…I want to go that lovely pub in Llanbydder and order my pint and sandwich in welsh while the equally awesome local farmers sit at the end of the bar and look mightily impressed!
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I want to be a Welsh speaker because I want to keep my country’s heritage alive.
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I want to speak Welsh as I want to make my Dad and my Welsh family proud.
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Growing up we spent all our summer holidays on a farm in Wales and started to pick up words and sentences. Then as an adult I married a man from a Welsh family. We had a holiday home in Wales. I always wanted to know what the family, or people in the pub were saying. I loved the sound of the Welsh language and always wanted to learn. After my husband died I met an American and I moved to America a few years ago but when we travel back to the UK we usually stay in Wales. I would love to be able to converse with my late husbands family and with the locals in their native tongue. We hope to come back over in November and then I can try it out and suprise them
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Little change as to why I used these words back in March, but due to the course I am feeling more determined and confident when I try to use my new language 
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I want to speak Welsh because I enjoy it and hope to see Wales someday. I speak seven languages and Welsh is by far my favourite!
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I want to learn Welsh because I want to show my respect for the country and community I live in plus, it’s beautiful and learning languages is hugely rewarding.
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I want to be a Welsh speaker because there is such a lovely link between language and place. Wales is a beautiful place with such wonderful character, and it’s a joy to continually learn more and more through experience that the Welsh language is equally as beautiful and full of character and poetry and history and humour! I grew up spending so many of my holidays in Wales and love the hills, coasts, rivers, towns and the people. As an adult it is such a joy to learn the language and increasingly be able to use is when I am in Wales. I also love how patient and enthusiastic my new fluent Welsh-speaking community are with beginners, you couldn’t hope for a more hospitable and helpful bunch!
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I want to be a Welsh speaker to connect to my cultural heritage. I’ve always felt quite disconnected from my roots because while my mum is Welsh and my dad is Scottish, I grew up in England and hardly know anything about their cultures or languages. I’ve visited Wales a lot to see family and it’s such a beautiful country - I want to be able to spend a lot more time there, possibly even live there someday.
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“Take up a new hobby: That thing you have been dreaming of doing maybe. Treat yourself.”
I read, write, and create art, but those are as much a part of me as breathing. Self-care? Sure. Coping skills? Absolutely … especially, writing. But hobbies? No.
Learn a language? Maybe. Like … Welsh?
Sure, I’ve got that whole Italian thing going on. My dad’s parents were from a tiny village in the Italian Alps, but both died before I was born. My dad was American, never Italian American.
My mother’s great-great-greats, or greater, came from England, Ireland, and Scotland, before there was a tea party in the harbor. Perhaps, one or two slipped into that ancestral pool from Wales?
And … y Ddraig Goch. I could say a dragon is my protector, the source of my strength. She brought me joy at a dark time in my life. But that would be just too weird, right? So, I won’t say that. I’ll just say, of all the creatures that ever were or never were, that dwelled on the edges of the seas, in the mists, or between the pages of books, the dragon is wisdom, strength, and freedom.
Still too weird?
I want to be a Welsh speaker because I quite often encounter and stumble over Welsh names or places in books. Or townships and streets in Philadelphia. Bala Cynwyd and Bryn Mawr or the streets … Llanberris, Llandrillo, Llanllew, Llanfair, Clwyd, Cynwyd, and St. Asaphs.
Mae’r Gymraeg yn iaith hardd dw i’n gobeithio dallt, darllen, a siarad.
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Great post Keryl
On a working visit some years ago I needed to drive from Pittsburgh University to Penn State. I was delighted when I passed through a suburb of Pittsburgh called Nantyglo - a mining village less than half an hour from where I was born (as indeed is Brynmawr (which has very little obvious connection with the famous women’s college))
When I worked at Aberystwyth University, there was quite a bit of specialist interest in Welsh migration to Pennsylvania and other mining regions.
Pob lwc / good luck with learning Welsh.
Huw
Correction: I have just checked and see that Nanty-glo is in fact nearly half way between Pittsburgh and State College. My visit was over 20 years ago. Yet another example of my failing memory. 
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I have lived in Wales all my life and want to be able to converse with my Welsh speaking friends.
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…I’m an old, lifetime learner and this is my way of continuing and reaching back to my Welsh ancestors.
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I want to be a Welsh speaker so I can order a pint at my favourite pub in Caernarfon, chat with my mate Jonesy, and say hello to anyone else I meet on my travels in Wales.
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I’ve lived in Wales all my life and would love to be able to speak the language.
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It’s making me use my brain again after an unpleasant illness and I’m really enjoying the challenge and now I want to move to Wales.
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Same here, I find it my number one coping skill!
Hugs to you.
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Thank you for such a lovely reply! I shall now do a bit more Welsh practice and I was tempted to try to write this in Welsh.
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On I’n moyn bod Siaradwr Cymraeg achos bod fy merch yn siarad Cymraeg - Mae hi’n mynd I ysgol Gymraeg - ac fi’n awyddus iawn I fod gallu cyfathrebu 'da hi.
Y rheswm Arall yw fy mod i’n Cymro.On I 'n di -Cymraeg ond cam wrth cam fi teimlo fy mod i’n cyrraedd fy amgan.
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After a lifetime’s love affair with the country its people and culture I now live in Wales. My great grandfather came from Abertawe and I spent my childhood holidays in North Wales, so learning this lovely, poetic language was a no brainer. We need to keep it alive.
I want to be able to feel that I belong here, that I can speak the language of the street, that eventually I will croesi’r bont and think in Welsh. When I leave Wales the feeling of hiraeth is intense and whilst not Cymraes, but Saes(ar hyn o bryd) i feel I am Welsh yn fy nghalon.
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