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- "Dw i'n hoffi coffi a lemon."
39 Comments
I would pay so much (well, okay, $10-15) for a coffee mug that said "dw i'n hoffi coffi."
Especially if it had the Draig Goch holding a coffee mug in its raised hand (paw? claw?).
1024
Beware, you may get it... I am a bit busy now, but I like the idea enough to draw it and put on RedBubble and/or DeviantArt. I will credit you of course ;)
- 1024
And here we go, version 0.9 Beta... http://www.redbubble.com/people/horemweb/works/20751261-dw-in-hoffi-coffi
(Man, it is 1:30AM and I have to get up early... But when an idea stucks, sleeping time sucks... :D :D :D )
- 1024
Thank you, Hatakend! Have a lingot in return... :D
Did you everybody realize that this is also available as a travel mug? (And many other things, but they have less sense...) http://www.redbubble.com/people/horemweb/works/20751261-dw-in-hoffi-coffi?p=travel-mug
- 1024
For those who may be interested, I celebrated yesterday night's soccer results (Cymru vs. Belgium 3 - 1) with a small mutation of the "dw i'n hoffi coffi' mug and gift design. You may want to check it on RedBubble http://www.redbubble.com/people/horemweb/works/22341804-dw-in-caru-p-l-droed or on DeviantART :) Dw i'n caru pel-droed :D
It doesn't have to be lemon with coffee. The context could be cake: "What kinds of cake do you like?" "I like coffee and lemon."
So.. I'm not understanding why it won't take the literal translation? I AM LIKING coffee and lemon is correct as is I LIKE coffee and lemon. Isn't it?
It could possibly be because "am liking" is not grammatically correct in English.
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It's not UNgrammatical, & there are times when you might say "I am liking" something—the "am liking" emphasizes that you are in the middle of it: I am really liking this Welsh course!
Like is a Stative verb.. meaning it relates to a state. "I like something" means that I always like it. But it CAN be used as a progressive verb, meaning it has action. I may not like coffee and lemon most of the time, but if at this moment I am, then "I am liking coffee and lemon" is a progressive verb. It may not be the most common usage, but it's not incorrect. However, I concede that for the purpose of this course, it may not be recognized, and that's okay. I was just wondering.
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And using the progressive aspect with stative verbs is a standard Indian English construction. Just in case there are Indian English speakers learning Welsh, there is a further case for it to be accepted.
Okay, this is gonna be a weird question, but are you from Myrtle Beach, SC? Because if you are, then I think I know you.
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I'm afraid you're Marking up the wrong tree... I'm a UK native... but nice to meet you!
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Thank you very much for the detailed explanation, it helped me a lot! It is clear now! Have a lingot!
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Is it also true for "I am liking coffee on [put your favourite social media site name here]?" (I am not native English speaker.)
I have also seen the spelling lemwn. Which spelling is recommended, lemon or lemwn?
Yes you'll see lemwn too occasionally. It's not wrong, just slightly less used or a little old fashioned maybe.
Ok, thank you for responding. Diolch yn fawr! Ich danke Ihnen für Ihre Antwort! Gracie! ¡Gracias! Merci! Dankon! Tack så mycket!
Is this present continuous? or just present, if not continuous than what tense did the course start at?
Welsh, like many other languages, doesn't distinguish between the present simple and continuous: Dw i'n gweithio (I work/am working), Mae hi'n mynd (She goes/is going), Dych chi'n poeni? (Do you worry/Are you worrying?) etc.
yn/'n doesn't have any equivalent translation in English. It's just used to connect the subject to the verbnoun in the pattern:
verb + subject + yn + verbnoun
e.g. Dw i'n hoffi, Maen nhw'n mynd, Ydy Siôn yn dod? etc.
Does that help?
Hi. But "yn" isn't always used, right? There's no yn in "dw i eisiau" - I saw a comment that "dw i'm eisiau" would be wrong. Why is that, when do you use "yn" and when not? Thanks!
You almost always use yn without exception, but eisiau (want) is the exception! Eisiau was originally a noun, not a verbnoun, but now it is used just like a normal verbnoun except for the fact that you don't use yn before it.
The only other exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are angen (need - that was a noun too) and moyn (want - where the yn is optional).
Not a native, but...
My understanding is that it's an uninflected form of the verb. It's parallel to the present participle in English in that it is often paired with a form of the existence verb ("to be" in English, bod yn Gymraeg) to express an ongoing occurrence, and it doesn't conjugate with respect to the subject, because that's the job of the "be"/bod verb.
Also parallel to English is its prominence in spoken language over the simple inflected form of the verb. Think about when you talk with other people: it's rare that you say aloud "I eat; he drinks; she walks." Typically, you talk about things in the present progressive: if asked about goings-on, you'll tend to say "I'm eating; he's drinking; she's walking." And so it is with Welsh: instead of fussing with conjugating the verb stem (which can be unpredictable), you just start with a form of bod, insert the subject, then yn+verbnoun (the "infinitive").
While it's not an exact gloss, I try to "think Welsh" by imagining the sentence as "Be (the subject) in the doing (of something)." So: I'm drinking coffee→Be I in the drinking of coffee→Dw i'n yfed coffi.
I think the course creators were more focused on creating a crash course for spoken Welsh; you can find a more thorough explanation of Welsh verbs (including literary forms) here.
Sorry. A verbnoun is a Celtic thing, as it has both verb and noun properties. But you can think of it as an "infinitive" if you want or the basic form you find in a dictionary, so hoffi meaning "like, to like, liking" is the verbnoun, likewise canu "sing, to sing, singing", mynd "go, to go, going", siarad "speak, to speak, speaking" and so on.
Since Welsh has a plural system I do not really understand, is it possible that this could mean " I like coffe and lemons"? Please help!
Is this always the case? I got this wrong for translating it as lemons because I just did a numbers lesson where "lemon" was plural ("Dw i eisiau naw deg un lemon" I believe.) Does it just depend on context?
After numbers the singular is used in Welsh: dau afal (literally "two apple"), saith oren (seven orange), deg lemon (ten lemon) etc.
