I have been wrestling with this problem ever since putting my kids into Welsh school! My kids are 5 and 9 and they really hated me trying to speak Welsh in the early stages and getting it ‘wrong’.
I don’t know if it’s good advice, but personally I’ve taken a very softly-softly approach, and after a couple of years now I can get away with the odd brief exchanges in Welsh before they switch back to English… I think it’s important that kids don’t feel that they are being “practised on” - mine will run a mile! The art is to create situations where they feel proud to be helping you - and best on their terms!
In terms of you helping them, I don’t know if it’s realistic to expect them to talk in Welsh about what they are reading, if you can’t give the right prompts. Sometimes I manage to say things that are idiomatic enough that my 5 year old will continue chatting in Welsh about her reading book without realising, but often I just let her comment in English, and switch back and forth. If you’re not totally confident, make sure you understand the book before reading it together of course - and prepare very well if you’re trying to read to her in Welsh!
But even if kids are learning to read in Welsh first at school, I think the most important thing for us to do as parents is to read with them in our first language, in order to instil a love of books. You are doing the best possible thing to support her Welsh by learning now - and as things get more complicated, you should gradually be better equipped to understand them too.
Thanks Net mouse – I have drifted away from trying to dig holes for myself in Welsh and the inevitable switch-off when she starts to lose confidence in what I am saying. This usually happens while I’m grappling around in the dark for the right words to say or I try an expression that she is not familiar with from school or from TV. I am now leaning towards explaining and discussing more and more in English, but I wasn’t sure if that was right, but good to hear that this is normal and probably the best thing to do. When there are simple things to say in Welsh and its in my comfort zone, then I will give it a go and often she doesn’t even notice I’m doing it and will join in, but when I try to push the boat out and try to devise new things to say, she seems to wake up to it and revert to English. Being awkward and unnatural is an instant turn-off I guess (the “practised on bit” is quite apt) and best to work within my comfort zone and not too far outside of hers as well.
It is a bit of shame in some ways, because when she was younger we used to say a lot more in Welsh, but as her Welsh has started to sky rocket away, I find it increasingly dificult to join in and attempting to is often counterproductive.
Sorry I know this topic is now an old one however, I just thought I would give a bit of an update with regards to my earlier comment’s that I have been practicing my welsh on my now 1 1/2 year old son. Today he came up to me randomly and said " esgidiau ac sanau" whilst holding his shoes and socks up for me to put on. He also now understands many requests given in welsh like “wyt ti’n gallu cau’r drws?” or “beth wyt ti’n moyn?”, " wyt ti’n barod i mynd?" and
“ble wyt ti?” along with plenty more. It is interesting to see him learning many Welsh words at the same time as English. I try to speak welsh to him as often as I can now as it improves my welsh and may just give him a second language.
I was a tad older than him when we went to live near the POW camp my dad helped to run. I am sure my vocabulary in English was still growing - in fact I was exposed to a whole set of new environments, so it must have been - but I was suddenly immersed in among a lot of soft-hearted German soldiers missing their little sisters, daughters, nieces etc. and learned a load of German!! So I know it works that way, and I knew which words went with which set of people!! Keep it up!! My parents spoke no German and I forgot the lot when we left there!!
I took a couple of children’s books in Welsh out of the library last week (I always feel guilty about this, because it’s taking out resources for children, so I try to read them quickly). One was a book aimed at teenagers, and the other one a story for early readers - Dilyna’r wennol. It’s is a tale about a blackbird trying to get a message to a swallow/swift that has flown to Affrica by passing the message via various animals via the sea,desert, jungle, and so on. I was attracted by the pictures of the animals that are just in the background in the book, with their names in Welsh (@ramblingjohn).
Anyway, when I looked at the book at home, I found that the publisher has readings of the book available free to download on their website: http://www.drefwen.com/sioplyfrau/
So, now I can read the book and hear the correct pronunciation. There are 22 books listed, including one of my favourites, Mog the Forgetful Cat, The Tiger who came to Tea, The Gruffalo, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Three Little Pigs.
Now, after listening to Aran and Catrin chatting away in the Growth Club, someone can read a bedtime story to me before I drift off to sleep.
I thought this resource might be useful for parents, either for reading a story together or practising your pronunciation beforehand, or just as listening practice (I can play the files at double speed on my mobile phone).
I think I’ve posted a couple of times about my daughters refusal to say anything apart from 1-10 in welsh and whilst progress there is still slow I have an amusing story.
She came home from Cylch today with her grandparents but realised she had left her jacket behind. Her nanny asked where it was and Isla said it’s in ty Bach twt her nanny who speaks no Welsh thought she was saying tea bag and I to begin with thought she meant toilet (I hadn’t heard twt before) So today I’ve learnt a new word and discovered she is getting there with her Welsh. This also goes well with the bilingual story she had last week where when I asked which language was it in she didn’t know.
yep I will keep it up, he has no choice in the matter at the moment as he is my main source of practice. I do not know any welsh speakers locally in the Adelaide Hills (yet). Also, as a scientist I find the process very interesting!
I have been speaking almost entirely welsh to my 2 and a year old, most of her life. My husband mostly understands but usually speaks english. Which is ironic given he is the actual Welsh one around here. We live in Australia.
My daughter uses some choice english phrases now, and will use more english with others aparently. She understands more directive english and thinks getting me to count in english instead is funny.
Her welsh is catching and in some areas passing mine. So I will check the phrase she said was right, then start using it myself. She only watches welsh language kids shows, uses welsh language apps and most of her books are in welsh and if an english speaker tries to readthe english in a bilingual book she just gets confused and angry.
She was not in the very early speakers, but picked up very fast, and sometimes i wonder if me sticking to more basic structures in welsh than i would have if speaking english has helped.
She probably has well over 1000 words by now, maybe more, last count was bout 7 months ago and we came up with bit over 300. She knows all colours, can count to 10 and recognise them, recognises to 20 but messes up sometimes counting to 20 alone. She knows, animals, food, loads of verbs, adjectives, plants, plant parts, vehicles etcetc and has been making proper sentences for a month or so now, and sometimes complex ones. Recently though she has startedconjugating verbs. Which i rarely do though i understand them.
So i need to shrug of mother excess screen time guilt, because you can learn from TV
I recommend the pacca alpacca aps, they are multi lingual, one was just english but recently added welsh too. She loves them, and the alun yr arth and used to like the cyw ones but gets frustrated the mini games are crap.
Hallo Rhywun! Just want to say it’s great to hear things are going so well in the Welsh Front, and great to see you’ve made the transition to the new site - even if, to my great disappointment, the little dragons didn’t. I do miss them.
I see, because it was bilingual. But I’m not sure I knew the names ‘English’ and ‘German’ when I was prattling away aged 3! Because of the war I may have, but if asked, I might have said, “our words” or “POW words”!! It must be hard for kids in Aus and US!! Do they call the words they learn “Australian”, “American” or “English”???
In Patagonia, is it “Spanish” and “Cymraeg” or???
Oh yes, that’s when I asked snout it first. You can add any image you like and can find, but there was talk on there of having them added officially so that they would be easier and more commonly used. Good to see them used in any fashion though!
Yeh I saw owain, that one i actually added in from my own webhost where I placed them in from in the first place, even if they were gone from these servers i keep copies of everything - except the cake one - buggered if i know where my raw copy of that went…
