I live in Arkansas, in the US. Finding anything here written in Welsh is slightly more rare than finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I went to Hastings today, which is a Book store chain here. I decided to go look at the foreign language section. Their idea of a foreign book section is usually about 100 books in Spanish. I saw a book cover that looked like a Harry Potter book, so I assume it was a Spanish translation. I was very surprised to pick it up and read the title “Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd”! Wow this is the first time I have ever found a welsh book here.
It turned out to be a used but like new hardback. I bought it. Even more amazing, that probably means there is at least one other person in my area trying to learn Welsh!
I understand how surprised you must be. I live in Belarus and I thought I am the only one here trying to learn Welsh. But some days ago I found a girl on a social network who seems to know Welsh quite well and who’s from Belarus too. I suddenly feel like I’m not alone in the world anymore
Have you already tried reading this Harry Potter?
No,I just looked through it a little. I have only been studying Welsh for about as long as you have. It will have to be saved for sometime after my Welsh improves
I can’t read proper books in Welsh either, at the moment, which is a pity, because I love reading… I have an ebook of short stroies for learners, though, but even they’re are a challenge at the moment. Well, good luck for the future, then:) I’m planning to read Harry Potter in Cymraeg later too.
There are quite a lot of Roald Dhal stories in Welsh, translated by Elin Meek and using a more South Wales version of the language. I don’t know if I find them easier because it’s a more local language to me, or because I’m that much better at Welsh now, but Hari Potter was a real challenge.
There are Memrise.com lists of vocabulary for HP and Charlie a’r Ffatri Siocled, which might help some people.
This supposes that the (other) Welsh learner in Arkaknas puts more Welsh books up for sale.
Some of my family were originally from Brest Litovsk. Are the residents of Brest Litovsk mainly Russian speaking now. Historically there would have been Lithuanian and Polish spoken there, too??
Oh, so you’re partly a fellow Belarusian too:) I didn’t know there were so many of us! I think most Belarus is Russian-speaking now, though the Belarusian language is taught at schools and our national TV is Belarusian mainly. But originally, when Belarus was part first of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then of Reç Pospolita, Polish and Lithuanian were spoken a lot here too.
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I haven’t even read it in English, although I saw the movie.[/quote]
Oh you must definitely read the book(s) - it has (they have) SO much more story than the movies are able to convey, and many things make much more sense!
The films are well done and capture the spirit of the books extremely well. But yes, there is much more detail in the book, as is usually the case. I’m normally disappointed with films of books, but in this case, I think it works, because if you’ve already read the book, your mind can sort of fill in the missing bits subconciously, and the films are so well done, there is plenty to keep you occupied!
i’m going to get a very small toe-hold into starting to at least listen to russian - i will be helping train a young russian boy play tennis and he has promised to speak russian while we are hitting.
right now i’m busy with hebrew and german so the high intensity russian i’m hoping will click in sometime in the latter half of 2016.
here’s hoping you persuade aran to rush into russian so i can be one of your guinea pigs!!
Hi Justin)
Aran promised to start the Russian course very soon, maybe as soon as September, if I understood him correctly:) I’m really looking forward to it. It’s great you’ll have some Russian conversation. Good luck with Hebrew and German, they must be really difficult! German is the only language I haven’t been able to conquer, so far (well, excluding Irish Gaelic which I didn’t even start properly - I just open the book and start crying)
If you and aran need a guinea-pig for high intensity russian I’ll make the time to do it as soon as it’s available.
Try Duolingo for a really easy free entry into German. Then when SSiG arrives you can accelerate your conversational ability. I wouldn’t pretend that Duolingo is remotely of the same quality as SSi but it will give you a path into the language. That’s just my opinion.
Hebrew is difficult (at least for me) and without an SSi course I have had to invest in two courses, one which stresses conversation and the other which adds vocabulary. After an extremely rocky start my confidence level is now improving and I really think I will be conversational within a month - if with a limited vocabulary to start with.
I’m really looking forward to learning Russian and surprising my vodka-loving friend over a bottle of Wyborova!!
That’ll be perfect, thank you! i’m very intrested how the method will work with a language so different from English!
I will, as soon as I make my Welsh and Cornish at least tolerable, I’m afraid a third language will be too much. Out of curiosity - how many languages are you learning now? Three? (Cymraeg, Hebrew and German)?
I live on the Italian/French border so that gives me plenty of opportunity to speak Italian and French. And I try to do activities that help along. So I joke that I play tennis in Italian and French.
Speaking Spanish here is more difficult but there are some Argentinians around and I’m going to try to organise tennis doubles with Spanish speaking partners.
If I feel that I’m regressing I’ll start reading nightly in the language that is the weakest link at that moment.
Eirwen’s first language is Welsh and we have a goal to try and partly replace English with Welsh at home. Slowly, slowly!!
First thing every morning - 45 minutes of Hebrew via the courses I mentioned.
I’m ‘‘playing’’ at learning German via exposure to friends (Scandinavian and Austrian and Swiss), a visit to Austria and occasionally visiting Duolingo. There’s a sort of a loose medium term goal of wanting to surprise my German-speaking friends next Summer at some get-togethers over a barbecue - and lots of wine…
Wow, six languages! (if I understood correctly) This is really amazing:) Here, in Belarus, people would normally stop at one-two foreign languages, so I felt like a star with my four languages. I see now that there’s still room for improvement!
