Inflected Verb Forms in Welsh

In Brief

Welsh can put tense and person directly into a verb: gwelais i means “I saw,” while gwelodd hi means “she saw.” These are called short or inflected forms because they do not need bod (“to be”) as an auxiliary verb (a helping verb). At B1, the most useful forms are common past-tense forms, especially those of mynd, dod, cael, gwneud, and frequent third-person verbs in narrative.

Overview

Much everyday Welsh is built from bod plus yn and a verb-noun: Dw i'n darllen can mean “I read” or “I am reading.” A verb-noun (berfenw) is the dictionary form that names an action, such as darllen “reading/to read.” Welsh also has a more compact system in which an ending—or an irregular change in the verb itself—shows tense and person: darllenais i “I read,” darllenodd hi “she read.” These are berfau cryno, literally “concise verbs.”

English also marks some information on the verb, as in walk versus walked, but it normally uses the same past form for every person. Welsh distinguishes several people in the past: compare gwelais i “I saw,” gwelaist ti “you saw,” and gwelodd e “he saw.” In ordinary spoken Welsh, a pronoun such as i, ti, or nhw is usually still present, even though the verb ending already carries person information.

This topic is introduced at B1 because learners already know verb-nouns and common constructions with bod or past gwneud. The short past is essential for understanding stories, news, biographies, and written accounts. It is not confined to formal writing: irregular forms such as es i “I went,” des i “I came,” ces i “I got,” and wnes i “I did” are everyday spoken Welsh.

How It Works

One verb instead of an auxiliary phrase

Compare two ways of reporting the same completed action:

Construction	Welsh	Literal shape	English
Past with gwneud	Wnes i ddarllen y neges.	did I read the message	I read the message.
Short past	Darllenais i'r neges.	read-I I the message	I read the message.

In the first sentence, wnes is an auxiliary and darllen is the main verb-noun. In the second, darllenais itself carries past tense and first-person singular marking. Neither pattern uses bod. Both can be correct; the gwneud pattern is especially characteristic of conversation, while the short form is compact and common in narrative.

The regular short past

A stem is the part of a verb to which endings are added. With gweld “to see,” the short-past stem is gwel-. The following table shows the common spoken-style paradigm (the complete set of person forms):

Person	Form	Meaning
first singular	gwelais i	I saw
second singular	gwelaist ti	you saw (one familiar person)
third singular	gwelodd e / hi	he / she saw
first plural	gwelon ni	we saw
second plural or polite	gweloch chi	you saw
third plural	gwelon nhw	they saw

The most useful spoken endings to recognise are therefore -ais, -aist, -odd, -on, and -och. The first- and third-person plural forms may look identical before their pronouns, so ni and nhw make the meaning clear.

Do not assume that every verb-noun can simply have these endings attached to its visible final letter. The relationship between a Welsh verb-noun and its stem is not always predictable. For example, siarad gives siaradais i and siaradodd hi, while gweld gives gwelais i and gwelodd hi. Learn a new verb with at least its verb-noun, first-person past, and third-person past. A good dictionary may list the stem when it is not obvious.

More formal written paradigms can have fuller plural endings, such as -asom, -asoch, and -asant. Thus a reader may meet a form such as darllenasant “they read.” For B1 production, the forms with explicit ni, chi, and nhw are a more practical starting point.

High-frequency irregular verbs

Several of the most common verbs have irregular short pasts. They should be learned as families rather than generated from a regular ending rule.

Verb-noun	I	you (singular)	he/she	we	you (plural/polite)	they
mynd (go)	es i	est ti	aeth e/hi	aethon ni	aethoch chi	aethon nhw
dod (come)	des i	dest ti	daeth e/hi	daethon ni	daethoch chi	daethon nhw
gwneud (do/make)	wnes i	gwnest ti	gwnaeth e/hi	gwnaethon ni	gwnaethoch chi	gwnaethon nhw
cael (get/receive)	ces i	cest ti	cafodd e/hi	cawson ni	cawsoch chi	cawson nhw

Spoken forms vary by region and pronunciation, so you will also hear variants not shown in this compact reference. The families above give you reliable forms to recognise and use.

