Apart from me you mean 
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As I recall, at least once, you were echoing terribly and had to withdraw! I tend to have trouble with you when I canāt see you, because I canāt quite be sure you are speaking and I canāt see expressions! Also, I auto-switch to English, which is very naughty of me! 
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So, what were my adventures like?
Monday, 6 March 2017
On Monday evening before I left, I just managed to finish the last of the challenges that had been out so far: Level 3 Challenge 6.
Also, the copy of O, mam bach! that I had ordered arrived that day: just in time for me to take it with me on the trip.
Tuesday 7 March 2017
I flew from Hamburg to Manchester with Ryanair. Uneventful. And a bit more legroom than I had expected from a budget airline; I had had more cramped seating on flights within Germany before.
Took the train from Manchester Airport to Bangor to connect to Caernarfon. I had used a split-ticketing website to save a bit of money on the train tickets and it suggested splitting in Flint, so since I had to change trains anyway (the trains from Manchester Airport go to Llandudno, not Holyhead), it suggested I do so in Flint.
So I had a short layover there, during which I met @Pete2, and we spent half an hour or so chatting to each other in Welsh in the waiting room.
My first face-to-face conversation in Welsh!
In Bangor, I took the bus to Caernarfon. Ga i docyn crwydro coch, os gwelwch chiān dda?, I asked the bus driver confidently ā and he understood me! Unfortunately, I didnāt understand his answer of how much it cost, so I had to ask again. But then I got my Red Rover ticket.
(As an aside, Iām really glad for Google Street View. Being able to virtually walk down the roads you will later need to take in advance is great ā I felt confident when I was there because I already knew where I would have to go and what things would look like.)
In Caernarfon, I checked into my accommodation (a small bed-and-breakfast guesthouse called āCartrefā) without a problem.
(I wonder whether thereās some sort of email firewall between me and NW Wales. I had emailed a the guesthouse before as well as a couple of bus companies with some questions, but got nary a peep out of any of them.)
I had read on the guesthouseās website that the owners did not speak Welsh, though one of them was learning. I was a bit disappointed that I was staying at a non-Welsh-speaking place, though as it turned out, the manager ā the young man I actually interacted with ā did speak Welsh! A pity I didnāt find out till the last day.
I had some time so I went into town to look for some flowers as a gift. Again in Welsh ā and I was greated by a flood of words that I only understood parts of. The part of my brain that wanted to understand everything was swimming. But I decided to forge on and respond based on a combination of what I thought I had understood and what I guessed she might want to be asking. In the end, we agreed on something and she made up a nice little bouquet for me.
So that was my first proper transaction with a completely fluent speaker, and it left me a bit shaken ā on the one hand, had I not come to NW Wales in order to speak and hear Welsh? On the other hand, they were actually speaking to me in Welsh, and I didnāt understand! It was completely different from speaking to a learner.
Ah well. Flowers in hand, I walked to a bookshop to see (on @Pete2ās advice) whether they had any Story Sydyn books: cheap and short and reading material, though not explicitly made for learners.
Again, I was faced with a lot of words that I didnāt understand much of, but I did get shown to the right shelf and picked out a couple of books. Paid for them and saw some copies of Catrinās book by the cash register when I did so. I tried to tell them that I was going to visit one of the people whose names were on the front cover.
Then I took the bus towards Aranās house near Carmel. I had my iPad open on Google Maps so that I could see where we were ā as I had seen before on Google Street View, there were no bus stop posts of any kind (and even in the towns, they often didnāt have the name of the stop written on them anyway). As far as I could tell, on that bus route you could get picked up or set down anywhere along the route ā I saw a young man at the side of the road simply hold out his hand, and when I pressed the āstopā button, the bus driver asked me (in Englishā¦) whether I wanted to get off immediately, and I said, no, not here but at the upcoming crossroads. Perhaps I could have asked him to set me off at the crossroads after that which would have been even closer, but I wasnāt thinking quickly enough.
