Welsh to Portuguese (Brazil): birth statements, earlier events and ongoing scenes
A Welsh passive can become a Portuguese birth verb
The South Wales Foundation grammar teaches birth statements using cael, a possessive matching the person, and a mutated form of geni. Its example Ces i fy ngeni means I was born. The possessive is part of the Welsh construction; it does not describe an object belonging to the speaker.
For a Brazilian Portuguese biography, identify the birth event before translating those components separately. Portuguese nascer expresses being born, so the Welsh sequence does not require an additional Portuguese word meaning my. Carrying fy into a literal possessive phrase would obscure the event that the sentence is reporting.
The same Welsh pattern changes with the person. In the course’s feminine example ei geni accompanies hi; the masculine construction has a different mutation. Those forms identify the person who was born. They do not identify a mother, an owner or an agent who performed an action on someone else. A Portuguese birth statement must keep that person as its biographical subject.
Earlier than a past event is different from a birth date
Ciberdúvidas examines Ele ainda não tinha nascido, meaning that he had not yet been born. It analyses tinha nascido as a compound pluperfect: the birth is considered relative to an earlier narrative point. The Portuguese auxiliary therefore contributes a time relationship, rather than translating the Welsh passive structure word by word.
Compare the information needed in two biographies. One records somebody’s birth as an event; another explains that, when an older relative moved abroad, the person was not born yet. The second requires an earlier reference point. A translation that merely supplies a past birth statement loses the not-yet relationship, even if it preserves the person and location.
The same source discusses nascido used adjectivally with ser. This is a reminder that the presence of a Portuguese participle does not by itself prove that a sentence is a mechanical counterpart of a Welsh passive. Interpret its auxiliary and its place in the narrative. A birth event, a state and an event preceding another past event are distinct readings.
An ongoing scene needs a different Portuguese construction
Welsh bod combines with verbal material in several tense constructions, according to the Foundation guide. Its presence alone is consequently insufficient to decide that Portuguese should use an ongoing-action expression. First distinguish what the Welsh clause says about time and the stage of an event.
For a genuine ongoing situation, Ciberdúvidas contrasts Ele está comendo with Ele está a comer. It describes the gerund construction as preferred in Brazilian Portuguese and the infinitive construction as preferred in European Portuguese. These are preferences, not a claim that the alternative is absent everywhere.
A Brazilian Portuguese family history can therefore describe a birth with nascer and an action unfolding in a scene with an appropriate progressive construction. Both may correspond to Welsh multiword verb phrases, but their internal structures serve different purposes. Preserve that contrast instead of assigning one Portuguese auxiliary pattern to every Welsh clause containing a form of be.
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