Yr Amser Gorfennol

Just like in English, there are various past tenses in Welsh.

  • I sang

  • I was singing

  • I used to sing

This article will cover all of the main past tenses in spoken Welsh.

Imperfect past

(I was singing, used to sing)

If we want to speak about something that we were doing or used to do in the past, we simply take the verb bod in the past tense, followed by the verb itself.

past of ‘bod’ + yn + verb

  • ro’n i’n canu

  • ro’t ti’n siarad

  • roedd e’n mynd

Preterite

(I sang)

The next step is to add the past tense endings to the stem of the verb which are as follows:

  • -ais i

  • -aist ti

  • -odd e

  • -odd hi

  • -on ni

  • -och chi

  • -on nhw

You can see an example using the verb canu (which has the stem can-) here:

If we want to make a sentence in the simple past tense in Welsh, we must first get the bôn (stem) of the verb. This will often be the same form of the verb you will find in the dictionary, but sometimes we need to make a slight change:

  • if the verb ends in a vowel, remove it: canu => can-

  • if the verb ends in -ed, remove it: cerdded => cerdd-

  • if the verb ends in -eg, remove it: rhedeg => rhed-

If the verb ends in an consonant (such as darllen) or a diphthong (such as chwarae), we leave the verb as it is.

canais i

canaist ti

canodd e

canodd hi

canon ni

canoch chi

canon nhw