So then I had the choice to walk across the commons, or around by the road. I decided to chance the commons, where I had seen a path on the satellite view, though Aran had warned me that it might be muddy.
The first bit, close to the crossroads on the higher ground, was fine, but further down it did indeed get rather muddy. The good news was that the path was very clear and easy to follow, and the stream I thought I had seen on the satellite view and maps had a block of stone laid across it as a bridge.
So then I got to Aranās house in the end.
He greeted me ā in Welsh, which I was glad for. I wonder whether I would have had the heart to switch into Welsh if he had started in English (the only language we had interacted in so far, here on the forums).
I got on a lot better with him than with the shopkeepers in Caernarfon! Perhaps a combination of 10% being used to his accent, and 90% his being used to speaking with learners and not speaking as quickly as he would to a native-language farmer.
We talked about all sorts of things, even; not just about things related to learning the language. Which I think is a good thing. In the Cornish community, when people speak in Cornish, they often only do so to speak about Cornish, and when I had spoken to other learners to practise, the topic had also often been related to the language itself, but with Aran, we spoke about things such as walking dogs near herds of sheep.
Shortly before I thought I would have to leave to catch the last reasonably-timed bus back into Caernarfon, Catrin came back with the children from karate practice. I think it was she who took a picture of Aran and me:
Aran mentioned that now that Catrin was back, he could also take the car and drive me back to Caernarfon if I wanted, and Catrin asked me whether I wanted to eat something there.
I accepted, and then I had the opportunity to speak with Catrin and their children as well. I wasnāt sure what they would make of my Welsh, but we did speak together a little ā Aran remarked that they were a lot less swil (shy) than they usually were around people they had just met!
Seeing children speak completely naturally in Welsh was a special occasion for me.
I also got to see a demonstration of the āself-offenceā that Beuno is currently learning - poor Aran had to suffer being knocked backwards by a determined Beuno! Angharad seems to be learning almost as much karate as Beuno just from watching him; she also showed a few moves.
We also got a picture of the whole family, thanks to the timer on my camera:
(Angharad in a mouse costume, Beuno in his gi)
Catrin also signed my copy of her book.
Then Aran drove me home and we had some more conversation in the car. A wonderful evening and Iām glad that I got to meet Aran, Catrin, and their family, and for the brilliant experience of speaking Welsh to a fluent speaker for a long time and understanding nearly everything!
(One of the topics when we did speak about Welsh itself was that Aran said that my vocabulary seemed to consist of most of the most useful and common words. As opposed to things such as heulog or gwyntog which are a staple of beginnersā Welsh courses, but how often do you actually talk about the weather? At any rate, I seemed to have acquired a decent basis.)
Wednesday, 8 March 2017
My body was still on German summer time, so I woke up at four oāclock.
(At some point a few years ago, I decided not to switch back and forth between summer and winter time and to get up at the same time all year round, even though that means the clock would read ā6:00ā in summer and ā5:00ā in winter.)
I decided to make an early start of it and took an early bus to Menai Bridge. This time, my request for a tocyn crwydro coch got a blank look until I asked for a Red Rover ticket instead.
I had breakfast in Menai bridge, in a little shop that makes sandwiches. I managed to order them in Welsh but then when I didnāt understand a question, the shopkeeper switched to English for the remainder of the transaction. Lamb and mint filling in a sandwich was something I had never had before and it did taste interesting.
I think I found Dani and Davidās house and also, I think, the houses where Arthur and Iris, Terry and Glenda, and Meical and Michelle live, and took some pictures of them. (And got approached by someone who thought it rather odd that I was taking pictures of houses.)
Then went down to the Rownd a Rownd set.
I had read that the shops are lot smaller on the inside than they look on camera and that thereās a sign telling the public that those are not real shops, but I canāt confirm that: I didnāt see a sign indicating that the shops were fake, and the insides looked reasonable enough. The Copa even had a list of drinks on display in a little display case on the outside.
