"Dych chi eisiau mynd i'r traeth?"

Translation: Do you want to go to the beach?

[wanderingpup]

How come this sentence doesn't mutate traeth to draeth unlike tafarn to dafarn?

[ibisc]

traeth is masculine, so it does not mutate after 'r/y - traeth, y traeth

tafarn is feminine, so it does mutate - tafarn, y dafarn

[wanderingpup]

diolch! I suppose that it's just a matter of memorization?

[ibisc]

Yes, it is really. Roughly 65% of nouns are masculine, so try to note those that are feminine.

There are some rough guides such as 'multi-syllable nouns that end in -aeth are feminine', but the there are always exceptions (gwasanaeth, gwahaniaeth,...) to any 'rule' to try and remember as well.

Just to keep it interesting for us all, a few nouns can be either, and a few vary with dialect or with meaning. And then there are the plurals...!

[PaCa826187]

Well, in terms of French, you get used to hearing du lait to the point that de la lait sounds wrong so that's a way of remembering 'milk' is masculine. Depending on how often your going to be seeing/hearing Welsh, you'll get used to y tafarn sounding wrong etc. and you'll be able to remember it that way...or am I just blethering?

[andyroo93]

Compare traeth with trá in Irish.

[DesertGlass]

Yes, I always want to go.
My family beachhouse on the otherside of the world is called Mwnt. <3