You have absolutely not left it late at all, Jason and you have as much chance at success with learning and speaking Welsh as anyone else - go for it! 
All the very best to you and we look forward to hearing about your progress.
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Diolch yn fawr iawn, Catrin, for your kind words of encouragement. My familiarity from early childhood with the sound of spoken Welsh means I already have a pretty good basis for making progress. I unfortunately suffer from increasingly poor hearing in public spaces nowadays, but I can still usually spot a North Walian accent a mile off and enjoy guessing where people come from when I hear them speak on the television/radio. And having previously learned German to the high standard required for my old job, I’m pretty sure in retirement that I can add a third language to my repertoire . . . if I just get off my bottom. Which is what I now intend to do. Thoughts of winning the Chair at the Eisteddfod 2024 in the Rhondda might be a bridge too far 
, but being able to hold a half-way decent conversation with a native Welsh speaker on my visits to Wales would do me just fine and make me feel very proud. I’ll let you know how I get on. Thank you again for your encouragement.
❤
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I started learning Welsh as a lockdown project during the pandemic. The pubs were shut, couldn’t go outside and meet up with anyone so what else was there to do…
(There’s more to it than that, of course, but the pandemic was definitely the final catalyst)
I was born in England. My mum, born in Bristol, England but to Welsh parents, was evacuated to live with relatives in Cwm Rhondda for her formative years because of the war. She totally identified as Welsh; spoke a little, not much; whenever the 5 Nations (as was) was on telly, the rest of the family would have the England game on the big telly, and she’d be in the other room listening to the Wales match on the radio.
I went to Uni in Abertawe late '80s. I don’t recall Cymraeg being a massive thing then. There were a few bilingual bits of signage, and I used to joke that during my time there I learnt 3 bits of Welsh - the words for “toilet”, “railway station”, and “intermittent hard-shoulder”, but that’s as far as it went.
Scroll forward a few years, only after my mum died in 2009 did I really start digging into my Welsh roots. There was a formative moment when England met Wales at the rugby World Cup, must have been 2015. My Welsh identifying side had kind of grown to the point where I didn’t actually know ahead of the match which side I was going to support. The whistle blew and in that moment I left England rugby deteam behind forever. Weird, but true.
Anyway, I’d considered trying to learn a bit of the lingo a few years ago. Didn’t really think about online/app stuff, and oddly in-person Welsh classes were few and far between on this side of the border. So I parked the idea.
Scroll ahead again. I was in a Zoom meeting for participants in the Dragon’s Back Race (a running event across the mountains of Wales, my other lockdown project, long story) and the presenter kept dropping in snippets of Cymraeg. In that moment my brain finally put 2 and 2 together and went “hey Jer, they do everything online in Zoom calls now, so you’d probably find Welsh classes that do the same…”
Turned out of course that not only are there LOADS of online classes via Dysgu Cymraeg, but that it was also FREE to enroll in the beginner taster course. How could I refuse…
Turns out that mini-course was just the gateway drug, and here I am totally hooked! Passed the arholiadau Mynediad (back at my old uni, now full of bilingual signage) back in the summer. On to Sylfaen now. SSIW to myself on the walk to work each morning. Occasional DuoLingo, but now rather hooked on PolyGloss as a learning app instead. Got the car radio tuned to Radio Cymru (In Bath, I know, perfect reception, who knew…?)
SSIW is just a small piece of my learning jigsaw, but a useful one nonetheless.
Adult second language learning can be a frustrating painstaking process sometimes, but I’m going with the flow. Don’t get too frustrated that I can’t do everything. Can only gets the gist of what they’re saying on the radio, but it gets better each day…
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Hiya!
This might as well be my first forum post!
My real journey as a dyswr only began in January, but probably took root much earlier through music - but perhaps not the kind of music you’re think of!
In the 90s I loved my punk and hardcore - especially when it came in a new language. I had (and still have) Yr Anhrefn LPs rubbing shoulders on the shelf with Basque political punk! Fast forward to 2008 and I moved to the Basque Country, learnt Spanish and Euskera, and started a family with a local who coincidentally had learnt some Welsh at Bangor Uni on a minority languages exchange in the 90s.
Fast forward again to this year, and I was learning to play/sing a song in Cymraeg - “Sbia ar y Seren”, a lovely ballad by Gorkys Zygotic Mwnci. That’s when I picked up Duolingo, and later began making my way through the old SSIW beginner course.
