When you realize that you’re talking to the cat in Welsh, without really thinking about it!
When she learns to answer in Welsh, get yourself an agent, and call S4C.
You know you are learning Welsh when:
- You walk into Sainsbury in Oxford, someone offers you a basket at the door, and you hesitate with “Diolch” on your lips before managing to say “Thank you”.
- Your credit card statement shows that all your recent on-line purchases have been books in Welsh.
- A family history search leads to an obituary in a newspaper. It is in Welsh. Instead of thinking “Oh well, never mind”, you attempt to read it and understand the main points although the flowery language escapes you. The poor girl was a teacher, only 17 years old, and a paragon of all the virtues. There was something complimentary about the minister, and a warning to all young men and women to be equally virtuous in case they too met their fates.
On the same theme
Inscription (in English) on the gravestone of my 4xgreat grandmother in Llanstinan.
“Hark from the tomb a doleful sound my ears avail the cry.
My children dear come view the ground where you will shortly lie.”
(With thanks to the person, name forgotten, who transcribed it.)
They could be a cheerful lot, those Victorians(?) couldn’t they?
She died in 1807, but her husband died in 1820 and they had matching gravestones so they may have been placed after his death. Probably in the time of George III or George IV then.
His gravestone reads:
“My friends forebear your tears for me, submit to the divine decree.
May all who view my silent tomb prepare to meet this final doom.”
As you said, a cheerful lot.
… you start ignoring the English half of bilingual stuff. Apologies to you @AnthonyCusack for doing this with your St Fagans post. Not only that, but spending time checking if Band Pres Ayyb was a short/polite name for Band Pres Llareggub Then, somewhere from the distant past, my brain reminded me that it could mean “etc”. Strangely the international (but not Welsh) Free Dictionary confirmed this to be the case. Now I notice that Anthony had already provided the English version.
Does anyone know if ayyb is an international abbreviation of equal status to etc & usw?
ayyb is ac yn y blaen (and so on; et cetera); you’ll sometimes see also just ayb.
So it’s Welsh rather than specifically “international”.
Great thanks. Yes, ayb was the one in my long term memory. Which in a way is quite satisfying.
You won’t believe how long it took me to work out that there was a missing ‘e’!! (Excuse - not much hiring of bikes when I was active!).
I looked at the lettering and was wondering why it was bi-lingual…
My mother (88) was walking past the bus stands in Aberystwyth last week when another elderly lady approached her and asked her if she knew where one of the buses was going. My mum replied that she didn’t know, but that it was a school bus anyway. The woman looked at the front of the bus and unconvinced went to ask the driver. She returned, confirming it was a school bus and asked how my mum knew. ‘It says on the front’, she said, ‘Bws Ysgol’. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you spoke Welsh!’, said the other lady.
My mum was so pleased with herself, but then she does live at Llys Hen Ysgol, so she only had to translate ‘bws’!
Not totally sure this belongs here, but… You know you’ve been reading too much of Cofi Trump [Content warning: not for those of delicate sensibilities! Also, only sometimes comprehensible…] when you’re trying to say something about the traditional Welsh for ‘fifty’ and accidentally get one of the vowels wrong…
Yes, that vowel.
No, fortunately I was talking to an English speaker and they didn’t notice. (Phew!)
ETA: Also, my recent birthday gives some context for this. Dw i’n…
Your two year old thinks everything is Welsh. He points at the notebook where he doodles and says “Welsh book!”. If someone is speaking a language that isn’t English or German… “Welsh?” And best of all he brings you your iPad and points at the SSI App and says “Mummy’s geiriau doniol”!
You know that you are learning Welsh when you switch to GTFM radio which broadcasts (mainly) in English and you think “Why the heck do they speak English all of a sudden!!!”
when you hear ‘cyfarfod fel grwp’ on the radio and not in an SSiW challenge
When in a Spanish intercambio you say ‘su gato era sâl’ and don’t understand why the Spaniard next to you doesn’t understand that the cat was ill. It took at least five minutes to realise sâl is Cymraeg!
You know when you are learning Welsh when…
you listen to BBC Radio Cymru Pigion and finally start to actually understand some of the phrases without thinking about them.
You know you are learning Welsh when…
You see a cafe called CAU. You laugh when you find that it is open.
Sue
The children were going on about ‘siocled poeth’ (otherwise in english) and it took a few minutes but I finally realized they had picked it up from watching ‘Bing’ (a children’s animation) on S4C which they watched with their dad while I was out this afternoon. I made them some hot chocolate, how could I resist?