"Beth ydy lliw baner Cymru?"
Translation:What is the colour of the Welsh flag?
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Can anyone explain, why does 'what are THE colours' translate as 'beth ydy lliw' and not 'beth ydy y lliw'?
If you have two nouns modifying one another, such as lliw baner, the first one is automatically definite: "the colour of a flag".
Here, this happens twice: baner Cymru is "the flag of Wales", definite because it is this kind of noun-noun construction, and then lliw baner Cymru which is "the colour of the flag of Wales", which is again definite.
So there is no need for an y in the Welsh, nor is one possible.
It's a bit like things such as "that stone" or "my house" which are automatically definite in English -- you cannot say "the that stone" or "the my house". (Unlike, say, in Italian or Greek.)
What is possible is to have y before the second noun of such a construction; thus, for example, pen bryn "the top of a hill; a hilltop" versus pen y bryn "the top of the hill".
Why is it not "beth ydy lliwiau" when the translation corrrects colour to colours?
Serendipitous that I'm doing this lesson while Portugal vs Wales, UEFA 2016, is on. Y baner Cymru is right in front of me.
It seems harsh to say i used the wrong word when i just used Wales instead of Wales'