There were people going around inside them, getting things out of a storeroom and so on, but I didnāt dare to go inside and ask whether I could have a look around the inside. I did ask a lady who was sitting behind the country of TÅ· Pizza whether it was OK to take pictures of the set, and she said that would be fine. So I have a few pictures from the outside.
Iām bad at faces but I donāt think I saw any of the actors, except that one of the men I saw might have been one of the cast, not quite sure who though.
Then I took the bus to Llanfairpwll and took a couple of pictures at the railway station. Thereās construction going on there: the main footbridge was gone and the stairs were covered in plastic sheeting, and a temporary footbridge had been erected. One of the workmen was so kind as to take a picture of me in front of the station building with the roundel:
He had to stand on the opposite platform to be far enough away to get the whole name on the sign 
All this had been in English.
Shortly before the train arrived, a family of French Canadians (grandmother, father, son?) from Ontario came onto the platform and I spoke some French to them. Their Canadian French sounded a bit different from my school French but we understood each other. The young boy with them apparently spoke not only French and Welsh but was now learning English as well.
On the train, I managed to buy a ticket to Bangor in Welsh, so that was good.
Then I took the bus to Llanberis. The post office I had found on Google Maps, where I wanted to post some postcards I had written, was apparently closed. I asked a passer-by for confirmation (in English) and she said that yes, this particular place was closed but there was a Post Office counter in the SPAR not far away. So I headed over there and bought some stamps, in Welsh this time.
I found it interesting that she quoted the price to me in English: she told me the stamps were one pound five yr un, i.e. as if she had been saying un livre cinq centimes for each of them or something like that.
It reminded me of something Aran had said the previous evening, that many Welsh of a certain age do all their numbers in English because they had been taught mathematics only in English at school.
I then went down to the āPantriā, which I had heard recommended as a good place to have coffee and hear Welsh. I donāt drink coffee but I had some hot chocolate, some bara brith, and some Welshcakes. And spoke some Welsh! Though again, the owner switched to English after a snag in the conversation. But he seemed interested in my learning Welsh.
I then went for a ride with the Llanberis Lake Railway, buying my tickets in Welsh. (Though here, too, the lady said the price in English.)
And went to visit the Slate Museum afterwards. The entrance is through the gift shop, and the lady at the counter handed me a map of the place and briefly explained where to start and what was going on.
I had a look around the shop first, then picked out some slate things I wanted to take home. I had heard her speak with her colleage in Welsh so I asked her, Ga i dalu efo cerdyn credit? āCan I pay with credit card?ā She said, āYes, of courseā (or something like that), then when she went to wrap the slate in bubble wrap, she said, āOh, sorry, you had been speaking Welsh, werenāt you?ā and talked a little in Welsh ā I didnāt understand everything, again, but I think she said that she could have done the little introduction to the museum if she had known, and that she could hold the slate for me until I had finished looking around the museum if I wanted.
At first I thought I wouldnāt have the energy to look around much so I just took them with me, but then I decided to go back in. I got the first ladyās colleague this time and when I asked here where the various presentations were, she told me about them in Welsh. Again, I understood some but not all, but I think I got the most important bits: that the one presentation waits to start until all have come from the other one, and something about blue signs.
There was an interesting film (in English) called āTo Steal a Mountainā or something like that, about the history of slate mining, and then a demonstration of splitting and dressing slate.
(While I had been walking around that room before the presentation started and the gentleman who would later do it walked in, I said, Dach chiān iawn? and got a Tsiampion, diolch yn fawr back ā I remembered that word from Rownd a Rownd! Philip Parry would sometimes say he was feeling ātsiampionā.)
