Welsh to German: hypothetical payments, ability and Konjunktiv time
Welsh would is not a prediction with German werden
The official South Wales Foundation grammar gives Baswn i’n talu for I would pay and distinguishes it from future forms expressing that someone will pay. This is a difference in the status of the event: the conditional does not simply announce a payment as a future fact.
German würde can form an alternative Konjunktiv II construction, according to the Leibniz Institute for the German Language. It is related morphologically to werden, but that relationship does not make a würde clause a straightforward future prediction. Interpret the Welsh conditional before selecting the German mood.
For a Welsh message offering a hypothetical payment, retain the hypothetical force. Changing it into an unconditional announcement can create a commitment absent from the source. Conversely, a definite future arrangement should not acquire uncertainty merely because a German verb resembles a form encountered in a conditional lesson.
Welsh liking and ability require their own lexical meaning
The Welsh guide presents Hoffwn i dalu, I would like to pay, separately from Gallwn i dalu, I could or would be able to pay. Both concern a possible payment, but the first expresses a preference while the second concerns ability. The conditional setting does not cancel that lexical distinction.
A German translation must preserve whether the writer wants to perform the action or has the capacity to perform it. A person can be willing but unable, or able but unwilling. Turning both Welsh expressions into one generic would construction can erase the reason the message was written.
The IDS Konjunktiv II reference includes könnte among its examples and explains that modal constructions can serve alongside other alternative formations. This does not license removing the underlying modal meaning. The target must express the same combination of event, person and possibility as the source, rather than merely displaying a recognizable conditional-looking form.
A German form built from a past stem need not describe past time
IDS distinguishes Konjunktiv I and II by their formation from present and past stems, while expressly warning that those labels do not create the temporal contrast found between indicative present and past. The grammatical name Konjunktiv Präteritum therefore cannot by itself date a Welsh event in the past.
This matters when the Welsh source describes what the speaker would do now or under a future condition. Do not translate that situation as a completed historical action simply because the German form has a past-based shape. Establish time from the full statement and its context.
German also uses Konjunktiv forms in reported speech, as IDS explains. A target form can therefore serve functions beyond the conditional examples in the Welsh beginner guide. Keep a hypothetical offer distinct from a report of somebody else’s claim. Choosing a German mood requires interpreting that function; it is not a one-word substitution for every Welsh auxiliary or every English gloss containing would.
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