Happy New Year to Everybody

Welsh General / Questions
#21

Blwyddyn newydd dda i chi,
Ac i bawb sydd yn y tŷ.
Dyma yw’n dymuniad ni:
Blwyddyn newydd dda i chi!

A traditional song, sang by children around the houses on the morning of dydd Calan (new year’s day), and rewarded by the giving of calennig - sweets or money, usually.

Of course, my kids add “dydldidym. Yeah!” to the end…

So - a very best new year, and here’s to all the good we can do with a brand new year: Let’s see how much we can better ourselves - whether that’s in language ability or some other worthwhile way - and how much we can improve the world around us during 2017.

Cariad mawr i chi gyd,

Iestyn a’r teulu

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#22

It is hard for me to believe that around this time last year, I resolved to learn Welsh properly, with the help of SSIW. Thanks to being unemployed, I was able to charge through everything in just over three months. This enables me to engage with the Welsh language. Indeed I have done no real formal learning since April. Nonetheless I can note I have continued to progress.

I have listened to and continue to listen to a fir amount of Radio Cymru’s output. This has been immensely useful. I can clearly hear every word, even if i don’t know what it means. More recently, there are little periods when i can listen in Welsh, without my mind attempting a simultaneous translation. I even caught myself recently, not noticing that i was listening to Welsh, it has almost become merely another way of saying something. The listening practices, really helped, it was difficult at first, but it was hugely rewarding and helped me so much.

Another thing was reading. I am indebted to the Nofelau Nawr series and the works of Lois Arnold. Again it was a real struggle to begin with, but again, so rewarding and slowly but surely my reading has speeded up. I’m currently taking piles of childrens books from the library and reading without a dictionary and finding just the odd word, to guess at.

The third thing was join a Welsh conversation group. Again, this was challenging at first, I was just listening, but slowly but surely I began to be involved in the conversation. Although jokes did take a few seconds to register with me at times!. Again, I am massively indebted to the Wednesday night group at Arvon Ales in Llandrindod.

I think what all this experience of engaging with Welsh has done, its hearing the words in lots of different contexts, so I can get the meaning in Welsh, rather than in translation. Things then make so much more sense.

So, what of 2017? More please! Trying to ensure at least 10 minutes of doing something in Welsh (which is harder now I’m working full time) and keep improving. Looking forward so much to going to Bootcamp in April, hopefully that will push things onward another step to fluency. Also now I’ve got the language bug, to not flirt with it, but learn Spanish in a similar way.

So, really, a massive thank you to everyone in the SSiW community. I hope you all make progress with your Welsh and whatever other things you want to do this year.

Blwyddyn newydd dda i pawb!

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#23

Thank you for this post, very inspiring:)

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#24

Sadly, I haven’t ever learned Finnish and had to resort to Google translate. Happy New Year was easier, because I just asked someone and repeated it several tines until he said it was OK - talking to people and asking them to correct you is definitely the easiest way to learn to say a few things initially.

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#25

I just thought I’d have a crack at understanding what Toffidil had written and it worked well enough. Hwyl.

#26

Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that what you did was wrong in any way! Sorry if it came off as that! :flushed:

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#27

I can only say, I admire you enormously. I came on here for all the wrong reasons, to chat, to deal with hiraeth… and, a bit, to make watching S4C easier by rekindling a bit of my lost Cymraeg. People like you and @Novem, @Toffidil, @Pete2, @Jaclyn etc who progress so fast and learn so much, and apply it… well you motivate me to put in a bit more effort!
Also, I believe it’s the best possible way to stave off Altzheimer’s, of which I am truly terrified!

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#28

Hey, no way did you imply that what I did was wrong; I certainly didn’t read it like that. I’ve heard criticisms of Google Translate re Welsh too. I don’t know how to give Smiley symbols from my PC.

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#29

Okay, good, thank you! :blush: I guess I read your message in a different tone, as I was already a bit anxious :smile:

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#30

No what you said was spot on. Google translate is very limited and thank goodness it is, it means that languages are still something beyond the brilliance of computer technologies. They are human which is fantastic

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#31

Спасибо. Я то же самое Вам желаю.

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#32

Sorry…have you confused me with someone else? :wink:

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#33

HAHA! No, she didn’t! :slight_smile:

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#34

@tatjana had already answered that! You speak lovely Welsh!

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#35

@tatjana @henddraig i speak painfully slow welsh with my two favourite words being err and umm.

I listen to others and it just seems to flow.

I shall keep trying though.

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#36

On the phone, you seemed to flow! My mind went totally blank!! I don’t think I even managed er and um!!

#37

Having spoken to @Pete2 wyneb i wyneb I can assure you that he speaks clearly and fluently. The ‘painfully slow Welsh’ is totally in his head, and therefore not to be trusted!

Our own opinions of ourselves are generally far too harsh and should not be believed. We wouldn’t speak of anyone else in that way, we oughtn’t to speak of ourselves that way either,

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#38

@margaretnock that is so kind…i disagree of course!

#39

And would you say the same about anyone else?

#40

I agree with margaretnock. We tend to impose far harsher criteria on ourselves when speaking other languages than we do when speaking our native language.

1 Like