Welsh Word of the Day: Cael (to get / to have)

I moved to Wales at the age of five, and was immediately immersed in fully Welsh-medium primary school, having previously known very little Welsh at all. Although it’s an experience I’m very grateful for, it was definitely a steep learning curve!

I can say with confidence that there is no singular grammar error I made more often in Welsh-language primary school than misusing cael. Because cael can mean either to get or to have, and its usage doesn’t cross over exactly with its English equivalents, it can be very confusing for those learning Welsh from English.

My aim with this article is to prevent you from making the same mistakes as five-year-old me!

To make things complicated right from the start, the verbnoun cael as it used today has a very unique etymology, being essentially a fusion of two older, Middle Welsh, words.

These are caffael, which comes from the proto-Celtic *gabyeti (to take), and cael, which comes from the proto-Celtic *kageti (to take). These two ancestors have influenced the modern use of cael differently – so some conjugations of this word include a f or ff sound, and some don’t, because of this.

Caffael and caffel survive as alternative forms of cael, although they’re becoming less and less common. They tend to be used more specifically to mean to get or to acquire. Gafael also survives as a cognate, a verbnoun which means to hold or to grasp. To get a hold of someone is cael gafael ar rywun. Something that can be gotten could be described, very formally, as caffaeladwy.

Cael is used in a huge variety of ways, but, in short, it is sometimes used in places where in English we would use to have, sometimes in places where in English we would use to get, and sometimes in places (particularly in the future tense) where in English we would use the verbs can or may.

Colloquially, it’s used also to express the passive voice, or in other words, to show that something is getting something done to it. So, you might cael dy longyfarch gan rywun (be congratulated by someone, or literally, get your congratulating by someone).

We’ll go into all of these in more detail, but before we do, a quick note on pronunciation! In both the North and the South, it is normal in informal speech to pronounce cael like this:

So slip that into your next Welsh conversation to sound just a little bit cooler!

To get as in to acquire, in Welsh, is cael. This applies to most of the standard uses of get in English – ennill (win) is sometimes an alternative, but cael is usually fine. Here are some examples:

• cael gafael ar = to get possession of
• cael gwybod = to get to know
• mynd i gael = to go to get (though you can also say mynd i nôl)
• cael pris da = to get a good price
• cael cipolwg = to get a look
• cael y gorau ar rywun = to get the better of someone
• cael syniad yn eich pen = to get an idea in your head
• cael pen ar waith = to get work finished
• cael braw = to get a fright
• cael mynediad i rywle = to get into somewhere

However, English uses of get, where the sense is getting into a particular state (i.e. getting tired, getting drunk), are often, though not always, translated not using cael but with a different verb specific to the situation. For our previous examples respectively, the right words would be blino (to get tired) and meddwi (to get drunk).

Things get a bit complicated when you start to use cael to mean have. What you absolutely cannot do is translate I have (as in I own or I possess) as dw i’n cael or rwy’n cael – this sounds far more like I get or I am getting. In this case, you need to use mae gen i [rhywbeth], which literally means [something] is with me.

In the South, you can instead use mae gyda fi [rhywbeth] or mae [rhywbeth] gyda fi, also meaning [something] is with me. Gyda is very often shortened to simply ‘da.

Gen is a conjugation of gan, and both gan and gyda are prepositions that indicate possession, which can mean something like with or by, but aren’t really direct equivalents of any English word. There is no way to directly translate I have into Welsh – it’s just not a natural thing to say in this language.

You’ll find that in any place where you use have in English, there’s a way to get around using it in Welsh! For example, it has no label on it would simply be nid oes label arno / does dim label arno (there is no label on it). The equivalent of having done something in Welsh is formed with the adverb wedi, meaning after, so dw i wedi gwneud (I have done) is literally I am after doing.

This important disclaimer aside, there are plenty of contexts where you can use cael as a translation of have. This tend to be contexts where you are talking about something that is happening, or has happened, rather than a state of possession.

It sounds confusing at first but you’ll get a sense of it as you continue practising your Welsh – here are some examples to get you on your way.

• cael cinio = to have dinner / to have lunch
• cael plentyn = to have a child
• cael gwers = to have a lesson
• cael gair = to have a word
• cael breuddwyd = to have a dream
• cael cawod = to have a shower
• cael hwyl = to have a good time

To have something done was historically cael gwneud rhywbeth, where gwneud is to do. This construction has fallen out of fashion in parts of Wales and is seen as more formal, but is more normal in North Wales.

