The imperfect tense · Yr amherffaith

Using the imperfect tense will help you describe things that were happening or used to happen in the past, such as:

• what you were doing yesterday, and
• things that you used to do every weekend.

When talking about things that were happening or things that used to happen regularly in the past, you will need to use the imperfect tense.

In Welsh, if you were doing the action, start the sentence with ‘Roeddwn i’. It means ‘I was’.

For example:
Roeddwn i’n gweithio.(I was working / I used to work).

The imperfect tense can mean that something was happening at a certain time in the past or that something used to happen regularly.

The English translation depends on the other information in the sentence.

For example:
Roeddwn i’n hoffi gweithio.(I liked working / I used to like working).

If you want to say that something happened often in the past, you can add words that show this, such as bob dydd(every day), bob wythnos(every week), or yn aml(often).

For example:
Roeddwn i’n gweithio bob dydd.(I used to work every day).

‘Roeddwn i’ comes from the Welsh verb ‘bod’, which means ‘to be’.

The form of ‘bod’ you will need to use changes depending on who is doing the action.

Singular:

To name the person doing the action, you will use the following form:
Roedd Megan(Megan was).

Plural:

Once you know which form of ‘bod’ you need, add ‘yn’ after it.

When ‘yn’ comes after a word ending in a vowel, it joins onto that word and becomes ‘’n’.

‘’n’ is just a shorter form of ‘yn’.

Examples:

Roeddwn i+yn+cerdded → Roeddwn i'n cerdded. (I was walking / I walked).

Roedd hi+yn+sgwrsio → Roedd hi'n sgwrsio. (She was chatting / She chatted).

Remember:

Like for ‘Roeddwn i’, the English meaning for the examples above will depend on the rest of the sentence.

Exception:

When you’re using ‘eisiau’ (to want), it’s different. You don’t need to add the ‘yn’ here before ‘eisiau’.

For example:
Roeddwn i+eisiau → Roeddwn i eisiau
Roedd hi+eisiau → Roedd hi eisiau

To change the imperfect patterns into their negative forms, you need to:

1. Swap the ‘R’ at the beginning of the pattern with a ‘D’, and
2. Add ‘ddim’ at the end of the pattern.

For example:
Roeddwn i → Doeddwn i → Doeddwn i ddim

So…

Roeddwn i’n bwyta.(I was eating).

would change into

Doeddwn i ddim yn bwyta.(I wasn’t eating).

Notice that the ‘yn’ no longer follows a vowel and stays as it is. It doesn’t need to change into ‘’n’ when in the negative form.

Examples:

Doedd Lois ddim yn teithio ar y trên.(Lois wasn’t travelling on the train).

Doedden nhw ddim yn ymarfer.(They weren’t practicing).