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- "I want a drink."
"I want a drink."
Translation:Dw i eisiau diod.
14 Comments
Diod is the correct word by itself. Ddiod is the softly mutated form. So since diod is a feminine noun "The drink" is "Y ddiod". Also "Ei(his)/dy ddiod" because ei(his) and dy cause soft mutations. Another time you will see ddiod is if it comes after one of twelve special prepositions which cause soft mutations e.g "Is he asking for a drink"="Ydy o'n gofyn am ddiod"
Not in general.
There are some tendencies (e.g. nouns referring to male persons such as gŵr "husband" or tad "father" tend to be masculine, nouns ending in -fa and denoting a place such as swyddfa "office" are feminine, etc.), but beyond that, it's pretty arbitrary, and it's best to learn the gender along with the word if you can.
Finally, some words even have different gender in different parts of Wales! (For example, munud "minute" is mostly masculine, but is feminine for some speakers.)
If you have to guess, "masculine" is a slightly safer choice, statistically speaking.
Yes, it's true that the gender system of German is not an easy one. But we also have certain endings that always demand for a fixed gender (i.e. nouns derived from verbs or adjectives with endings like -ung, -keit, -ling etc) and the other endings often at least indicate toward a gender (i.e. nouns ending on -e are about 90% female). But you still have to learn the rest though (i.e. der Hase is masc.). If you have any questions about German, feel free to ask :) I've always been rather grateful for not not having to learn German as a foreign language... now I sometimes laugh a bit because Welsh is probably just as complicated |D
687
On a different question in this lesson, ie the one where you have to mark all correct translations, the English is Are you thirsty? and yet the Welsh translations are basically, do you want a drink? Surely, this isn't right... unless of course there is no word in Welsh for 'thirsty'??? In French, for instance you would EITHER ask 'voulez-vous/veux-tu une boisson' meaning 'do you want a drink/beverage' or 'avez-vous, a-tu soif' meaning 'are you thirsty'. But they are definitely NOT interchangeable, so I don't understand why Dewi thinks that 'are you thirsty?' equates to 'do you want a drink'?
1506
In the BBC Wales Catchphrase website "I am thirsty" is translated as Mae syched arna i.
A similar construction is used for "I am hungry", i.e. Mae eisiau bwyd arna i.
Do they sound more formal than Dw i eisiau diod / bwyd , or are they just an alternative way of expressing the same meaning?