I’m delighted to announce parallel.cymru to the SSIW community. It’s a bilingual site with books, articles, short stories, interviews and poetry to be read in parallel. I’m beginning to promoting it this week, but would like to give SSIWers an early preview. Why start it? People experience Welsh on a continuum of abilities, but the traditional way of producing material is as a binary Welsh/English option. By presenting reading materials side by side, in parallel, sequenced by level of proficiency, speakers and learners of all abilities can enjoy reading and support their progression to the next level.
The site will provide first person perspectives on using, innovating, creating, translating and researching through the language. Everyone who uses the language has a story to tell, but these are scattered over hundreds of digital and paper locations, with limited search and archive facilities. By curating these articles onto one location, a wealth of modern Welsh culture, innovation and storytelling will emerge.
I’d be delighted for you all to start browsing the website and let me know what you think, either on this forum or by email to parallel.cymru@gmail.com.
Articles published in the pre-release period of October include:
SSIW’s Tatjana talking about learning Welsh in Slovenia.
SSIW’s Dai Morgan with a translation of the Palestinian short story, ‘The Slave Said’.
Author and translator Elin Meek: Translating Roald Dahl’s work into Welsh.
Dysgwr y Flwyddyn 2017 Emma Chappell: My story of learning Welsh.
S4C presenter Eleri Sion: Launching a new series of the quiz show Llyncu Geiriau.
Boom Cymru’s Ffion Coughlan: How we make the show Dal Ati.
Some of the highlights to be published in November include:
Radio 1 and Radio Cymru DJ Huw Stephens- Promoting Welsh music across the UK.
Engineer Ben Evans: Designing the World’s Fastest Car.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Speckled Band.
Composer Dafydd James talking about Tiger Bay The Musical.
Brigyn’s Haleliwia: Story behind the Song.
Welsh language pioneer Heini Grufudd.
Cambridge University historian Rebecca Thomas explaining why Wales is called Wales.
Insight from staff at Y Ganolfan Dysgu Cymraeg Genedlaethol.
Behind the scenes at Radio Cymru’s Tommo show.
Views from managers of Welsh language centres.
An introduction to the Welsh Tech scene and HacIaith.
How to design bilingually for the web and for print.
How Twitter’s Awr y Gymraeg was founded.
How OPRA Cymru’s Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd is being brought to life.
Celebrating Dyfodol i’r Iaith’s fifth anniversary.
History of Pontarddulais Male Voice Choir, Wales’ most successful competitive choir.
How Say Something in Welsh was founded.
How to set up a community radio station.
Author Lynda Newcombe with advice for learners.
Perth Male Voice Choir: Keeping Welsh music alive Down Under.
I had a brief look and I must say that I’m really impressed with the amount of content (including interviews etc.) you’ve already managed to come up with, and your “upcoming” list is really long, too!
Having only completed challenge 1, I may not not be in the best place to pass judgement on a bilingual site, but the site itself looks great, with loads of content and the opportunity to choose articles to suit your ability level.
Definitely a site that I will return to, well done.
Thank you for having me in interview first and for putting questions the way my story could appear at least a bit interesting for wider audience.
The site is great and I’m owed about how many articles are already there and how long list for next month you managed to prepare. You do really great job. The site is really suitable for everyone especially as it’s bilingual and one can have really quick handy tool to take a look into what one didn’t understand. I definately will come back to read many times.
Excellent! I’ve really enjoyed reading the Elin Meek article and am about to dive into @tatjana’s interesting account (I recognise that picture at the top of the article, too, Tatjana - was that taken on a fabulous Bootcamp day in Mwnt?)
Great site, really good quality and a lot of content already. Diolch yn fawr!
This looks a really useful website. An impressive amount of work has gone into it. I’m going to enjoy reading through the articles.
It’s great to see an article there about Becca from The Welsh Gift Shop. She has been a staunch supporter of the SSiW Online Eisteddfod over the years, always happy to provide a beautiful prize or two.
I am very impressed with the website.
We read for pleasure, yet often reading in Welsh is a challenge. Having the two languages side by side is great, but there is the temptation to slide across to the English. However the advantage of being able to go ‘I don’t understand that phrase’ and being able to flick briefly to the English for the understanding and then back to the Welsh is perhaps the main point.
My suggestion would be to have sentences in parallel as perhaps that facilitates the understanding quickly and enable return to reading in Welsh as much as possible. It would look uglier, but I feel that is less important.
Also, there seems to be a great selection of interesting articles already and more to come, da iawn!
Dal ati, I’m looking forward to more
SSIW forum
Thanks everyone for your comments and feedback- I appreciate you all looking at the site and I hope that it will be beneficial on our journeys as learners.
There will be lots of great articles coming this month and I’ve now plugged the site into the wider world. You can keep up to date by adding parallel.cymru into a RSS reader, subscribing to the weekly email summary of articles or following twitter.com/parallel_cymru.
If you have any ideas for articles/interviews, suggestions on how to improve the site or places to publicise it, drop me a line anytime on parallel.cymru@gmail.com.
Diolch o’r galon!
Hi Siaron, No problem, I only signed up to Twitter in the past week! On the main parallel.cymru page, half way down on the right hand side is a sign up form- pop your first name and email address in there, or if it is easier you can email me on parallel.cymru@gmail.com and I will add you.
Thanks for your interest!
Neil
It seems @neilrowlands is a little too humble to post a link to his TV performance on Dal Ati last Sunday. Yes, he put in an appearance in the Profiad Gwaith series, working in a flower shop in Llandeilo, so he has other talents apart from putting a great bilingual website together.
You can see Neil in action here: Dal Ati Nov 5th and it’s available internationally.
Lol thanks Dee and John. Yes, I was on Dal Ati, working Llandeilo’s Siop Pinc for two days with Nia and Catrin in September. It was a great experience, speaking only Welsh with them, the crew and customers, and helped me realise that I can live and work through Welsh. The filming crew, Boom, were fantastic, and I’d encourage anyone else to do something similar.
Thanks everyone for looking at the website and sending me comments. It’s going well, and the site has had a count of 500 views today. As the month goes on I’ll be sending fliers to Welsh for Adults Centres, doing some media work and building the profile. I’m really pleased to have had SSIW support and feedback before rolling it out to more people- the people here are very dedicated to the language and community.
One plug though- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is making an appearance on parallel.cymru tomorrow evening!
Diolch! Gwnes i ffilmio fe cyn gwnes i ddechrau parallel.cymru, felly gwnes i ddim yn sylw fe. Roedd e’n brofiad gwych!
Diolch- fire breathing celebrating Welsh icons should be nominated to be an official emoji…
I didn’t program the dancing dragons. A lovely lady who has, if I remember right, the Forum name @rhywun did, so to make them National you would need her agreement, or so I believe. @aran may know how to get in touch if this mailing fails to attract her!
