Bore da Ffrindiau,
Well it was ‘bore’ when I thought about this because here in Vancouver it is ‘back to school’, work, or whatever. Just as friends catch up in the playground, around the tea/coffee pot or at the water cooler, I thought it would be fun to find out what ‘y’all’ have been doing about trying to keep up your Welsh and having fun.
My summer began with a brief foray into a conversation here on the Forum about SSiW and DuoLingo when I discovered the latter has a version that was not just ‘play games’. Having shown my ignorance and been pointed to the ‘proper version’ I felt duty-bound to give it a go at the same time as tackling the SSiW Deep Level.
I have one more week to go to complete the latter, at least all the courses and some of the weekly exercises (oops), but have also gone twice through DuoLingo Welsh completing all of the Levels 1 & 2 plus several topics in Levels 3, 4 and 5. My goal was to get to this point before the Vancouver Welsh Society Welsh classes begin again next week. I am feeling pretty chuffed, but very aware this is a lifelong journey, because I don’t retain it all and would still find conversations a big challenge (true confession). However, I do notice how many patterns stick and how I naturally form sentences incorporating new words with ever increasing ease.
Apart from this, (having splurged to go to the ‘parti’ and spend a week hiking in Snowdonia, then flown to Cardiff to visit my brother in St. Nicholas), we have been enjoying staying home where we have easy access to sailing, hiking, swimming, walking, painting and potting, playing music, and doing all the usual running repairs on the house.
Now it’s time to finish my final on-line course in Celtic Studies at UWTSD before writing a dissertation, the sun is shining, and it feels like everything is falling nicely into place. And you???
So to sign off, here are a couple of my recent watercolours…
Hwyl,
Mari
