Haha. I definitely didn’t miss out on the giraffe!
I spent a lot of time reading threads yesterday. 
Diolch, @AnnaC!
I found the map and there appears to be someone in the same city, but I can’t find them in the user list… Skype does sound like a good way to go, though.
Diolch!
Where are you, Sarah? I’ll be happy to add you to the map if you let me know where to put it.
Can you please add me to Cincinnati, Ohio, USA?
Susan Cooper supplied my first introduction, as well! I was in high school, and I set and poured over the Welsh pronunciation she included, and flipped back there more than once and I read on through the book. Then, I finished it, and never really thought about it again. Though it did leave me with a better sense of Wales as its own place. (I was an American kid - all that fascinating British history is mostly ignored in our schools.) That’s how things pretty much stayed for a long time. Now, I realize that I have Welsh ancestry, and I can’t wait to find out more about it, and about the land my people came from. I’m excited to be learning – and after about 2 years of floundering, trying to figure out how to do it, I feel like I’ve finally got the tools to make some progress – SSIW is a huge part of that!!
Shmae ntsumei. Croeso i’r Forum. Wenglish rules!!
Have you seen the petition at the thread ‘Saving S4C’? Signatures welcome!!
p.s. Have you seen any S4C. There are often programs on history and customs!
I have just had a rather spooky (in a good way) look at my Welsh family history. My sister gave me some old family photos including one of my maternal grandfather, then aged about 5, with his father. It was probably taken in the mid-1890’s at a photographer’s studio in Borth. I had never seen this photo before, and there was a little note in my mother’s handwriting, and on the back of the photo there is some writing in Welsh. My sister tells me that my grandfather and all his brothers spoke Welsh. However, my grandfather was beaten for speaking Welsh in school and then later on married my grandmother, who didn’t speak Welsh. So my mother’s generation was the first one not to speak Welsh. If I had thought about I would have realized my family spoke Welsh at some point, but this little scrap of a photo from before the turn of the 19th century was the first proof I had that Welsh was my grandfather’s first language.
I’m learning Welsh because I believe that it is actually a really beautiful and unique language. I also hope to one day visit Wales for an extended period of time.
Heaven knows what would happen if one suggested sanctioning children in Wales for speaking English in schools!!!
Justin
I have heard it suggested that banning Welsh in Wales would be the best thing that could happen to the language. Not that it would stop Welsh being spoken but that it would be a spur to the half hearted. Just imagine Iestyn and Aran as language martyrs and all of us as their devoted followers!
I can perfectly imagine this. If I compare this to happenings with Slovenians in Austria and Italy even after World War II exactly this was what happened. Kids there were also beaten or “degraded” for speaking Slovene, policy even today quite many times try to figure out how to stop Slovene speach in border areas but Slovene didn’t stop. Societies and communities were and are organized, Slovene is newly learnt by those who don’t speak it and are Slovene nationality … Trieste in Italy is constant conflict area of Slovene and Italian parties - first trying to maintain the language and culture while the second want to prevent them for their language to remain alive.
So, yes, I can imagine it to happen prety well. Nation Cymraig has enough of stubborn “warior” spirit to just counter and maintain their beautiful language and culture.
But I’m glad it’s like it is right now. Cymraeg is spoken, Cymraeg is learnt and if we, who are not even droplet of Cymreig blod, can help any single tiny piece to the language and culture to remain alive and even stronger and stronger, the this shall be it! That’s why I am learning Cymreag and didn’t go away despite my moaning, complaining and what’s more to it.
I’m in the early stages of learning Russian. How did you learn it? I’m finding the phonics and grammar materially different to English and many of the Romance languages. Did you learn to read and write it before speaking or vice versa?
I’d be interested in learning from your experience,
Justin
Hello Jessica - what other languages have you learned or are still learning. I’d be very interested,
Justin
And they are in all Slavic languages … “č, ć, ž, š, đ, …” those are just some of phonetic problems with all "lj"s, "nj"s, "dj"s, "dž"s and what’s more to them …
Happy learning @JustinandEirwen, happy learning …
I’ve always wanted to speak Welsh. My great uncle, was the last member of my family to speak Welsh, he moved to Surrey, England. Whenever I visited he always wanted to hear me speak the Welsh I had learnt at school, which wasn’t very much!
I grew up in Wales, but in Powys, where, sadly, very few can speak the language these days. After school, I spent many years living in England and Scotland, though I did have a number of abortive attempts at learning.
The third reason is not to feel embarrassed! Not to be a Welshman who can’t speak Welsh and more importantly, not to be a monoglot English speaker, to understand language better, to better communicate with those not fluent in English. Really I would like to learn Spanish and French too, I just feel I should learn Welsh first!
I’m learning because I’ve got a grandson now, who may well grow up in North Wales and become bilingual. I’ve also got a son who went travelling and taught himself Spanish with great ease. I thought maybe, if it’s in his genes to learn a language I might manage it too. I really like the ‘listen only’ philosophy of SSi. I also felt comfortable learning on my own. I can see from this forum there are many confident language learners, but I’m definitely not one. In fact, now I’ve had my first real conversation I can feel all my doubts flooding back, about being a failure at language learning.
My son is musical, and I’m not. I’m convinced it’s easier to learn a language if you have a good ear for music.
To be honest, I don’t believe in the whole ‘language gene’ thing. More than half of the world speak more than one language (a large percentage of those people speak three or more). It’s really only in English speaking countries that monolingualism is particularly common.
As for confidence, that comes with experience. A lot of the learners on this forum have been learning Welsh for years, and make a point to practice with live speakers as much as possible. I’m still working on the confidence thing myself, but the more I use the language, the more competent I feel in it. Speaking with real people - especially first language speakers - is scary. They say things you haven’t learnt, they talk too fast and not clearly enough, and they ask questions that demand answers. But after a while, your brain stops freaking out over not understanding every word, and starts to be able to piece together meaning from the words it does recognise. It’s a wonderful feeling the first time you can answer someone’s questions without having to ask them to repeat themselves four times!
We had the “Welsh Not” in days gone by. It actually worked, in that where it was used, there was very little Cymraeg and what there is now tends to have been taught to children in school and not used much… or am I out of date?? (I hope I am!!!)
Does anyone know what is happening to Kurdish? The poor Kurds are denied a homeland by Turkey, Iraq, and, I think, other lands in the area. Their language is, I think, banned in Turkey. I don’t see how Turkey can join the EU if they retain these policies!! (Sorry for being political, will dismount from soapbox now!!!). 
I’m not sure there are enough records of exactly when and where it was used to come to such an exact “cause and effect” conclusion regarding specific areas. It means nothing, but I’ve not seen this particular ‘black and white’ effect proposed before- but I’m perfectly happy to be proved wrong, as always!
Much the same with Slovene in areas I’ve mentioned above.
Hi Justin,
I tried learning it a good 4+ years ago. If i remember rightly I learnt via youtube. I didn’t get very far. As with the other languages I’ve tried I had problems finding native speakers to practice with.
When I’ve finally mastered Welsh I may go back to it.
Dan