I’ve been learning welsh for almost three years. Just got into the office today and picked up voice mail to find a research enquiry about an item that’s in the news at the moment - all in Welsh. Listened to it once, understood it, dealt with it.
It’s hardly a giant leap for mankind, but it’s an important baby step for me. My “listening” Welsh is becoming professionally useful! (And that’s one less Welsh-speaker who had to switch to English to get their message across).
I’m gob-smacked that you should describe that example of life as a Welsh speaker as a ‘baby step’!! On the contrary, it’s a huge achievement, and one of which you should be extremely proud.
I agree! I had a message at home recently about having to call someone back with my bank details, and it took me about 8 goes to finally decipher it. And that was easy language - not like historical thingummy-bobs.
You’re working through the medium of Welsh now, Steve - that’s awesome!
I also have to agree with Aran, that’s not a baby step, it’s a pretty major milestone! Well done Steve!
Diolch, but nobody said anything about speaking! I’m approaching “comfortable” as a Welsh user, but speaking is the gold standard that still sits on the far horizon.
It IS awesome isn’t it!
That is massive. Brilliant 
Nope nope no, no banana there for you sir - understanding the spoken language is comfortably the most complex linguistic activity - you need to be able to deal with a challenging percentage of the possible universe of constructions - when you speak, you’re dealing with a far, far smaller subset, chosen by you.
It’s common for people who use their first language with a very high level of control and intent to feel frustrated about their spoken skills in a second language - but it’s just a kind of cognitive bias, because you’re always dealing with dramatically greater possibility fields in listening/understanding than in speech.
So DRINK that champagne! 
Llongyfarchiadau! 
Another milestone moment…
Last month colleagues decided that my Welsh was probably good enough for them to give up speaking English in meetings where I was the only non-Welsh speaker. They had no real evidence for this - I don’t speak Welsh in the office (yet), but it turns out they were right. I don’t follow everything, but then who needs to follow everything? Now I’m processing fast enough (mostly) to begin to play a part in the meetings, not just follow them. I still have to speak English but hey - progress!
It’s my three year SSiW anniversary in a couple of weeks and I’ve got to exactly the point I wanted to get to. Thanks so much. 
Da iawn Steve! Are your colleagues ok with your talking back to them in English, so long as they can carry on speaking Welsh?
I give you a month
Hollol wych - llongyfarchiadau mawr iawn! 
I think my colleagues are pretty appreciative of my efforts. I’m definitely harder on myself than they are on me. That’s not to say they don’t deserve an English free environment though!