Walking home in the dark I came across two men walking a not especially friendly or gentle looking dog. I’m not typically the sort to spark up a covnersation with strangers, and for better or worse I think I’d usually have avoided these completely based purely on first impressions from a distance, but one of them was wearing a Welsh flag bandana and had a Welsh accent, so instead I started speaking Welsh to him. I live in the Black Country, so in modern times not somewhere you’d expect to speak Welsh.
I’m not actually sure whether he was a Welsh speaker or not - he was clearly thrilled that I’d spoken to him in Welsh, but he addressed me in English in return and we had a brief but pleasant conversation in English.
The whole thing got me thinking - what have other people done that they wouldn’t usually, just to practise Welsh?
Something very similar today. I was at a dog obedience show in Wales, where the vast majority of people there were English. I went to the catering stand, heard Welsh accents and the man addressing women as “bach”. So I ordered my lunch and coffee in Welsh. The lady and man’s eyes popped out of their heads with surprise “and the lady replied to me in English”. We then ended up speaking Welsh to each other.
Also my friend tells her friends we meet up with that I’m learning Welsh so they speak to me in Welsh, sometimes I don’t understand their accents, and have to ask them to slow down. I’m starting to have conversations with them. However, I was incredibly surprised last week when she took a call on her phone and I understood every word she said. I told her"in Welsh) to be careful when speaking Welsh now because I might understand it if you are speaking about me
excuse my spelling: