I’ve lived in Wales since 2000, working in Glangwili hospital in Carmarthen, where I heard a lot of Welsh, and being a member of a church where the prayer books were, are, bilingual, for 7 years before actually actively doing anything about learning Welsh. Once I joined the nurse bank and could be more in charge of my shift pattern I started by going to Mynediad 1 in the Botanic Gardens up the road, 2 hours a week . In the first summer I did Mynediad 2 over three weeks and a three day refresher course at the end of the summer before starting Sylfaen, 4 hours a week, but in one session. Instead of doing 60 sessions over the year we only did 40 and I didn’t feel confident to go onto Canolradd. At the three day refresher course that 2nd summer I heard about this new online course, Say Something in Welsh, and may even have registered for it, but I didn’t start to use it. So, my 3rd September (2009) I registered to do Sylfaen 2, the second half of the course we hadn’t really finished the previous summer, back to 2 hours a week.
And then, all change.
In December I broke my leg. 5 months off work No courses of any sort. But I could sit at home in front of a computer, which is where my SSIW journey started.
2010 was the first year of bwtcamp and I toddled off to Tresaith, (I can’t remember if I still had my crutch) where they were then held, for a week with several other learners and Aran. Revelation!
At some point I used Memrise a great deal and introduced it to my brother living in China who used it for learning Mandarin Chinese vocab.
And from September 2010 I started going to 2 conventional classes a week. One in the evening, one the next morning, so as still to be free to work my shifts. Back to Sylfaen 2, but also Canolradd 1. So I was revising something old and learning something new. This pattern continued for several years, taking the exams as they came along and going to bwtcamp 5 times over 6 years.
Alongside this was, is, listening to Radio Cymru, and starting a SSIW conversation group in Carmarthen, going to another conversation group in Llandeilo. This was put on hold in 2017, when I was abroad for several months, but even then I inflicted myself on several learners in Europe and a native speaker in Japan. 2017 was the last time I went to a conventional class, but in September 2018 I found a local Welsh tutor and we had a monthly date whereby I would write a fairly lengthy piece of work, email it to him, he would correct it and we would go over it together over a couple of hours in a cafe. Everything went to pot when I broke my wrist in January 2020, and Covid came.
But there’s a conversation group nearby which started just over a year ago so I go to that most weeks.
I’ve volunteered at 3 or 4 national Eisteddfods staying pretty much in Welsh the whole week.
I don’t think I ever did finish SSIW level 3, but I’ve found a level with which I’m comfortable. Not perfect, but good enough. When leading prayers in that same bilingual church, and we arrive at Gweddi’r Arglwydd, the Lord’s Prayer, I invite people to pray in the language of their heart (not choice, as some of my colleagues do) and I always say the Ein Tad version.
Looking at your learning advice, I definitely try and do something every day. Being able to watch S4C is good because it means that even when I get one of those days when my head will explode if I pick up another book, I can watch a programme instead and hopefully pick up some new words and phrases, as well as improve my listening. You’re right about perfection not existing as well. Listening to ordinary people speak in programmes like Pobol y Penwythnos, Am Dro, Grid etc on S4C is encouraging in a way because it doesn’t make your target feel that unattainable and less afraid about lobbing in the odd English word to help you complete a sentence rather than thinking, I can’t say this entirely in Welsh so I won’t bother.