Still living in Euskadi, my chances to practice my Cymraeg are few. I did bump into a bloke from Caernarfon in my local pub, who was wearing a Papur Wal t-shirt (he’s one of their dads lol) and that was my first - if very broken - conversation in Welsh. I can’t tell you how proud that made me. My only claims to Welshness are a distant Welsh nain (I’m fron yr Hen Gogledd, yn wreiddiol), a love of the rugby team, and watching S4C when younger, as it reached across Morecambe Bay!
We toured north Wales in our campervan this summer, and I managed to use my Cymraeg “yn yr wyllt” a few times using some of Aran’s set-pieces… “Paid â siarad Saesneg efo fi” 
and thanks to another chance encounter here, I met a guy from Cardiff interested in doing a regular Euskera-Cymraeg intercambio. So, while my level is still very basic, the future looks good and I hope you all have a great time on your taith Cymraeg!
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Thank you so much @robert-john-summers ! What a fascinating story! Thank you also for the picture and welcome to SSiW and to the forum! 
@Deborah-SSi Tutor and Learning Support Manager currently lives and works in Euskadi and speaks Euskara!
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Diolch, Catrin. If you are the Catrin from the Northern course, I do apologise for shouting over you all the time! The gaps are never big enough for me to get my words out haha
And helo from Donosti, @Deborah-SSi
It’s possible you know Ifor, the chap I bumped into in my local pub, as he was on his way to Gasteiz to record a Welsh person living there, who was probably you! Byd bach yw e!
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Hmmm, sounds like that could be Ifor ap Glyn - I know him very well!
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Don’t know his full name, Siaron, although I did say I’d look him up when I visited Caernarfon. Of course, we visited when everyone and their nain were at Eistedfodd 
Say hi from Bob in Donosti for me!
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Will do, next time I see him 
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Hello, Catrin…
My most loved relative was my grandmother who was Welsh. Her dad was a miner, and his dad before him. My Welsh ancestors were mostly from Cardiganshire. Grammy did not speak Welsh around me or talk about her Welsh ancestry, but she really loved many Welsh things, such as the food, which she enjoyed. When I was 9, she took me to Colorado where her great aunt and uncle still lived, and they made Welsh food for us, such as Welsh pasties, using the veg from the victory garden that took up the entire back yard!. I drank Welsh tea and they drank some Welsh beer or ale and got tipsy and ridiculous and it was a
fun trip the memory of which I still treasure, 60 years later! My Grammy is long gone, but I am half Welsh, and then most of the rest of my Genealogy and DNA is from the Celtic lands - Cornwall, England, Ireland, Scotland. I am descended from or otherwise related to various well-known people from U.K. history, so I feel my connection keenly. (The recently departed Queen was my 21st cousin! I realize she was not Welsh. I guess I am rambling.)
Anyway, I am retired and single, so I can do whatever I want, within the limits of my disabilities, and I have decided to learn more about Wales, including the language, though finding someone to talk to in that language is going to be a challenge, especially now during the COVID emergency.
I have tried to find a Welsh society here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, and there USED to be one, but it has disbanded. I will try to dredge up some of the old members, if possible, as I have an old address for them, but I am pretty sure I am going to have to get creative when it comes to finding people to talk to, especially since traveling to the UK is not possible for me. Anyway, if someone has information about how to make contact with Welsh speakers in the U.S., that would be helpful.
I will be happy to send you a recent photo of myself, if I can figure out how to do that.
God bless,
Silver S. Parnell
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Ok Brought up in Barry by Welsh speaking mum and English speaking dad in the days when it was thought confusing for a child to hear and learn to speak two languages at once. Now we know better… But entirely my fault for not applying myself to the language at a couple of other stages in my life. Spent many happy times on Welsh speaking farms as a child/young adult but with v limited grasp of what was going on linguistically. Now in my latter days I really want to return to the language of my north Walian grandfather. Perhaps I should do what he did when he walked to the south of Wales to get a job in the coal mines (having quarried slate as a youth). He had no English at that time so he got a parallel Welsh-English Bible and learned it that way.
