This has just come up in my old workbook, so I thought it might make an interesting thread. ?? Obviously we’ll be answeing in English here. Hopefully not too weird a topic if you were born in Wales
For me it was some signs in Beddgellert in the late 60s on a family holiday.
*Beddgelert (Sorry)
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It probably wasn’t the first thing I saw (being from Wales, albeit a not very Welsh speaking part at the time), but I think the first thing I remember seeing and being aware that it was Welsh were signs for “gwasanaethau” on the roads when going on holiday in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
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Interesting! I was born in Wales to a Welsh-speaking mother and Valleys father but my family moved to Aberdeenshire in 1947 when I was about 2 so it comes down to when I was first aware of writing. My answer, therefore, must be when I saw the “Croeso i Gymru” signs ( accompanied by loud cheering) when we entered Wales on our annual summer holiday visits.
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‘Heddlu’ - when on holiday in Wales at the age of about 4 - at that age it was absolutely hilarious (consider how an ill-informed English person would pronounce it) 
On behalf of my younger self, I would like to offer a formal apology.
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When I was two, we moved from Cambridge to Bath. Telly reception was dodgy to say the least, but we could get the weather in Welsh. That was the first Welsh I ever saw, and the first thing I ever saw in Welsh (if that makes any sense). I used to love it apparently! I always blamed the Welsh Weather for putting the idea of Welsh into my head (which is probably the least of many things the weather in Wales has shouldered the blame for!). 
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If we’re exluding chit chat by local Welsh speakers it would prpbably be a 7" pressing of a version of the old song Dacw Nghariad
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I can’t say for sure. I was born in 1982 (the same year as Channel 4 and S4C) and grew up in Somerset where we could receive TV signals from south Wales. I had S4C tuned as channel 6 but spoke no Welsh. So… it would either be something on S4C that I didn’t understand, or it would be “Croeso i Gymru” on the Welsh side of the Pont Hafren (the first one) when we went to visit my Gran in Rhossili. I suppose it depends on how old I was, how much TV I was watching and when we went across the border (and how long the Welsh signage has been in place).
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My partner always refers to the Welsh police as “the hedly” when we’re picking her daughter up from university in Cardiff. I’ve corrected her on the pronunciation so many times that I’m sure she only does it to wind me up: “Watch your speed! You don’t want the hedly to stop you!”
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“Llaeth” on a little brown jug that my mother kept on the mantlepiece.
Sue
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Like Siaron, it has to be “Gwasanaethau” for me as well.
I spent most summers in West/Mid Wales on holiday when I was a kid, so I’d hazard a guess that this was probably my first Welsh word!
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It must have been a sign in a station when I did my first Interrail around Great Britain.
Something like “Ffordd allan”- which was pretty funny for us because there’s a pretty popular
Italian comics whose main character’s name is “Alan Ford”!
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I was born and grew up in North Wales, so incidental Welsh was all around, but Ffalabalam is the first thing I remember being aware of. It was on S4C at lunchtimes. My dad used to sing the theme tune when it was on.
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My partner always refers to the Welsh police as “the hedly”
My Geordie nephew winds me up by calling them hedloo. If he really wants to get me going, you should hear what he does to “Ystrad Meurig” 
If anyone asks, I offer them four English sounds to pronounce our village:
“Us” as in you and me
“Trad” as in trad jazz
“May” as in the month (NOT “my” as in mine)
“Rig” as in rig an election
If you put these together, you’ll be very close. 
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Ha ha. And as you probably know, Hedley is a very common sir name in the NE, just to add to the confusion.
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Probably this for me as well. My wife would have pointed them out to me, and the soft mutation.
Although we also had (and still have) salt and pepper shakers with “halen” and “pupur” on them, which she had before we got married. They are porcelain, and in the form of little "“Welsh ladies”, and have only survived by being kept back as ornaments. (And in a high place, so safe (for now) from our grandson).
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I think probably the first was seeing ARAF on the roads in bbc tv shows, but in real life it must have been going to Rhosneigr for a kitesurfing competition probably 16 years ago and trying to use a map to guide our way from Dorset to north north Wales; so many towns and places with ll’s in that I couldn’t quickly tell the difference between them haha.
For me (back in Moscow) that was definitely YouTube, and it was a Plethyn song (which had lyrics in the description, so it counts as both first time I heard and first time I saw something yn Gymraeg). (Which, of course, is ultimately how I ended up on this webpage and learning Welsh, only maybe ten years later)
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I went to a bog standard primary school in Canton, Cardiff with, as far as I know, not one Welsh speaker (I never heard anyone speak it anyway). However, for some reason, in Friday assembly we sang one Welsh hymn and the grace was said in Welsh. I always wonder if non-Welsh schools in places like Cardiff still have some respect for the language or if you could grow up knowing nothing about our language heritage.
That’s VERY near to two places we used to live - Llanafan and Bronant about equidistant! 
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The first thing I remember is singing the ‘dime dime’ song in nursery school!
Probably road signs of some sort visually though.
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