This week in Welsh: have!
I'm going to take a break out my recap of what I've been learning to say that we've arrived to the point in our learning that we can now play games that involve us saying things like Wyt ti'n ei yfed e. "You drink it." in order to get people to guess what it is you are thinking of, in this case you could say cwrw or "beer" . Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have gotten to the point in my Welsh learning that I'm ready to take a road trip with a small child.
I know will take you back to your regularly scheduled This Week in Welsh.
I teased you almost a fortnight ago with the prospect of more aspect. If you've been following my Welsh adventure, you are already well versed in the verbal expression of temporal flow, and so you will be ready to dive straight into present perfect. Now, if you haven't been following the adventure (WHY NOT?) or you would like a little refresher course in grammar, I will now give a little digest of what in heaven's name the present perfect actually is.
The Present Perfect, to quote Wikipedia is, "The present perfect tense is a perfect tense used to express action that has been completed with respect to the present." In English we express with by using the words "have" or "has" with the past participle of the verb. (It is important at this point to remember that this "have" does not connote possession nor does it refer to any activity that "must" take place.) The present perfect refers to things that are right now, in this moment, finished. And, in Welsh you let people know this being using a construction with the word wedi.
In the present tense if you want to say:" I read the book", in Cymraegyou'd say Dw i'n darllen. The 'n here is a contraction of the word yn. In the present perfect, you toss out the yn and replace it with wedi. So, to say: "I have read the book." you say,Dw i wedi darllen.. See, easy as a lion. And, there you have it, folks.
Thank you for tuning into this week in Welsh. Next week will delve into the important topics of accusative/dative pronouns and the "must" construction.
Hwyl Fawr!
