BBC - Catchphrase - Ysbyty Brynaber - Week 89
Week 89 - Main grammatical points Agnes has been fussing a lot around Jac. He's sick of her constant questions about how he feels and says in frustration: Am y canfed tro - dw i'n hapus! - for the hundredth time - I'm happy! Canfed means hundredth and is known as the ordinal number of cant (one hundred). You create ordinals by adding the ending -fed to the end of a number, but sometimes you'll hear a change in the vowel or the last syllable of the number. Let me make it clearer by giving you some examples. As we now know: Cant (a hundred) becomes canfed (hundredth) - the 't' in cant has dropped off. And following a similar pattern we see that Pedwar (four) becomes pedwerydd (fourth) - did you hear the vowel change? Pedwar/pedwerydd. Saith (seven) becomes seithfed (seventh) - again a vowel change (saith/seithfed)And wyth, naw and deg become wythfed, nawfed, degfed (8th, 9th, 10th) You hear a slight variation in pump and chwech which become pumed and chweched
And the numbers one, two and three are irregular:
Un becomes cyntaf (first)
Dau becomes ail (second)
And tri becomes trydydd (third)
Try and recognise and learn these forms - it'll be good practice for when we'll be looking at dates in a few weeks' time. Look out for Brian's use of :Oes tad! You'd think it meant 'Yes, dad'. But the problem is, he's not talking to his father! Actually, it's just a term that a lot of people, especially in North Wales, use to emphasise yes and no, no matter who they're talking to! This example will be clearer: Wyt ti'n hoffi gwrando ar Catchphrase?
Do you like listening to Catchphrase?
Ydw tad!
Absolutely! Or You bet! If you owe money to someone you say: Mae arnat ti arian i mi or Mae arnat ti bres i mi It's quite a hard construction, as you've got 2 prepositions - ar and i - and it can be difficult to work out how to translate it at first. But if you think of it literally, it means: It is on you (mae arnat ti) money to me (arian i mi) Mae arnat ti arian i mi Although, I hope you don't end up having to use that phrase too often! | 