Notice that gwneud has two roles. In Gwnaeth hi gacen, it is the lexical verb (the verb carrying the main meaning): “She made a cake.” In Gwnaeth hi brynu cacen, it helps form the past of prynu: “She bought a cake.” In speech, the latter is often heard as Wnaeth hi brynu cacen; the initial mutation helps mark the clause pattern.

Pronouns still matter

Welsh literary prose can sometimes omit a pronoun because the ending already identifies the person. In ordinary speech, however, say gwelais i, not just gwelais, and gwelon nhw, not just gwelon, unless you are deliberately using a more literary style. This differs from languages that routinely drop subject pronouns; the inflection and the following pronoun normally work together in conversational Welsh.

Questions, negatives, and mutation

An affirmative short form can appear on its own or after an affirmative particle (a small grammatical word) such as southern fe or northern mi:

• Gwelais i'r ddamwain. — I saw the accident.
• Fe welais i'r ddamwain. — I saw the accident.
• Mi welais i'r ddamwain. — I saw the accident.

The particle can trigger soft mutation, the change of the first consonant of the verb. With initial g, mutation removes the g: underlying gwelais appears as welais after fe or mi. In modern usage, the particle may be absent while the mutated form remains.

Questions often have verb-first order and a mutation associated with an older question particle a:

• Welaist ti'r neges? — Did you see the message?
• A welodd hi'r ffilm? — Did she see the film? (more formal or explicit)

Negation varies more by register and region. Common short forms include Es i ddim “I didn't go” and Ddaeth e ddim “He didn't come.” In formal writing you may see ni before a mutated verb, as in Ni ddaeth neb “Nobody came.” Everyday speech also readily switches to the gwneud construction: Wnes i ddim gweld y ffilm “I didn't see the film.” Learn these as real clause patterns rather than adding English did not word for word.

Examples in Context

Welsh	English	Note
Es i i'r siop cyn cinio.	I went to the shop before lunch.	Everyday irregular first-person form of mynd
Est ti i'r cyfarfod ddoe?	Did you go to the meeting yesterday?	Familiar singular ti
Aeth e adre ar y bws.	He went home on the bus.	Third-person singular of mynd
Gwelodd hi'r ffilm nos Wener.	She saw the film on Friday night.	Regular third-person short past
Welaist ti'r enfys?	Did you see the rainbow?	Question; mutated gwel- loses g
Gwelon ni dri dolffin o'r cwch.	We saw three dolphins from the boat.	First-person plural
Daethon nhw adre'n hwyr.	They came home late.	Irregular plural of dod
Ddaeth e ddim i'r dosbarth.	He didn't come to the class.	Spoken negative short form
Rhoddodd e'r llyfr i fi.	He gave the book to me.	Common narrative third-person form
Darllenais i'r neges y bore yma.	I read the message this morning.	First-person regular short past
Agorodd y siop am naw.	The shop opened at nine.	A noun subject follows the verb
Prynon ni fara a llaeth.	We bought bread and milk.	First-person plural short past
Ces i anrheg gan fy ffrind.	I received a present from my friend.	Irregular first-person form of cael
Gwnaeth hi gacen i'r parti.	She made a cake for the party.	gwneud carries the main meaning “made”
Wnaethon nhw ddim ateb y cwestiwn.	They didn't answer the question.	Conversational gwneud auxiliary instead of an inflected form of ateb

Common Mistakes

Building every stem directly from the verb-noun

• Wrong: gweldais i'r ffilm
• Right: gwelais i'r ffilm
• Why: Gweld uses the stem gwel- in this form. Welsh stems are not always found by attaching an ending to the complete verb-noun.

Using one past form for every person

• Wrong: gwelais hi'r ffilm (intended: “she saw the film”)
• Right: gwelodd hi'r ffilm
• Why: -ais marks first-person singular, while -odd marks third-person singular. The pronoun does not override the verb ending.

Dropping the spoken subject pronoun too early

• Unnatural in ordinary conversation: Gwelais y ffilm.
• Natural conversational form: Gwelais i'r ffilm.
• Why: Although -ais identifies the speaker, conversational Welsh normally reinforces it with i. Pronoun omission belongs mainly to formal or literary styles.

