We will take it on faith that you actually are happy, and need to express that fact. Back in Section 3.2, we learned that we could express the present tense of a verb by using 'bod' as a helping verb together with 'yn', as in
Mae Tom yn siopa. Tom is shopping.But what if we want to describe what Tom is rather than what he does? To do that, we can place either an adjective or a noun in place of the verb in the above construction:
Mae Tom yn hapus. Tom is happy.
Mae Tom yn helpwr. Tom is a helper.
There is one critical difference
between these two constructions and the one with the verb: any adjective or noun
used after 'yn' suffers from the limited
soft mutation (i.e., 'll' and 'rh' do not mutate):
Mae Tom yn bell. Tom is distant.
Mae Tom yn blismon. Tom is a policeman.
Mae'r tywydd yn braf. The weather is fine.
We learned in the previous section how to say that the kettle is hot (except for vocabulary). To say that something is too something, you insert the word 'rhy' between the 'yn' and the adjective:
Mae'r tegell yn boeth. The kettle is hot.
Mae'r tegell yn rhy boeth. The kettle is too hot.
The English word 'so' becomes 'mor'
and completely replaces the 'yn':
Mae'r ferch yn garedig. The girl is kind.
Mae'r ferch mor garedig. The girl is so kind.
Like 'yn', both 'mor' and 'rhy'
cause a limited
soft mutation.
So far, we have stuck with sentences where the subject is definite, in other words, it is either a noun with the definite article or a proper noun. However, a sentence may have an indefinite subject (like this sentence). There are many examples of sentences that fall into this category (like this sentence, or the title of this chapter). You might be tempted to think that a subject is a subject, and you should just go ahead and use it with 'mae', just as you would do with a definite subject. For example, you might try to extend from
Mae'r bobl yn dod. The people are coming.to
Mae pobl yn dod. People are coming.You would be correct (congratulations!). What you might not expect is that the latter sentence can also be translated 'There are people coming.' Likewise,
Mae'r dyn yma. The man is here.
Mae dyn yma! There is a man here!
However, the biggest differences
between a definite subject and an indefinite one come either when you want to
ask a question (or answer it), or when you want to say there isn't something.
To ask a question, the verb form to use is 'oes' rather than 'ydy':
Ydy'r tegell yn y gegin? Is the kettle in the kitchen?
Oes tegell yn y gegin? Is there a kettle in the kitchen?
To say there is not something, you
use 'does dim' [1]:
Does dim lle i eistedd. There is no place to sit.The answer to questions starting with 'oes' is 'oes' (yes-there-is) or 'nag oes' (no-there-is-not) [2].
Oes gwely yn y gegin? Nag oes. Does dim gwely yn y gegin.
Oes gwely yn yr ardd? Oes. (Gwely blodau - a flower bed)
As mentioned back in Section 4.3, when you need to pick a pronoun to refer back to a previously-mentioned noun, you need for it to agree in gender and number with that noun. Since all nouns are either masculine or feminine, if the noun is singular, you wind up using either 'e' or 'hi'. But what do you do if you need to say 'it' and there isn't a noun to refer back to? Do you use 'e'? Do you use 'hi'? (Or do you rephrase your sentence to avoid using either?) Well, why don't we just flip a coin to decide between 'e' and 'hi'? Here goes ... it's tails. I guess we'll use 'hi' in that situation:
Mae hi'n braf heddiw. It's fine today.
Mae hi'n bwrw glaw. It's raining.
Notice that if the noun is
explicit, you still use the appropriate pronoun:
Sut mae'r tywydd? Mae e'n braf.
How is the weather? It (he)'s fine.
It is also common to leave out the
pronoun completely:
Mae'n iawn. It's all right.
The preposition 'i' ('to') causes a contact mutation. No, this is not related to corrective lenses that change your eye colo(u)r. A contact mutation means that a word causes the next word, whatever it is, to mutate. The soft mutation is the particular mutation 'i' causes:
i Bwlleli to Pwlleli
i Gaerdydd to Caerdydd (Cardiff)
The range of a contact mutation is
only a single word, so it's more like hitting the "shift" key than the
"caps lock". This range contrasts with that of the functional mutation
caused by feminine nouns, which can propagate considerably: e.g., 'y fasged
bicnic goch fawr', 'the large red picnic basket'.
There are many times when you need to say 'many something'. The Welsh word for 'many' is llawer. It is used with the preposition 'o' (which causes a soft contact mutation) followed by the plural of the noun. For example,
llawer o bethau many things
llawer o afalau many apples
Other words that are used in this
context are ychydig ('(a) few'), digon
('enough', 'plenty'), gormod ('too much'), rhagor
('more') and nifer ('a number') [4].
