We’re cracking on a-pace now, and after a quick revision of telling the time we moved onto past tense. I was quite looking forward to this — after all there’s only a limited amount you can talk about in the present tense!

The Cwrs Mynediad book does the past tense in a bizarre order, starting with some irregular verbs which seemed a bit off putting so our teacher decided to do some of the regular ones on the board first.

Regular verbs in Welsh have a main part, called a ‘stem’ and when you turn a verb into the past tense you take just the stem and add a particular ending onto it depends on who it is doing the action.

–ais i (me)

–aist ti (you – informal singular)

–odd e/hi (him/her)

–on ni (we)

–och (you – formal plural)

–on nhw (they)

We looked first at “bwyta” (to eat) — but the rule here applies to all verbs that end in a single vowel. You take the vowel away to get the stem “bwyt-” and then and the ending:

Bwytais i (I ate)

Bwytaist ti (you ate)

Bwytodd e/hi (he/she ate)

Bwyton ni (we ate)

Bwytoch chi (you ate)

Bwyton nhw (they ate)

The next familiar verb we looked at was “coginio” (to cook) we used this as an example of the rule that applies to verbs that end in two vowels. The rule this time is to get rid of the final vowel (ending up with “cogini-“), then add the endings:

Coginiais i (I cooked)

Coginiaist ti (you cooked)

Coginiodd e/hi (he/she cooked)

Coginion ni (we cooked)

Coginioch chi (you cooked)

Coginion nhw (they cooked)

The next regular pattern we looked at was verbs ending in “-ed” or “-eg”. The rule being expressed variously for the sake of memory as “eds will roll” and “eg-ed’s (eggheads) gotta to go”. As the prompts suggest the ‘ed’ or ‘eg’ disappears completely. The examples we used were “rhedeg” (to run) and “cerdded” (to walk)

Rhedais i (I ran)

Rhedaist ti (you ran)

Rhedodd e/hi (he/she ran)

Rhedon ni (we ran)

Rhedoch chi (you ran)

Rhedon nhw (they ran

Cerddais i (I walked)

Cerddaist ti (you walked)

Cerddodd e/hi (he/she walked)

Cerddon ni (we walked)

Cerddoch chi (you walked)

Cerddon nhw (they walked)

Not all verbs have these ending of course — ones which end in a consonant (darllen, siarad, often have the stem as the same as the word itself, but nothing is entirely simple and there are a number of verbs which don’t follow the pattern (these generally have the stem given in the dictionary)

And then then are some which are just way out there and the past tense form is utterly different from the present tense form. These are the irregular verbs and the first of them we came across was the past tense of “mynd” (to go)

Es i (I went)

Est ti (you went)

Aeth e/hi (he/she went)

Aethon ni (we went)

Aethoch chi (you went)

Aethon nhw (they went)

The grief and woe at discovering there was more which simple must be learnt by rote was eased somewhat that Welsh is far from unique in this — even in English the past tense of “go” — “went” is not remotely similar!

Happily “Dod” (to come) and “Gwneud” (to do) are very similar to “Mynd” in the past tense – so there was some pattern to grab onto:

Des i (I came)

Dest ti (you came)

Daeth e/hi (he/she came)

Daethon ni (we came)

Daethoch chi (you came)

Daethon nhw (they came)

Gwnes i (I did)

Gwest ti (you did)

Gwnaeth e/hi (he/she did)

Gwnaethon ni (we did)

Gwnaethoch chi (you did)

Gwnaethon nhw (they did)

The final irregular verb we looked at was “cael” (to have). This was a little bit different again, and another just to be learned. This is complicated somewhat by the fact that it has variants even within its own pattern!

Ces i (I had)

Cest ti (you had)

Cafodd e/hi (he/she had) — sometimes caeth e/hi

Cawson ni (we had) — sometimes caethon ni

Cawsoch chi (you had) — sometimes caethoch chi

Cawson nhw (they had) — sometimes caethoch chi

There were also a big pile of mutations but I think that’s enough for one writeup! My brain is mush just thinking about it all again. Just as well we’ve got a bank holiday this week for me to recover!

Oh and finally, since our teacher assured us she wouldn’t sleep unless we knew it — another yes and no!

In the past tense

Do — yes

Naddo — no