The opposite is true of the alternative way of phrasing this, cael rhywbeth wedi’i wneud, which is a more recent form that has become more common across much of Wales, but would sound too informal in North Wales or in literary Welsh. As you can see, all of these examples only refer to uses of to have where it refers to an experience, rather than to possession.

You may have noticed mutated forms of cael showing up. Because it’s such a common word used in a variety of ways, it’s bound to often undergo mutation, and it is susceptible to all three kinds.

In particular, cael very often becomes gael, since it frequently appears after prepositions in phrases like ar gael or i gael.

Apart from the meanings to get or to have, there are two other primary ways in which cael is used.  

Firstly, to talk about permission. You can think of this as it meaning to get to or to be allowed to. Where in English we would say May I/Can I?, in Welsh we are technically saying, Do I get to? (Ga i?, where ga is the first-person interrogative form of cael). We’ll talk more about conjugations in a second!

Secondly, to create passive meaning, i.e., to show that something is getting something done to it.

There are two forms used to create this kind of passive meaning in Welsh. In old-fashioned literary Welsh, or in very formal written Welsh, we use a conjugated form of the verb that is happening, which reflects the passive voice. In colloquial Welsh, we use cael to create the passive voice, in conjunction with a possessive article, and the main verb remains unconjugated.

There are some slightly more specific meanings of cael in connection to the word get. It can mean to receive or to accept. It’s semi-synonymous in this case with the word derbyn. For example, someone can cael crefydd (accept religion), cael ergyd (receive a blow) or cael deng mlynedd (get ten years: as in, in prison).

Cael can also be a synonym of dal (to catch) – we’ll catch them would be fe gawn ni nhw or simply cawn ni nhw. Another usage is ar gael, which means available or on offer (it’s sort of like for the taking).

In colloquial Welsh, conjugation is actually usually fairly simple, because of the use of periphrastic conjugations. Periphrastic conjugation basically means shifting the conjugation of a verb onto another verb!

It’s like how in English, we say I will swim, rather than having a special word for swim in the future tense. In Welsh there are specific conjugations for every word in the future tense, but it’s common to use the periphrastic form instead, and periphrastic conjugation is also used in some places where it wouldn’t be in English.

As you can imagine, this makes things a lot simpler! You don’t have to remember as many conjugations of each verb. But you do need to remember the forms of the verbs that the conjugation is shifted onto. Cael is one of the words that this happens to, in the case of it being used to form passive constructions, which we discussed above.

Here are the relevant conjugated forms of cael that you’ll need to create passive sentences in casual spoken Welsh.

These are also the relevant forms if you are conjugating cael for its normal usage as to get or to have. There are more conjugations that are used in literary Welsh, but these are what’s relevant for modern spoken Welsh.

Of course, such a fundamental word as cael is bound to appear in a few idiomatic phrases. Below are some of the ones you’re likely to hear regularly, plus some of the ones I happen to personally enjoy!

• cael llond ceg = to get told off (literally: to get a full mouth)
• cael hyd i = to find / to discover
• cael eich cefn atoch = to get one’s strength back (literally: to get one’s back back)
• cael llond bol = to have enough (literally: to have a full belly)
• cael gwared o = to get rid of
• cael ei big i mewn = to get a look in / to have a say (literally: to get his point in)
• cael esgus = to find an excuse
• cael afal i chwarae ag ac i fwyta = to get the best of both worlds (literally: to get an apple to play with and to eat)
• cael ei draed dano = to become well-established (literally: to get his feet beneath him)
• cael caws o fola ci = to get blood from a stone (literally: to get cheese from a dog’s stomach!)

In summary: for general possession, the words gan and gyda are used. Cael is used for for receiving something, having an experience, constructing passive expressions (often to do with something getting done), or talking about permission.

If you’re a new speaker of Welsh, don’t be intimidated! Like any other language, Welsh is full of intricacies and idiosyncrasies, and you’ll only get more comfortable with them as you keep practising. And making mistakes is part of the process.

If you’ve been speaking Welsh for a while, have you noticed any other uses of cael that I haven’t mentioned here? Let us know in the comments.