Last Week in Welsh: Month 1!
So, now that we've got some vocab and we're gliding on to regular verbs in the past tense. As far as recipes go, this one is pretty easy. There are just a few simple steps and only two ingridients! You can't really beat that!
Simple Past Tense Regular Verbs
Verb Stem
Ending
To find the verb stem:
if it ends in a consonant: use the whole word as the stem
unless: it ends it "-ed" or "-eg",
then: drop the "-ed/-eg"
if it ends in a vowel: drop off the last vowel
Add ending to stem
I: -ais i
you: -aist ti
she: -odd hi
he: -odd e
we: -on ni
you formal/plural: -och chi
they: -on nhw.
So, "I spoke to John" is siaradais i รข John. "He walked to work" is Cerrddodd e i'r gwaith. We ate sushi would be bwyton ni sushi. Rockinginly easy. So easy that I think I can give a short description of the mutations now.
The mutations are sound changes at the beginning of words. They are systematic and only apply to stops and a few of the nasal sounds in Welsh. They apply after a subset of grammatical words such as two of the question words (beth meaning "what" and pwy meaning who) and the preposition words, at the beginning of feminine singular words in certain environments and at the beginning of questions and negative statements. At least, this is what I have learned so far. It is quite possible that in the future, this will change as I learn more. Obviously, I will keep you updated.
