
Welsh is written phonetically, for the most part
true. Although, ydy dy dei du di yn dy dŷ du di neu ydy dy dad di yn dy dŷ du di?
Bit of a follow up. I emailed the Welsh government translation service mentioned above and they came back with: "Gofod a rennir"
As that is closest to the original translation I had and is government approved I think that might be best for me but it doesn't seem to have gained much approval here.
I bow to their knowledge, obviously. But I still think llwybr was better for the use that I pictured from your OP. Gofod makes me think of a plaza or precinct or something.
Edit: eg 
true. Although, ydy dy dei du di yn dy dŷ du di neu ydy dy dad di yn dy dŷ du di?
Nice work, Dai. 😀