Ummm, yes, this…
Diolch for your kind words.
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[scratches head, tries to think what Jeff could mean]
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Thanks mate, feel rather chuffed. You have come on leaps and bounds since then I bet. That was a brilliant boot camp. would love to have a chat and catch up sometime soon. If you got Skype let me know. I left my laptop in bala so can’t Skype til end of month.
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I like to say a massive thank you to two very good friends of ours (and Emma’s future bridesmaids) Gwenllian ac Erin. They’ve always been very supportive of my efforts and, even though Erin laughs at me sounding like a Gog, they’re always very encouraging.
Gwen has spent many a drunk evening listening to me ramble yn Gymraeg.
Felly, diolch am bopeth merched!
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This week I’m thanking my friends for putting up with me!
Diolch Carina, Qingxin, Julia and Xinhe for all your help and support with Welsh and for letting me talk about it every day. Diolch for turning to look at me whenever Wales or Welsh is mentioned and for having introduced me to people by just telling them I speak Welsh. Thank you, Carina, for playing Enaid Coll with me and Qingxin for those half-Welsh, half-Chinese/French “conversations” where neither of us know what the other is talking about.
Diolch to Touko as well, for responding to my “Diolchs” with a “Croeso” instead of a question mark 
It all means a lot to me. I’m lucky to have friends like you. Diolch yn fawr 
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My thank you this week goes to @elizabeth_jane. I met Liz on Bootcamp in 2014. Her sense of fun, infectious laugh and kindness went a long way to calming the nerves of a very worried Bootcamper. Not only that, Liz spent a lot of time helping me to use the Welsh that I had acquired effectively, and it is very much down to her that I realised the importance of saying what I wanted to say in Welsh in new ways, rather than trying a direct translation from the English. Liz and I have continued to correspond, sometimes in Welsh, this has been an enormous help in enabling me to write (very simply) in Welsh. Diolch yn Fawr Iawn Liz, 
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Oh Andy that is so kind. You were always going to do well, once you got past the fear factor. My Bootcamp friends are now some of my besties. You are one of them. Hopefully we can catch up this time. 
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Another Wednesday, another Diolch from me …
If I’ve expressed some gratitude to BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio Wales last week I just can not to miss out to thank one more particular person this week.
My fifth thank you, this week, goes to Chris Needs, who, might be, many of you know as the presenter of his “Lovely Garden”, the broadcast which is on the air every night from 10 pm to (I think) 1 am and in which people simply chat with him, he plays some music and chat with people in whatever language - English or Welsh. In my early days of (not even properly yet) learning Welsh I’ve listened to it a lot, tweeted and got responses from him until one night he called me on a basis of me claiming I’m learning Welsh. The chat went live on the air but I probably don’t need to tell you that I totally blew the call when he said he has heard I’m learning Welsh and I just answered that I rather wouldn’t say anything about that.
Why I thank him on here? Because I can’t thank him enough for still being patient enough with me despite this slip of mine and finishing the call in kind of style saying that they called me because they’re so thrilled someone from Slovenia would listen to his show. So instead of making me discouraged and not being eager to learn Welsh anymore the conversation made me even more determined that I juat have to learn the language properly in order not to make such a disasterous appearance again (among all the other “determinations”). However I felt less embarrased but still had a sense of guilt after the conversation finished though. Yah, that was my sudden lack of confidence which doesn’t happen very too often to me. If it’d happen today I’d surely do it differently but of course I know much more Welsh then I did at that time …
So, diolch o galon, Chris Needs for kind of pushing me further in my desire to learn this beautiful language rather then making me quit at that point. I’m not a good Welsh speaker yet and much more time woud be needed to accomplish this but I’m very well on the way to this goal also thanks to you.
To be continued next week …
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Friday is my Diolch day…
So today, I’d like to say Diolch to @garethrking!
I came back from Dubai in the summer of 2000, and my first real effort to learn Welsh was the four week Wlpan Mis Awst in Aberystwyth. Which was brilliant.
But then I went down to stay with my brother for a while - in Essex.
No, not a hotbed for budding Welsh learners, really.
Two things kept me sane - emails to and fro with my Wlpan Mis Awst tutor and friend Haf ap Robert, and Gareth King’s ‘Colloquial Welsh’.
To quote Terry Pratchett, by that Christmas 'it looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as ‘slightly foxed’, although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.’
So you can understand what a thrill it is, 17 years later (good God how did that happen?), to be able to tag Gareth in my ‘Diolch!’ to him on the SSi Forum itself… 
Diolch, Gareth!
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I would like to thank @garethrking personally for all the times he has kindly come on this Forum to answer our questions, especially as we are all trying so hard to avoid learning grammar! I have never met a tutor who would go out of his way to help total strangers in far away places just starting out on a learning path! Diolch is too small a word. Any word is too small to express the thanks you deserve, Gareth bach!
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Oh, big seconds on that one! My very well thumbed copy of “Modern Welsh Dictionary” has been a hugely helpful resource in my learning. In addition to the extensive use of examples in the dictionary entries, I’m very appreciative of the 6 pages at the beginning summarizing Welsh grammar. Even if you don’t like grammar, you have to be appreciative of how he boiled it down to six very useful pages!
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Well I would just like to say ô siycs to all of those, which is of course Old Welsh for ‘Awww…shucks!’
And what a lovely little forum this is. If it had a strapline, as most things annoyingly seem to these days, I think it would have to be:
Darn bach o’r nefoedd a syrthiodd i’r ddaear
A little piece of heaven that fell to earth
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And it also gives me a timely reminder to say my own Diolch to any and all of those here who have at any time bought any of my books
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I will second that! I’ve found that dictionary hugely helpful, for all the reasons @lewie mentioned. As someone who enjoys learning some of the grammar, I’ve also found Colloquial Welsh to be a great resource. I just bought Modern Welsh as a present to myself on finishing Course 3 - time for me to have the “big girl” grammar, I think! Haven’t cracked the covers quite yet, but I will! And I’ve learned tons from your posts on the forum, @garethrking, so a huge thank you for both your books and your participation here! Diolch yn fawr iawn! 
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This is my first ‘Diolch’, so I’m very late joining in.
For this first one, I would like to say Diolch to @BronwenLewis and @Isata for allowing me to partake in their ‘Bootcamp Bounce’ last year. Their enthusiasm and joy in talking Welsh rubbed off on me for months after they came back!
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What marvellous taste you have in self-presents! Is it the latest edition?
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Excellent! And come the summer (I hope) there will be a new edition Intermediate for you to progress to
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Lovely stuff!
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It is the third edition. (I managed to get it on sale and also used a rebate I had, so while it was still expensive, I didn’t pay full price )
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