Thank you!
2 Likes
Yesterday I was on my way back from a fantastic dayâs walk with Cymdeithas Edward Llwyd (my first, but definitely not my last), when I passed the house of the woman I bought my house from. She was in the garden so I stopped to say hello. Sheâs a first language Welsh speaker and has always been very supportive of my learning Welsh, but last time we spoke, which was nearly a year ago, I could only manage a few sentences and it was obvious that not only could I not understand much of what she said, she couldnât understand a fair few of my mangled phrases. Yesterday, I greeted her in Welsh and we sat and chatted over a cup of tea using no English at all! It was wonderful, and I think we were both equally surprised and delighted.
Itâs probably not a breakthrough at all, but a mark of very gradual progress (and the fact that Iâd stayed in Welsh all day, which I havenât done since bootcamp last July), but Iâd convinced myself recently that I wasnât improving since I stopped going to lessons this time last year. Yesterday was one of those periodic measuring points where I suddenly realised that I am moving forward all the time, and all the Skypes and meet ups with the amazing people Iâve met through SSIW and Ffrindiaith have had a huge and invaluable impact on my ability to speak and to understand. Iâve still a very long way to go, but the whole day yesterday was a massive boost, and today Iâm only going to think about how far Iâve come since Course 1, lesson 1. You are all brilliant and shining people!
18 Likes
Amazing!! Well done! How was Cymdeithas Edward Llwyd? Where did you go?
2 Likes
We went from Pennal down to near Dyfi Junction and round in a loop in a gentle stroll. Itâs a nice way to spend a day - Welsh all around you, and lots of talk with friendly people, but itâs not as intense as sitting around a table, so your brain gets a rest while it looks at a cow or a beautiful view. I still hit the occasional wall when I couldnât even remember simple things like my name, or where I was born, but it was nice pushing through that, which doesnât always happen when you only talk for an hour. I highly recommend it for anyone who hasnât been.
5 Likes
Gwych - llongyfarchiadau mawr iawn!
Iâm sure that will have meant a huge amount to her - knowing that she sold to someone who wanted to become a real part of the community⌠
4 Likes
I strongly get that impression, which I think is a sad reflection of how much things have changed in the area for someone who was always at the heart of a Welsh-speaking community. Itâs a house that means a lot to her, too, and I know it hurt to see it go out of the family. I feel responsible and lucky in equal measure.
5 Likes
Add some pride to that mix, too - for anyone in her situation, it is a complicated thing to agree to sell to someone who doesnât speak Welsh - and the pleasure of seeing them become a Welsh speaker can be something that stays with you for ever⌠
4 Likes
That is a brilliant result, Isata - I knwo how much this means to you!
Iâm really glad that your bwtcamp pushed you on so nicely, and that youâve done the work since to really move your Welsh on a few notches.
Interesting what you say about your breakthrough not being a real breakthrough, though. Itâs the classic âovernight successâ story that took 5 years of hard graft.
Da iawn, a llongyfarchiadau.
4 Likes
Diolch, Iestyn, a diolch o galon to you and Cat for the splendid bootcamp. Iâm feeling a bit embarrassed about the âhard graftâ though - Iâve only met up with friends and enjoyed myself!
4 Likes
That explains it then! You should have put in hours of boring stuff like reading and writing exercises, and beating yourself about your slow progress as well. Youâd be nowhere near where you are now if youâd done that extra work!
Three cheers for accelerative enjoyment!
8 Likes
And all you have to say is âUh huh, Uh huhââ hey Bronwen.
1 Like
Iâve been noticing lately that my brain seems to default to Welsh when Iâm confused about which language to use 
We have guests over from Italy at the moment. Would be a good opportunity for me to practice my Italian, but Iâve been asked to help one of them practice speaking English. The past few days have been pretty confusing! Iâve been trying but failing to speak Finnish and Italian with my mother, Italian with my Italian friend, English with that friendâs mother, Finnish and English with a Finnish friend and Spanish to both the Italian friends. I donât have trouble switching between languages but remembering who Iâm supposed to speak what with is difficult.
At the airport we start in Italian to greet each other, then talk about switching to English. I ask, still in Italian, if she would like to switch now. She says âYesâ in English, to which I respond with âIawnâ. Cymraeg. They look at me in confusion and I realise I have just said it in Welsh 
Iâve also started sentences in Welsh a few times, and said âda iawnâ to the friend practicing EnglishâŚ
I think Welsh has started feeling more natural than Italian⌠That feels weird! I might soon speak Welsh better than I speak my native language 
9 Likes
It happens when you have more than two lamguages, or even more than one. In my family I always know my husbandâs name and my sonâs, and rarely confuse the two. Add even one more male relative to the room and thereâs little chance Iâll get it right.
3 Likes
Youâre a multilingual muddle! Say that five times fast, as my kids would say!
1 Like
I am afraid my worst sin of that sort was confusing the name of a friend with that of my cat!!
1 Like
For Maureen and me, the presence of one more mammal is sufficient to have us run through the entire gamut of family names. I have often been called âOscarâ by my loving wife of 39 years. (Oscar is my sonâs dog - rather a handsome beast if I say so myself )
9 Likes
Not sure if I posted this here already (if I did, just ignore this post) and this isnât a huge breakthrough in speaking but a minor breakthrough in understanding:
Iâm finding that something has clicked in my brain (Broca? Wernicke?) and Iâm starting to be able to understand spoken WelshâŚspecifically conversations I listen to (i.e. Pobol y Cwm)âŚin the same way I understand spoken English. Specifically, my brain isnât trying to grab and parse every single word in a sentence; itâs understanding the phrase as a whole.
Additionally, my brain is just beginning to be able to pick up the meaning of an unknown word based on the surrounding ones. Adjectives and adverbs are the easiest (i.e. yn cymwys ac yn y blaen) followed by nouns for which thereâs a lot of background info (Colin and Gaynor were discussing a funeral so when Colin used the word arch my brain filled in coffin)
(Side note for @Iestyn and @Cat: An application for a work program asked for a âdifficult problem you had to solve and howâ and I wrote in the experience at BootcampâŚspecifically about having to get medication Iâd forgotten in the States. Got accepted, so it worked!)
10 Likes
Thatâs a very exciting point for you to have reachedâŚ
3 Likes
Doing formal things in Welsh is not for the faint hearted becuase most of the time they use formal language. Even native speakers will often choose to have things like bank statments in English! Respect!
Isn;t it amazing how major leaps of development, crossing the crest of a tough mountain, leaping an almost world-record high jump, seem like âminor breakthroughsâ because they âshould have happened beforeâ or âother people can do this alreadyâ.
That is brilliant, and a massive, massive step in your Welsh speaking life. That means that you can now understand stuff without reverting to English. You no longer need your mother tongue to understand Welsh. On other words, Welsh is now an independent language in your brain.
Did I mention that it was quite a big step, actually?!!!
And glad to know that as well as amazing the residents of Llandysul, youâve got some American mileage out of your medication issue!
6 Likes