'I want to be a Welsh speaker because...'

I want to be a Welsh speaker because I want to connect with my heritage. One thing I hope will happen is I’d love to be able to visit Wales someday.

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Though I am not of Welsh heritage, I’ve had a fascination with the Welsh language from my childhood in the western suburbs of Philadelphia with its numerous Welsh place-names. Additionally, due to my experience with the Irish language I have become interested in interested in language revival. I’d like contribute my little bit to the rebirth of Welsh, learn more about the culture and people of Wales, and be able to speak it when I visit in the hopefully not too distant future.

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I want to be a Welsh speaker to connect with my ancestral roots and i love Wales.

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Welsh is a British language.

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Because I live in Holland and I miss Wales. I am born in Wales and my family lives in wales. I love the people and the culture. I love hearing Welsh and speaking it. I will feel proud and I won t miss Wales so much . I hope to live in Wales one day so I can speak to the people and enjoy the culture.

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I have loved the music of Datblygu since first hearing them on John Peel nearly 30 years ago, and I want to be able to understand the words without reading them.

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:joy: We’ll put in a word for you :wink:

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I want to be a welsh speaker because I’d like to be part of the people who keep the language alive.

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I want to be a Welsh speaker because although I live in England and work remotely, I work for a Welsh university, in Lampeter - and when I go there in person, everyone speaks Welsh. Although I have been able to construct a few basic sentences in Welsh for years, I often can’t understand the reply!

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I want to be a Welsh speaker because it would make my dad proud, and I feel very emotive when I think about the reason we don’t all speak Welsh in Wales from birth. It’s a stolen language and that makes me sad.

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That’s a very powerful reason, Emily - it’ll help drive you on when the going gets tough - pob lwc! :muscle::star2:

I want to be a Welsh speaker because… it is the first language of almost all my family on my Mum’s side. I spent so much time as a child staying with my Mamgu and Dadcu in Cardigan. They would teach myself and my sister little phrases of Welsh but it wasn’t until recently I decided to take my learning more seriously. Mamgu was terminally ill and we’d taken one last holiday back to West Wales. When I told her I was going to learn Welsh, she cried and the pride on her face is the motivation that keeps me going. She sadly recently passed away, but I felt so proud to be having small conversations in Welsh at her funeral and I think she would be too.

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That’s such a moving story, Sara - thank you for sharing with us - I can imagine it will certainly help drive you on through the difficult stages :muscle:

I didn’t learn in time to have a conversation with my Taid - but apparently he corrected everyone’s Welsh all the time, so maybe I dodged a bullet… :wink:

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I’m lucky that my Dadcu is still with us and I get to practise my Welsh with him and my Mum! I know that if my Mamgu was around she’d be saying to me ‘da iawn’ :grinning:

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No doubt about it! :muscle::boom:

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I want to be a Welsh speaker… because languages are a passion of mine, and I especially love grammar! I live not too far away from Wales and hope that I might one day actually have a conversation in Welsh…! Although, to be honest, I learn generally learn languages because I love the sound, feel, structure etc of them, rather than actually needing to learn for any specific reason.
In addition, I am a Davies, so I have Welsh heritage on my Dad’s side (Trefynwy a.k.a. Monmouth area), so it’s possible that there were Welsh speakers in the family at some point.

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Depending how old your dad is, I may have crossed paths with him - I’m originally from Trefynwy too! (If you’re ever in Caernarfon, give me a shout and we can have a chat about it over a panad! :wink: )

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Actually the Welsh heritage is going back quite a few generations I think - my Dad and his Dad both grew up in Birmingham. I need to find out at what point they came from Monmouth. But it would be cool to speak Welsh sometime, so I’ll let you know if I’m in the area. I live in Bromyard, so it’s not that far :slightly_smiling_face:

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Well, this is an interesting question to answer briefly!

Initially I started to learn because my other half is a native Welsh speaker and I wanted to be able to speak some Welsh with her and her parents on our frequent visits. Also speaking a little Welsh with her at home in England felt good in the surrounding sea of monoglots.

Now that I’ve properly started, I’m enjoying the richness of the language and how it sounds and the long heritage and connection to culture.

In particular, I’m now starting to really appreciate the great variety and flexibibility of all the dialects, the different way Welsh ‘works’ as a language and how this also makes you think differently. As a result, as someone who speaks English with a Yorkshire dialect and always felt that I had to ‘tidy it up’ in some situations, I’ve now started celebrating the dialectical variety of the way English is spoken as well and noticing how different ‘my’ spoken English is as well.

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I want to be a Welsh speaker because I can then begin to speak to my friends in Bethesda next time I’m down there.
I’m hoping that I can have a more sustained conversation in Welsh on the Beddgelert - Caernarfon bus, I tried in August but didn’t get too far!

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