( > How do you ask ) > ( > Do you like ice cream? In Cymaeg, and what is the correct answer? ) ( "Ti'n lico hufen ia+?" "Otw" neu "Nagw". Well now. The Northern Line on this is that liking is being "yn hoff"; it is one of those things that is a description of a quality in Welsh, rather than the verb which it is in English, "Ydych chi yn hoff o hufen ia+?" / "Wyt ti yn hoff o hufen ia+?" and that the answer would be "Ydw" (which is only pronounced "otw" or even "wodw" in the Deep South) or in exceptional cases "Nac ydw". (Footnote for the table of exceptional pronounciations: "ac" and "nac" are always and everywhere pronounced as if they were "ag" and "nag" except by those strange people who have affected accents and think that "ei" is pronounced like "e" followed by "i".) The good news, then is that if you can do "am I?", "are you?" you can already do what amounts to "am I fond of?", "are you fond of?" Now to complicate matters, "hoff" can be (er, um) verbed. "Hoffi" is a perfectly respectable verb. You canask the same question with the long form of the verb, "Ydych chi'n hoffi hufen ia+?" and so on, and the answer is still the same. However the short form doesn't sound at all right to me: "Hoffwch chi hufen ia+?" ought undoubtedly to mean the same thing, but sounds quite wrong. (No doubt an expert will tell me why.) The conditional "would you like?" is "Hoffech chi hufen ia+?" / "Hoffet ti hufen ia+?" would be an offer to get you some to which the answer would be "Hoffwn", especially in this heat wave. (Longer form, "Fyddech chi'n hoffi..." answered, of course, "Byddwn".) ( > What about "May I?" and "Can I?" questions? Everything I read only talk ) > about "Am I?" and "Are you?"'s ( ) "Ga i" e.e. "Ga i brynu peint i ti?" - "Cei". ( "Ga i fynd mas i 'whara?" - "Na chei". I used to have terrible trouble with the can/may distinction in English, and I used to put this down to speaking Welsh first; fortunately nobody seems to want to bother in English these days (like want/need, you know). It seems to me that the verb for both "can" questions is "gallu" (to have the ability), so "Alla i?", "Elli di?" and so on, answered "Gallaf", and so on. "May" questions seem to be asked with "cael" (to have, to get, presumably in this case to have a permission that is not mentioned) although I used to think that we made less of a distinction than that. You ask "Do I get to...?" Roedd gan y diweddar "Dywysog" Charles (y diddanwr, actor, arweinydd nosweithiau llawen ac yn y blaen, Charles Williams, Bodffordd) hanesyn am bwyso ar y glwyd ynghyd a rhyw hen amaethwr ym Mo+n, a hwnnw'n dweud wrth Charles bod ei gae yn "gae gaignwca-gaignwnaca", gyda'r ystyr mai cae anwadal, cyfnewidiol oedd o. Wedi deallt, "Ga' i gnwd? Caf. Ga' i gnwd? Na chaf." oedd o'n ei ddweud. g