Welsh to Arabic: three uses of yn need different interpretations
A Welsh description does not contain a hidden location
Welsh teaching material from Canolfan Peniarth distinguishes predicative yn from the preposition meaning in. In a description after bod, yn links the subject with a noun or adjective; it is not automatically a location word.
Madinah Arabic’s grammar course illustrates الجَوُّ جَمِيلٌ, the weather is beautiful, without a separate present-tense word matching English is. A Welsh description can therefore become an Arabic nominal construction without one target word for bod and another for yn. Translating the latter mechanically as a spatial preposition would change a statement about a quality into an unintended relationship with a place.
A genuine location has its own construction
The Welsh material separately discusses prepositional yn, including its nasal mutation and forms such as ym and yng. It contrasts use with a definite or specific location against mewn with an indefinite noun.
For an original Welsh example, compare working in a hospital with saying that a person is a nurse. Both may involve a form that looks like yn in the larger sentence, but the first locates an activity and the second classifies a person. Madinah Arabic’s lesson illustrates a genuine location through فِي مِصْرَ, in Egypt, alongside a separate weather description. An Arabic translation needs to retain the actual place relationship where the Welsh supplies one, while avoiding an invented location in the occupational description.
Yn before a verbnoun is a third use
Canolfan Peniarth also distinguishes the yn used before a verbnoun, noting that it does not trigger the mutation associated with predicative yn. Its illustration describes someone working. Welsh Universal Dependencies likewise separates these grammatical functions.
A Welsh sentence describing someone as quick differs from one saying that the person is running. The first attributes a quality; the second describes an activity. A target nominal sentence is not necessarily evidence that the activity disappeared, because the Arabic course also shows nominal sentences whose predicate contains a verb. Judge whether the Arabic result still asserts the activity, rather than deciding from its opening word that it must be a static description.
Past time cannot be inferred from an English is gloss
Arabic Universal Dependencies lists kān among its copular auxiliaries. The Welsh Foundation guide shows that bod participates in several tense and modal constructions, rather than representing one invariant present meaning.
An original Welsh account can say that a colleague was a teacher before describing what the colleague does now. A target rendering must preserve that earlier classification even if a present Arabic identity statement can appear without an overt copula. The appropriate construction depends on the source time, predicate type, and intended relationship. Do not flatten every bod-plus-yn expression into a present nominal statement. Equally, do not add past time merely because a target verb looks longer than its Welsh counterpart. Identify whether the source locates an event, attributes a quality, or describes an activity, and retain the time associated with that particular assertion.
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