Hungry neighbour
When I first started learning Welsh a decade ago I only had a smattering of verbs. One day we were practicing making sentences in the conditional (would) tense and I said to my tutor: I'm going on holiday, would you please bwyta'r gath. She couldn't contain herself as bwyta'r gath means 'eat the cat!' By all accounts this mistake is still being cited around Welsh classes in North Wales to this day! I should have said bwydo'r gath, feed the cat.
Sent by: James
Comments
Reece
2005-10-25
As it happens, I made that mistake in my Welsh school class. When I read a diary of a person's Saturday, I thought it said "eat the cat". I couldn't help but laughing.
That mistake was certainly still being mentioned when I was having Welsh lessons about six years ago, but no names were given. I suspect that eating the cat is a fairly common mistake amongst beginners (and probably also those of us who should know enough Welsh to avoid it).
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