On the grounds of the museum, there were four houses that had previously housed mine workers and their families in, I believe, Tanygrisiau: they had been dismantled there and re-assembled at the museum, then furnished to represent four different time periods. The first house had a film running inside explaining the process ā a sign said that it would run alternately in Welsh and English. When I came in, it was in Welsh but with English subtitles, so that was interesting, and I assumed that they didnāt do it alternately after all. But when it was finished, it started again with English and Welsh subtitles! Not quite the same, though, I think, since the same people whom they had interviewed before now spoke English and I donāt suppose they would say the same things twice, so one could probably have watched the whole film twice and learned even more about the houses, but as it was, I only saw about half of it.
Took the bus back to Caernarfon, had some late lunch at the Black Boy Inn, and retired to my room, though it was still just afternoon.
Thursday, 9 March 2017
In the breakfast room, I asked the manager whether he spoke Welsh and he said yes. I wish I had known that earlier, I said; I could have tried to practise my Welsh.
A lady came in and overheard that. She exchanged a few words with the manager and then asked me (in English) whether I had understood that; I said only partly. She said that Welsh is not easy and that if you donāt know what to expect to hear, that makes it more difficult.
When I mentioned that I was using SaySomethinginWelsh, she said that she knew the person behind it. I asked whether she had been on the forum and she said not yet. Sheās from Abergavenny, if that rings a bell with @aran or @Iestyn? (I didnāt ask her name.)
Just a brief conversation since I had to leave fairly soon to catch my bus to Bangor. This time, a request for Ga i docyn i Fangor? got a blank look as well. Tocyn i Fangor?, I repeated. Still nothiong. āA ticket to Bangor, please? Single?ā That got me results. I would have thought that a bus driver in Gwynedd could have learned at least tocyn and i Fangor at some pointā¦ but the important thing was that I got to where I needed to go, I suppose.
Then train to Crewe, where I decided whether to find something to eat or continue on to the airport immediately. I was glad for my off-peak return and the flexibility of choosing any train I wanted. Ended up taking a later train.
And was glad I had once I got to Manchester Airport; the departure part is one big sales area. Ugh! And gates are not displayed until shortly before the boarding time so everyone has to wait in the middle of all those shops.
A reasonably uneventful flight (except for āThe captain has now switched on the āFasten Seatbeltā signs as there is some turbulence, so please YOU BACK THERE, SIT DOWN NOW return to your seats and fasten your seat-beltsā).
And rain back in Hamburg. While the weather in Wales had been very cooperative, deciding to rain only at night, though the forecasts had predicted rain in the evening and morning up until the time I left.
So, this got long. Thank you for reading!
I got to see some things and speak some Welsh ā and listen to some Welsh, with more or less success. Certainly an interesting experience.
And while the interactions in Welsh in shops felt only partly successful, my long conversation with Aran has raised my spirits.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the power of SaySomethinginWelsh.
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Thanks for sharing, Philip! Delighted that you had such an interesting time - and as I said, your Welsh was hugely impressive for 4 months - which Iām sure was in large part because of your wide language learning experienceā¦ 
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I do hope you can come again. Maybe next time it would be good to get shown around by one of us from the area. If only to give you more chances to speak Welsh.
I enjoyed our chat, and hope the llyfrau stori sydyn are ok. I enjoyed āy stelciwrā a lot.
Well done indeed. The first mini bwtcamp i organised was after four months of learning so i know how successful you have been in conversing in Welsh already.
Da iawn Philip. Oedd yn neis iawn i gyfarfod ti.
Pete
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Thanks for the detailed and interesting review of your trip to Cymru , Philip . Iām glad it was a success and you had lots of opportunities to practice your Welsh . Did Gogledd Cymru differentiate at all from what you expected ?
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@philipnewton Thanks for the synopsis and photos - I enjoyed reading the details of your trip! Glad you had a good time and congratulations on using your Welsh in the wild. Da iawn ti! 