Numbers can also be used in this way, especially large numbers and special
numbers like 'dwsin' ('dozen'). Finally, words that indicate a measured quantity
take this construction, like 'paned' (cupful) and 'llwyed' (spoonful).
Since all of these subjects are indefinite, they can be combined with the ideas from Section 5.3:
Oes digon o afalau yn y fasged? Oes.Thus, to say 'There are Many Things in this Lesson', you write
Mae llawer o bethau yn y wers 'ma.
In Welsh, 'mynd' means 'go'. There is one place that all of us are constantly going, and that is to the future, so I guess it's appropriate that future action can be expressed using 'mynd'. We can actually say the same thing in English:
Rydw i'n mynd i aros yma. I am going to stay here.As before, the preposition 'i' causes a soft contact mutation on the word that follows it.
1. Adjectives in the predicate. Practice making sentences by choosing a line from each column.
Mae Tom yn | goch | . Wyt ti'n | hapus | ? Dydyn nhw ddim yn | iawn | Rydyn ni'n | boeth | Mae'r ferch yn | sa+l | Ydy'r plismon yn | wan |
A | B
a. tywydd | poeth b. basged | bach c. dyn | pell d. gardd | mawr e. merch | oer 3. Repeat exercise 2 using the pattern "Ydy'r A yn B? Ydy, mae e/hi mor B."
4. Say "You are going to X, but I am coming from X".
a. Llanelli. Rwyt ti'n mynd i Lanelli, ond rydw i'n dod o Lanelli. b. Porthmadog. c. Rhydychen (Oxford). d. Bangor. e. Caerdydd (Cardiff). f. Abertawe (Swansea). g. Betws-y-Coed. h. Pentre Ifan. i. Tre'r Ceiri.5. Make up patterns from the following table.
Oes | ychydig o | afalau | yma? Oes, mae gormod o | afalau | yma.
| digon o | fasgedi | | fasgedi |
| nifer o | bobl | | bobl |
| llawer o | degellau | | degellau |
| dwsin o | blant | | blant |
| rhagor o | lyfrau | | lyfrau |
[A translation of this conversation can be found in a different file.]
afal [-au, m.] - apple ar - (prep.) on bendigedig - (adj.) wonderful beth - what blodyn [blodau, m.] - flower braf - (adj.) fine bwrw glaw - (v.) rain cael - (v.) have, receive, get caffe [m.] - cafe caws [m.] - cheese cegin [-au, f.] - kitchen ceisio - (v.) try coch - (adj.) red cyn bo hir - (adv.) soon chwaith - (adv.) either, neither dechrau - (v.) begin digon - (adj.) enough, plenty diolch [m.] - thanks dwsin [-au, m.] - dozen eistedd - (v.) sit ffordd [ffyrdd, f.] - way, street gormod - too much, too many gwan - (adj.) weak gwers [-i, f.] - lesson hapus - (adj.) happy hardd - (adj.) beautiful, handsome helpwr [helpwyr, m.] - helper heno - (adv.) this evening, tonight hoffi - (v.) like llaeth [m.] - milk [5] llawer - much, many lle [-fydd, m.] - place llwyed [llwyeidiau, f.] - spoonful [6] mor - (adv.) so na, nac - (conj.) nor nifer [-oedd, m.] - number o'r gorau - OK oer - (adj.) cold ond - (conj.) but os gwelwch yn dda - please pan - (conj.) when 'paned ['paneidiau, mf.] - cupful [7] pell - (adj.) distant, far picnic [m.] - picnic plismon [plismyn, m.] - policeman pnawn [-au, m.] - afternoon [8] poeth - (adj.) hot posib - (adj.) possible [9] rhagor - (adv.) more rhy - (adv.) too rhywbeth [m.] - something sa+l - (adj.) sick, ill siop [-au, f.] - shop siopa - (v.) shop siwgr [m.] - sugar storm [-ydd, f.] - storm sut - how syniad [-au, m.] - idea te [m.] - tea 'te - (adv.) then tegell [-au, -i, m.] - kettle tisian - (v.) sneeze tywydd [m.] - weather ychydig - few, little yn wir - (adv.) indeed
[The answers can be found in a separate file.]
1. Translate the following sentences into Welsh.
a. This tea is too weak. Is there more tea?
b. Is there a policeman in the house? Yes. Tom is a policeman.
c. Are you going to read that book today? No. It isn't possible.
d. There isn't any milk in the kitchen, but there is too much cheese.
e. Do you want some milk in the tea? No, but I want a spoonful of
sugar, please.
f. It is going to rain tonight. There is a big storm coming here soon.
g. We are going to try to buy a dozen beautiful flowers in town this
afternoon.
h. There are no people at home. It's so hot in the house.
i. That cafe is very good. There are lots of helpers there.
j. It is not possible to see a lion in a kettle.