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- Topic: Welsh >
- "Mi ges i reis i swper."
13 Comments
What are the meanings of 'i'? I thought it just ment "to" but obviously not.
I put 'i had rice for supper' and apparently its wrong. Even though it says its right?
mi is just an optional particle sometimes used in some Welsh dialects to emphasise that the verb is a positive one, not a negative or a question. Just leave it out unless you are using Welsh with people who do use the particle.
ges i is the correct word order. This illustrates one of the main differences between Welsh and English - in normal sentences in Welsh the verb comes in front of its subject, so ges comes before i. Similarly, Dw i..., Mae Siân..., Gaeth John..., Aethoch chi...
Thank you. Very clearly explained. The reason I was confused was that so far I have only seen sentences in the order of subject > verb > object. How do I know when to use which word order?
In sentences such as Dw i'n hoffi Dewi "I like Dewi", there are two verbs: dw comes first followed by its subject i, and then comes the verb hoffi in its dictionary form (which doesn't change depending on the subject).
So even such sentences are verb > subject (> yn > verb) > object.
It's a bit like "Is he eating cake?" which also has two verbs -- the "meaning" verb in that sentence is "eating", but the one that is inflected for the subject is "is" which comes first, followed by the subject.
Ah! Thank you. I see this error on my part is in fact the perfect learning opportunity. So, is the Dw in fact directly part of the verb 'to be'? How do you conjugate the present tense of to be? Or is it something slightly different? Obviously much for me to learn here. I would be grateful for any direction to useful learning resources.
Yes, dw is part of the verb bod "to be".
- dw i "I am"
- rwyt ti "you are"
- mae o, mae hi (or mae e, mae hi) "he is, she is"
- dyn ni (or dan ni) "we are"
- dych chi (or dach chi) "you are"
- maen nhw "they are"