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@philipnewton diolch! About Maths in schools, well, @Pete2 would be the expert, as he teaches it, but I suspect the prpblem is that āeverydayā Welsh uses numbers loosely based on Roman, with odd Celtic snippets like deunaw for 18, and it isnāt the easiest route to learning sums! They introduced the numbers I learned, which are simply translations of English, 18 is un deg wyth, but kids raised in Welsh would maybe find that as foreign as just using English!
Thanks for sharing that, Philip. It was really informative and interesting. It will be a real encouragement to us all.
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The problem with numbers is that many speakers learnt maths in english so numbers are more frequently used in english than welsh. Nothing really to do with the welsh number system. The numerals are still denary even if the system isnāt.
So all denary based operations still work. Its not like say system with a different number base or differing systems for displaying numbers.
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Iām not really sure what I expected. Green and sheep, perhaps? I certainly saw both of those.
Coming over the Britannia Bridge and seeing snow-capped mountains in the distance was pretty impressive, Iāll say.
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Mind, next time it would be great to approach from the south! Suddenly seeing Snowdonia rising above you into a clear sky is heart-stopping! But I first went by train and saw what you saw! I, too was impressed by the green, because I grew up with the notion that y gogledd was slate grey, slate, slate everywhere! I was stunned by the green beauty, and only now do I realise that my expectations were as foolish as those who visited me on Gower and were amazed that anywhere in South Wales wasnāt full of coal tips! (I made sure they found out that not even the valleys were all āRhondda Greyā!) Oh, looking at Ynys Mon from the mainland always made me think of northern Italy, Venice or the Lakes. I totally understood the inspiration Clough Williams Ellis had for Portmeirion
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ā¦and now, the Valleys are all green again.
Many thanks, a great read!
I was told a little while ago that thereās a little pinbadge avaiable to indicate that youāre speaker or a learner of Welsh. My local siop Cymraeg is due to get some in so I was going to get a learner badge but it does seem a shame that the assumption is English first, Welsh if asked and that a badge should be needed at all, but I think that really, I wanted the dysgu badge a bit of a ābe gentle on meā so probably wonāt get it after all!
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Now you tell me
So, since moving here in the eighties, Iāve stopped myself from saying āthatās championā as I was sure that it would be a bit of NE England dialect that would be meaningless here. Can I get away with it now?
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My neighbour, Welsh to the core, uses it all the time
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Sāmae Philip,
There was definitely a sign on the RaR set warning people that the shops are āfakeā when I visited, but it was fairly discreet, and that was perhaps a couple of years ago. If it was the filming season when you visited (even if they werenāt shooting at the time you visited), perhaps the sign was removed temporarily.
Fantastic that you found those houses. If you could possibly PM me with the locations, if you have them, that would be great. I was looking for those houses when I was there (not Davidās because this was pre-David), but without success. (I was a bit limited for time).
Sounds like you had a great visit to NW Wales anyway!
Hwyl fawr,
Mike
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Several of my (mostly older) relatives, and my Grandad when he was alive, use/used this a lot, so I kind of grew up with it, even though I grew up in the south. But weād visit the extended family every year in the summer holidays. They live/lived in the NW, in southern Cumbria. I thought that āChampionā was stereotypically supposed to be a Yorkshire saying though.
(Listen to the lyrics, for example, of āMy girlās a Yorkshire Girlā, which you can find on Youtube.
āeeee bah goom sheās a championā¦ā )
I love it actually, and occasionally throw it into a conversation with southerners. Strange looks ensue, but Iām old enough not to care ā¦
I love it when the characters on RaR use it also (tends to be the oldies like Arthur, but not always. Vince is another user of it. Of course their pronunciation of it is subtly different from Cumbria/Lancashire/Yorkshire).
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Iām pretty sure when I was in Caernarfon Tesco last summer, the checkout girl used āTsiampionā as a farewell greeting. I had conducted the shopping transaction in Welsh, of course 
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I posted them on the āRownd a Rowndā thread since I thought others might be interested, too (and I donāt think itās particularly secret since itās moderately obvious once youāre there if youāve watched the series).
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