I know just how you feel and share your reasoning. Keep at it and I’m sure we will get there! Clare
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There will be a good number of SSIWers in Caernarfon during the first week in June - if you’re in that area there are sure to be some events you could join (although the big party on the 31st/1st is fully booked).
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I want to be a Welsh speaker because I love Wales, Welsh culture and the sound of the language. I’d like to make a small contribution to keeping the language alive. In the future, I’d like to pass on at least two languages to my niece (but not English, because her parents can do that I suppose!). Actually, passing on a language to any willing human would be nice. It’s a beautiful thing to learn about the world and yourself through another language. You can see things in another way, from a new perspective. I’d love to be able to order a beer and start a conversation in Welsh and maybe someday even get a joke. The first time I understood a joke in my second language, Spanish, was exhilarating, I was on an absolute high! I’d love to have that feeling again.
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Thanks! Is there a particular event going on? We were going to fly into Caerdydd, but are thinking of taking the ferry (with a car) from Dublin instead. That way we could go to Holyhead and head down the coast, so we could also hit Caenarfon!
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Yes, me too, up until the age of 10 Welsh was the default language of my Mother, and now beginning to learn Welsh is a re-discovery of my time with her.
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It’s amazing how learning Welsh instantly connects a person to the past and adds another path to the future! I really enjoy reading stories like this.
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Thanks; yes that is it! I didn’t anticipate, quite, the emotional charge in this.
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I’ve always heard Welsh around when I venture into Welsh-speaking areas and I’ve always wanted to be a part of that hidden world - years later I still only know the one Welsh speaker but that’s a start 
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I’m live in the US and have Welsh ancestry, but don’t have the immediate connection you have, and I feel like I’ve found a long lost family. I can only image how I would feel if I had a personal connection to Wales.
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Are you doing any family history research? I am, with my brothers, and it is an exciting voyage of discovery enriching our links with the part of Wales we come from.
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@daveyeg
My wife had the lilt BBC’d out of her by her father until she no longer sounded Welsh. I never had the pleasure of hearing her natural, non-Queen’s English.
Language is important, that is why you will have noticed here and there in the threads that the culture and heart of the people was changed within generations. It was not an accident.
Embrace your language and history. 
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I cannot 
this enough. I was born in NY NY as it happens. It warms my heart that the Welsh also have a strong pulse in the States. I have lived in Australia over 30 years now…
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Shwmae @terry-mccormick! It was my research into my family history that led me to want to learn Cymraeg, and I had the good fortune to find my way here.
I was adopted, as was my birth mother and she never knew where we came from, not even her own mother’s name… nor her own original name, for that matter. I’ve discovered so many people in my family’s past since her records were unsealed after her passing three years ago. I found through my research, and DNA as well, that I have Welsh ancestors, and that’s what began my journey. The more I learn about Welsh culture, the more sure I am that my Welsh side has always run strong in me, even after generation upon generation born in the US. It’s felt like coming home in a way, from thousands of miles afar.
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Diolch o galon, David. And thank you for being a part of keeping the language green.
Yn wyr!..truly/indeed
Diolch Sasha. This is wonderful and all the very best for your research alongside your Welsh learning, I wonder in which part of the USA your ancestors first landed up? My family come from a part of Wales in Ceredigion, where there was a mass exodus to America from c.1750 onwards contunuing to about with a high point arpound 1830 and tailing off around 1850. An estimated 4000 people left, many settling in and around Ohio. There is some very good quality information and knowledge about this.
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My confirmed welsh ancestor came in a wave of “non-conformists” (baptist and quaker, mostly) recruited by William Penn to settle in the area around Philadelphia in the 1680’s.
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I want to be a Welsh speaker because I want to follow in the footsteps of my Father Meic O’Shea who spent over 30 years of his life dedicated to teaching and speaking welsh. He was so passionate about Wales the welsh culture and the language. Now I live here I want to be part of this too.
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I couldn’t understand any of the first sentance but the second i understood perfectly and i’ve only just finished the initial course. I hope you don’t mind me gloating but i am very proud of myself.
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Croeso, LouiseO i’r ffrwm. Welcome to the forum. I’ve said this many times in this thread, but it’s amazing how a language unites generations and builds a pathway from the past to the present to the future passing on a heritage, in ways English does not.
And so you should be…gloat away but do it Welsh 
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