I do indeed live in South Wales. Although Swansea doesn’t have a huge amount of Welsh speakers. (not that I’m aware of anyway) The only people I do know that speak welsh are my partner and most of her friends. I’ve not spoke to her friends much in English and not at all in Welsh.
The idea of watching something and then having a discussion about it is a very good idea. But again my vocab doesn’t stretch to taking ‘about’ something yet, more saying what i/you, am/will be/ have done sort of conversations.
If you start watching things, your vocabulary will certainly grow:) Anyway, it’s not very important at the beginning that you actually say something valuable about coal mining or the new brand of food or whatever, it’s just an aid for you, because it’ll give you a reason to speak (to express you opinion) and some words that you might use. For example, you might watch or read a piece of news about the new kind of bread and say: Oh, that’s lovely, I’d like to try it, what do you think? (I’m pretty sure you know all these words in Welsh). Don’t worry, you’ll eventually get to longer sentences and monologues, this is just to break the ice.
Find yourself super-small tasks to start with. The main thing is to get anything said at all, to start normalising it. Just say “Bore da!” to her one day, or “Ti’n moyn paned?” (Want a cuppa?) or “Dw i’n dy garu di!” (I love you!) She’ll probably be chuffed - you will already have made a massive leap, and eventually one thing will lead to another.
There’s definitely a friendly a SSIW group in Swansea. That would be a good place to practise!
I can totally identify with the problem! Despite doing A level French (quite well), I completely failed to speak any French to French-speaking friends at college. This bothered me so much that I became a bit obsessed with the idea of learning a language properly. I learnt German by myself and managed to organise to go there for a post-grad course, where I finally overcame the fear of jumping in (as it was the only thing to do!) I well remember the terror of the early attempts to get something out of my mouth. Later when I started to learn Welsh, I kind of knew what I had to do, but it was still hard at the beginning.
Bore Da Pawb. Just quick update. I manage to have a little conversation in Welsh with my partner last night. It was only 4-5 sentences and I did get one of them wrong. So happy I managed to do it.
I need to thank everyone again for the support and encouragement they gave me. Since taking the jump and using a tiny amount of Welsh with my partner it has opened the flood gates and I’m using welsh for what I know before English. I’m even answering English questions in Welsh.
Da iawn!!
I have a tiny example for you…
Me, in Paris for the first time, having left the other girls to sleep off the boat trip, setting off to see the Louvre. Lost. See gendarme! Hail him! Then, in my head, "Oh goodness, Gendarmes aren’t like cops at home, I probably shouldn’t have… help…oh dear,… then, in panic, aloud, “Ou est la Mona Lisa?”
(Sorry no accents, can’t do them on my laptop)
The Gendarme was a sweetie and gave me lovely clear directions!
So, I totally understand the ‘stage fright’, I knew my lines on stage!! And am living proof that saying anything is better than nothing at all!
I will certainly give it a go
