One Christmas, a few years ago when I was staying in London, I was walking through a park and there were two gents sitting on a seat talking to each other. Out of the blue I said to them “Nadolig Llawen”. Both of them replied “Nadolig Llawen”. I was taken aback and we had a bit of a conversation and they had both come from Swansea originally, but now living in London.
It’s a small world!
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An exciting update on this! I say exciting, I was in an ASDA on a Friday evening…
Not only do the self checkouts in Leicester display in Welsh, they’ve started to talk - rather loudly.
Got a bit of a shock when it shouted CROESO at me. And yes its just as impatient as the English version. “Cymryd eich eitemau” eto, ac eto, ac eto.
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Ap fawr, Shirley? 
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Haha, that took me a moment to get!
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One of my favourite places in the little village of Uralla, where I live, is the brewery.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be ordering beers in Welsh until one day just before Christmas I met the new barkeeper, a young man named Carwyn, from Cricieth. A fair bit of Welsh ensued, and the locals even wanted us to speak Welsh for them so they could hear what spoken Welsh sounds like. Unfortunately, Carwyn has moved on now.
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Thats amazing!
Anybody happen to see the use of Welsh on Taskmaster on Channel 4 last night? For one of the tasks the contestants had to avoid “the terrible tie” (has to be seen to be understood I think!). There were dozens of ties many of which had Welsh sentences on, with one of course being “Dyma’r tei ofnadwy”.
Whenever I see Welsh language being represented or discussed on mainstream TV I quite often hold my breath waiting for someone to say something unfortunate - but no one batted an eyelid despite not understanding the words. Quite refreshing really
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Yes, I’m a huge fan of Taskmaster (never missed an episode!), so when Steve Pemberton got that one I knew it was all over for him before that fact was revealed in the scoring. And it was nice that they recognised that it was Welsh during the task, too.
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I was in the UK in the last two weeks, visiting Scotland and Oxford - so not very Welsh. However, I was amazed (and delighted) to see a narrowboat moored in Oxford called “Cariad Cyntaf”. Since I’m still very much a beginner in Welsh, I took a picture for my wife, saying that there was a boat with a Welsh name that I actually understood (*insert semi-proud face)
I was then even more amazed that a passer-by stopped to look at the boat’s name - saying he was from Oxford but was brought up in North Wales. When he said that there aren’t that many Welsh speakers in Oxford, I said that I actually am from Belgium, where Welsh speakers are even rarer. Turns out that the guy used to work in my home city for a couple of years 
In short: what are the Welsh words for “unexpected places” and “huge coincidence”? 
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That’s a lovely story - and proves mae’n byd bach (it’s a small world!)
unexpected places = llefydd annisgwyl
huge coincidence = cyd-ddigwyddiad enfawr
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As I mentioned in another thread, managed to find this atlas, partially in Welsh, in a museum in Antwerp!
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I went to the local hospital just outside Abingdon, Oxfordshire, for an X ray. On the door was a notice telling people to warn the radiographer if they might be pregnant. This was in English and then in a variety of other languages, of which the first was Welsh. It’s probably standard all over the UK, but I had never seen it before.
@CalonGoch-Felen , if you are ever visiting Oxford again and free on a Friday at midday, try visiting the Weston Library in Broad Street. We meet in the area with sofas, to the right as you go in.
Sue
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That’s rather annoying, because it means I just walked by there during a meeting. Ah well, always a next opportunity 
The narrowboat doesn’t belong to one of you, does it? 
Hello @CalonGoch-Felen
You can follow us here Oxford Welsh learners group - Welsh / Meetups/Events - SSi Forum (saysomethingin.com)
What a shame that you walked right past. Do let us know if you are coming our way again.
As far as I know, none of us own the narrow boat.
Sue
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My kids noticed that BBC iPlayer now has a little thing in the top right corner that says “Dangoswch opsiynau Cymraeg”. They looked accusingly in my direction, but I swore blind that iPlayer had done it all on its own, even though we’re in Oxford. As far as I know, that’s true…
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I was looking up some things about local candidates in the elections… or etholiadau, apparently. Half the page (but only half) was in Welsh! My mother had the same thing. Refreshed the page, and it was all English. No rhyme or reason that we could tell.
*We’re in West Sussex, so can’t even think why they’d write a Welsh version of the page, let alone get it mixed in with the English.
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Well, I’m in San Diego, CA so, you can imagine that I almost never expect to run into anything Welsh. That hasn’t kept me from hoping, though.
We have a famous city park called Balboa Park where my family and I go frequently to walk and enjoy. We go so often that we are familiar with the various buskars who perform nearly every weekend.
Since I’ve started Welsh, we joke each time we go that this will be the day that we hear some Welsh among the many foreign languages present. Never happens.
My granddaughter and I made the standard joke as we left for the park one day. Walking along, we suddenly heard English but with a very recognizable, musical, Southern Welsh accent. Here’s what we found.
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Hi Richard
I am not stalking you, I promise! But…
On a thread last week I think I noticed you posted something that put you at the same age as me (O levels in 1984, something like that…)
And now you’ve just posted something about living in Oxford, which is where I’m from too!
So really just asking - are you from there originally? Might we have crossed paths at some point during misspent youths in the 1980s?
Many apologies if I’ve misremembered/misunderstood anything there!
All best
Sara
[Adds As stalked by S4C to all his online bios.]
No, I came to Oxford to do Old English in 1991, so it would need to be mis-spent 90s, I’m afraid.
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Ah, well we just missed each other then (“just” = 4-5 years - perfectly acceptable to someone of my advanced vintage…).
My eldest went to Oxford to study in 2012, and has been there ever since (although shortly to move to Cambridge for a year or so while my daughter-in-law finishes her training there for the ministry). It’s that kind of place!
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