I am glad you had a great experience speaking Welsh. I am from South Wales but haves lived most of my life in England. Sadly I cannot speak Welsh (old story of a grandmother who refused to speak Welsh to my Mum and so the language was lost to us). I did not have such a good experience last week when on holiday in Snowdonia. I tried out my SSIW course Welsh in a shop in Porthmadog and whilst it was obvious the lady had understood me she answered in English!!! It seems being from South Wales this Welsh is not good enough. She then went on to tell me that her daughter is teaching in a South Wales school and the students laugh at her Welsh. I have to say I was rather disappointed. What a shame that there is such prejudice between North and South!!! I did not try out my Welsh again!!!
I get a lot of answers in English when starting in Welsh and it always takes me aback, but since it occasionally happens even with people who are first lanaguge speakers and normally speak Welsh to me I really DONâT think itâs a snub - I think a considerable portion of the time itâs because they havenât mentally processed which language you started in and have answered in the âdefaultâ for the situation/person.
It happens to most with strangers, and woth friends who know Iâve learned but spoke English with me first and hardly ever with people I spoke Welsh in a Welsh setting (like TšTawe) from the start, supporting this theory.
Your particular example might have been deliberate but I think very often it ISNâT.
Still blathering on this - I think as learners we notice the process of choosing a lanaguge on a much more concious level when the proces of choosing / code switching is more fluid for the longer term bilingual. Weâre often still mentally translating as opposed to just understanding.
Iâve had conversations (but only relatively recently in my learning process) where I couldnât REMEMBER afterwards which language we spoke or at what point we switched. Earlier in my learning I had âOops weâve slipped into English, when did that happen?â moments.
So I can see how the process could be less choice and more reflex.
Iâm sure thereâs some brain wiring theory which accounts for it!
Llongyfarchiadau @gavinM! That is a fantastic achievement! And you were in the perfect place to use your Welsh as well, as Caernarfon has a very strong Welsh speaking community.
Itâs a shame you couldnât have met with myself and @dinas for our monthly meets at The Coopers Arms, Rochester when I were living in Kent. Personally, I found those meetings very beneficial for practising my own spoken Welsh before I moved to Cardiff. I do believe that a brand new group is currently in discussion for Kent though. It will be good to hear of a new meet starting up there again and I would certainly like to attend if Iâm in the area visiting family and friends if it does.
As for your own achievements, Da iawn i chi, a dal ati! 
Having heard folk an a bus slithering from Welsh to English and back to CymraegâŚthen Saesneg, I suspect an awful lot of people do this in ordinary conversation without realising it. I have told elsewhere of my friends chatting in Punjabi with enough English in there for me to follow the gist. It is how languages change/get enriched/growâŚor get polluted/ruined and die, depending on circumstances and oneâs outlook!
I guess we didnât have jodhpurs before the Raj, or bungalowsâŚbut Iâll bet some words we use in English arrived with the Normans and I donât mean things like marriage which are paralleled by wedding!
Hello Leiafee. This was definitely a snub as she kept saying even if I did manage to learn Welsh it was only ever going to be âSouthern Welshâ!!! I think that was what upset me rather than anything else .Being from South Wales I personally donât feel such prejudice towards the North but I did feel it towards me that day.
She sounds like a horrible person (or a not horrible person having a very bad day) - which shop was that? Itâs absolutely NOT the case that southern Welsh isnât good enough to speak in the north - in fact, itâs a ridiculous idea, so please donât take her as representative.
[quote=âglynsig, post:31, topic:6028â]
This was definitely a snub
[/quote] I really do believe that this was a one off from one ânot very happyâ individual. Iâve spoken Welsh with people from all over Wales at various stages of my learning and have never, NEVER had any negativity from another Welsh speaker. I would say that north/south prejudice is a very rare thing. I think you were unlucky on the day and itâs such a shame.
Thatâs brilliant! Da iawn! 
I have still to take the plunge and speak Welsh, Just afraid I donât know enough yet, Although I am likely to get an opportunity to speak Welsh this weekend as I am attending the BAFTA Cymru Awards. There will be drink or two involved so maybe that will help me, 
Itâs sure to! __dw iân siarad yn well ar ol yfed._(âI speak better after drinkingâ). Pob lwc.
So sorry to hear about your negative experience, @glynsig. Knowing what a positive boost my successful first attempt gave me, I can just imagine how deflated you must have felt.
But please donât allow this to discourage you. There are negative and ignorant people in all walks of life, and you were just unfortunate to have encountered one of this breed in Porthmadog. Trio eto, a pob lwc!
Lightening the tone slightly; my wife and I met up with a few friends last week. One of the friends who has Welsh as his first language, happened to greet me with âShwd ych Chi?â For some reason I automatically answered in Welsh. Later on in the evening, I managed to steer the conversation towards the Welsh Language. At this point, all of our English speaking friends started speaking Welsh. I wasnât able to get a word in edge-ways 
Hello gavinM Donât worry she wonât stop me. I feel sorry for her that she felt like she did as I think it is marvellous that anyone learns the language and should be encouraged. Diolch
Well, that is good and all of us are glad, but she might be a lot more influential on someone with less will power/confidence/guts. Also, she is a very bad advertisement for gogledd Cymru!
And moons ago, when I was almost young, I got frightened off speaking Welsh to anyone in Gwynedd whom I didnât know by that sort of attitude. I also learned that most Gogs are lovely and helpful, but first impressions can last a long time, and if I hadnât gone up there every year, I might never have found out!
In fact, my âAuntieâ, who was usually really keen to learn new things, never tried to learn Welsh all the time she lived there and I suspect the âyouâre a southerner, not proper Welsh!â attitude of some may have caused her to be put off!
(She was a teacher of French and German at a Grammar School before she retired!)
Ah, thatâs a real shame, @glynsig, and NOT at all representative of the people of North Wales that I know. Please donât take that as a common way of thinking in the North. Unfortunately, thereâs always one bad apple in every barrel. Donât let her spoil your experienceâŚbut DONâT ever go back to that shop. 
Da Iawn chi! Iâm lucky enough to volunteer in a community shop in Carmarthenshire where I can try out my Welsh. It always gets a good reception. When Iâm in Lloegr my hen ghi gets spoken to quite a lot. He understands what gwely means now and that if he goes there, he might get a biscuit!
My ci ifanc - mae hi ast yn wir - watches Cyw on S4C with me and has her favourite programs. Well, she watches a lot of S4C, to be fair! I donât speak much Welsh to her because she has to understand Janet as well and it seems a bit unfair to expect her to be trilingual (dog, English, Welsh).
The other day she was jumping up at the back of my legs to try to get me to hurry up, when I was cooking. After a couple of "No!"s, I got so fed up, I yelled, âPaid!â. She stopped at once! So she is learning when I donât realise it!
Oh, @aran Your method works for dogs as well as people!!!
âArosâ for more than five seconds seems to be a problem for my dog in any language! Dal ati is a very useful programme for learners on S4c I think.
Traveling back to my home in mid Wales I stopped in a bar in builth wells not expecting to get a chance to practice, but there was a motorbike rally and a group of bikers from caernarvon who heard me trying to speak welsh all spoke to me and before I left all insisted on shaking my hand and thanking me for learning. First time I spoke welsh was in Aberystwyth in a bookshop and I spent 10 mins outside practicing and getting my nerve up