Combining the short form with another past auxiliary

• Wrong: Wnes i welais i'r ffilm.
• Right: Wnes i weld y ffilm.
• Also right: Gwelais i'r ffilm.
• Why: Choose one structure. After past gwneud, use the verb-noun gweld (with any required mutation); otherwise inflect the main verb itself.

Expecting English word order in a question

• Wrong: Ti welaist y ffilm?
• Right: Welaist ti'r ffilm?
• Why: The short verb normally comes first. Initial mutation may also signal that the clause is a question.

Treating all short forms as equally formal

• Misleading assumption: Es i must be replaced by Wnes i fynd in conversation.
• Better approach: Use and recognise both Es i and Wnes i fynd.
• Why: Short forms as a category are prominent in writing, but several irregular short forms are completely ordinary in speech.

Usage Notes

The main divide is not simply “short equals written, long equals spoken.” Frequency depends on the verb, person, clause type, region, and speaker. Es i, des i, ces i, and wnes i are core conversational forms. Third-person forms such as aeth, daeth, gwelodd, dywedodd/dwedodd, and rhoddodd are especially common when recounting events, because stories repeatedly answer “what happened next?”

The past with gwneud remains extremely useful in conversation: Wnes i brynu tocyn “I bought a ticket.” It lets you keep the main action in the familiar verb-noun. A speaker may therefore use a short form for one verb and a gwneud construction for the next without changing the time reference.

Formal prose uses short forms more consistently and may omit pronouns or retain particles that speech often drops. Welsh also has substantial northern and southern variation. Learn from speakers in the variety you use, but do not label an unfamiliar form “wrong” merely because it differs from your course. For active B1 use, prioritise transparent forms with pronouns; for reading, gradually widen your recognition.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

Short inflection extends beyond the completed past. Formal and literary Welsh has inflected present-future, imperfect (past ongoing or habitual), conditional, and other paradigms. For example, af i means “I will go,” while more literary texts may use forms without the reinforcing pronoun. These fuller systems belong with advanced literary verb study; you do not need to produce every paradigm in order to use the B1 short past well.

Advanced writing also distinguishes spoken-style plurals from traditional literary endings. Compare conversational darllenon nhw with literary darllenasant, both “they read.” The literary ending can identify the subject without nhw, while the conversational form relies on the pronoun to remove ambiguity.

Short verbs interact closely with mutation and clause type. A missing particle may still leave a visible change at the beginning of the verb: gwel- becomes wel- in Welaist ti?, and daeth appears as ddaeth in a common negative such as Ddaeth e ddim. At higher levels, these mutations help you recognise questions, negatives, relative clauses, and formal syntax even when the particle itself is not written or spoken.

Finally, do not confuse personal short forms with the impersonal form, which does not name a person as subject. Gwelodd hi'r car means “She saw the car,” whereas Gwelwyd y car means “The car was seen.” The impersonal and passive systems build on your ability to recognise an inflected verb but serve a different grammatical purpose.

Practice Tips

1. Learn forms in three-part sets. For each useful verb, record its verb-noun, first-person past, and third-person past: gweld — gwelais i — gwelodd e/hi; mynd — es i — aeth e/hi. Add the plural forms after those are secure.
2. Retell one day in six sentences. Start each sentence with a completed event: Codais i..., Es i..., Ces i..., Gwelais i... Then retell the same events with wnes i + verb-noun where that feels natural. This trains the contrast without treating one pattern as a word-for-word replacement.
3. Mark verb, ending, and pronoun while reading. In a short news report or story, underline forms such as -odd, -on, and -och, circle the following subject, and note any initial mutation. You will quickly see which third-person forms recur in narrative.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Verb-Nouns — the base forms needed for dictionary lookup and for contrasting short verbs with auxiliary constructions
• Next step: Impersonal Forms — inflected forms that present an action without a personal subject
• Next step: Passive Voice — contrasts personal short verbs with passive constructions using cael
• Advanced: Literary Verb Forms — fuller present-future, imperfect, and formal inflected paradigms
• Advanced: Formal Register and Syntax — particles, pronoun omission, and clause patterns typical of formal Welsh
• Further reading: Middle Welsh and Archaic Forms — historical forms for advanced recognition
• Further reading: Official and Legal Welsh — how formal verbal patterns appear in institutional writing