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I have been coming to Anglesey since childhood and my mother before me and her mother too, I think. Long years of hiraeth to live here and an almost moment followed when my darling ma died in 2006. Post-grad research in fine art returned me on many occasions to my beloved island to delve into the nostalgia of childhood and beyond. The longing never went away and I began learning Welsh. During lockdown, we quietly made the move of our lifetime; my love of art, language and place bringing me home at last. SSiW is giving me confidence to speak – I can’t thank you enough.
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Great story Gareth, especially about your grandfather. I wonder if there are any Welsh-only speakers left? Probably not!
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My late mother, born in 1925, who spoke excellent English in adult life, was monoglot Welsh until well into her schooling. I guess this still applies to pre-school children in much of Wales today. I’m not sure if this counts though.
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Yes I’m sure you are correct about the pre-school children. But as for adults… probably not, though perhaps a few octo/nonagenarians? Or, the odd youngster home schooled entirely in Welsh? Unlikely I guess. Maybe in a forgotten valley somewhere behind Dolgellau…
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Prynhawn da o Awstralia, Why am I learning Welsh. That is a good question, for being in the latter years of my life, I cannot see me using my new found skill once learned, other than in forums like this.
But to answer your question. I was born in South Wales many years ago, I studied in Wales, served my apprenticeship in Wales, loved & lost in Wales but never spoke Welsh. This is probably because I had a Scottish father & an English mother, so as you can imagine there was not too much Welsh spoken at home. I had a father that could not see the point in me doing Welsh homework & I agreed with him at the time. Anything to get out of doing homework.
Once I finished my apprenticeship I flew the nest & landed in Oz & have been here many, many years & as these years pass I become more nostalgic for the land of my birth & Mae hen wlad fy Nahdau.
During my school years in Wales I did learn a fair bit of Welsh including the days of the week, the months of the year, how to tell the time, how to count up to twenty & how to greet & farewell people, plus, the chalk is by the blackboard,(Mae’r sialc wrth y bwrdd du) a sentence that was bound to be very useful somewhere along the line or so Mr. Lewis our Welsh teacher must have thought.
So now in my twilight years trying to keep my brain cells working I thought I would pick up the language that I should have learnt while I lived in Wales. I will hopefully be back in Wales next year, & who knows, perhaps by then EVERYONE in Wales will be speaking Welsh, me among them. Wouldn’t that be a great scenario.
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Well done Philip, and nice surname, sir
Hello Catrin. First post and enjoying wandering through this new world.
I’m here because I met a chap in his 70’s called Owain from Bala in Ruthin town square yesterday afternoon. I was with a lady who attended a Welsh school as a child and during our encounter with Owain he discovered Julie spoke Welsh. His eyes lit up. When he discovered I didn’t have the gift he recommended this site so I joined as he chatted with my lady.
What struck me was Owain’s delight and how much Julie was enjoying relearning her 1st language after so many years away. Later, as we walked around in the afterglow of dipping into the language and Owain had moved on, I realised it must be possible for an Irish American 1/16th Cherokee raised in the UK like me to achieve some level of proficiency and enjoy doing it.
My dad’s widow is 92 now and lives in Florida but originated from Troedyhriw in the valleys near Merthyr. So from this subliminal contact over the years, meeting relatives and friends that are Welsh I guess I have a subconscious desire to learn the language.
What has really broken my runners out of the ice is we are buying a house in Rhôs on Sea on the North Wales coast near Llandudno and the edge of the Snowdonia National Park. Really looking forward to it.
So, thank you Owain. I may never see you again but recommending this site to me feels like an opportunity to be grasped so I will get it done. May take a while but it’ll be fun trying.
Have a great day. I will.
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Diolch to all of you for your recent contributions - they are greatly appreciated!
We are having so much fun reading through them all and getting to know this community a little better.
Just so that you don’t have to scroll back up to the top of this thread, I thought I’d include a little reminder here of what this is all about and why we are asking you to share:
SSi’s new website has a Learner’s Stories page and we’d like to fill it with stories of your learning journeys -
https://www.saysomethingin.com/en/community/learning-stories/
So If you are currently learning Welsh with SaySomethinginWelsh, please tell us why are you learning Welsh, what bought you to SSiW and how is your learning journey going?
ALSO, IF YOU COULD POSSIBLY SEND ME A SELFIE TO GO WITH YOUR STORY, THAT WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!
Diolch to you all! 
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