Aibu to feel sad that welsh is not compulsory in schools in Wales .

[Dowser]

Says it all really.

It's part of the heritage and it's a worry it will die out.

Don't understand it myself.

I'm in the Vale now though.

Annie, we have an opportunity to save a cultural gem of great value and beauty from extinction.

We have the opportunity to restore this heritage from the assault upon it perpetrated within living memory.

In what other context would you deny this opportunity ?

I agree that you can't really talk about traditional english speakers if english speaking only goes back to grandparents.

More than that though it's about democracy. If welsh people want welsh to be taught that is a good enough reason for it to be taught. If welsh people are meh about it and just see it as something boring that they had to do in school, it will drop out if the curriculum eventually in the same way that Latin has dropped off the curriculum.

Is there any evidence that welsh people don't want their children to learn welsh though? Not being fluent isn't really evidence of this.

personally I blame Dr Beeching for cutting of the capital from the rest of the country.

"off

I have an English friend locally, she has a Welsh husband, and her dcs are/were Welsh medium educated. The eldest is now reading linguistics at a top university, she has found picking up other languages very natural and has an interest in all sorts of languages, including far eastern ones. She finds the common threads fascinating. Having a Welsh medium education, even though they speak English at home, has no doubt been a huge factor in her language skills. It literally changes the brain of young children. There is no comparison with this immersion in two langauges and the sort of French teaching that I had at school (I can just about manage to ask for a baguette....). Personally I have a huge emotional response to my dds speaking flent Welsh, it can honestly move me to tears. Because it is truly the language of my fathers and I feel the loss of it in myself, as a non fluent partial Welsh user. There are some words I think of in Welsh before English, probably because as a small child I learned them first, but my dds can float between the language of their country and culture, and the prevailing language of the UK with ease. It is brilliant. And even if I didn't have an emotional response at all, it also means if they want to learn Swedish/ Italian/french etc later, it will be easier for them than a non bilingual child.

(I did latin to GCSE. Latin hasn't been spoken for rather a long time....I've still found it useful, and interesting.) I'm surprised that given the current trend for supporting tradition foods/ways of life etc, that there isn't more of a sense of interest or pride in speaking welsh, from many of the English tourists we have. Especially when there is a huge interest from the tourists we get from other places. I have often chatted to visitors from european countries who are fascinated by Welsh, they think it is an interesting language and are pleasantly surprised to hear it spoken everywhere. Why is there such a lack of interest from so many English people? Why do i get the feeling that it is a status thing? That French is classy somehow and Welsh is dismissed? And why is there just a little note of fear in that?

Merry - I wonder how this got voted in.

If you could get elected by offering to get rid of welsh in schools, somebody would be putting that on their manifesto.

politicians support movements that they think are popular whether that is better school dinners or smoking bans.

Izzy - a lot clearly don't see it as a cultural gem. Let those that do get on with it. Why do we all have to?

Charming!

You don't like being challenged, do you?

To be fair to you Annie, I have the same argument about religious instruction in schools too.

You're not challenging me Janine. You're patronising and being rude. You've not come up with any sensible/logical argument at all.

Self-reporting of language competency is notoriously unreliable. People with low competency (GCSE or lower) who can say "Je m'appelle Diane et je suis anglaise" living in England where they never have to speak French will view themselves as fluent (and put it in their info on facebook and linkedin) because they're not aware of what they don't know. People with higher competency (for example, people with degrees in French) who read in French for pleasure will put down their copy of Moliere to answer your question, in all seriousness,with "well, I understand a fair bit but I'm not fluent. I'm a bit rusty, too" If you quiz them further, they'll tell you all about their difficulties with rutal French accents, and literary tenses, and French puns because they know what they don't know and focus on that. Meanwhile, people come out of beginners' conversation classes feeling utterly confident, because a good tutor won't challenge them beyond what they can handle.

In Wales, even Cardiff, Welsh is everywhere, accompanied by English. It's my guess the effect of living, exposed to Welsh, is more analogous to the effect of studying a languags at university, as far as confidence goes. Anyone who isn't a perfect, balanced bilingual will become very conscious of the side of the street signage they feel they need to look at first, the fact they prefer English novels, etc. People will under-estimate their abilities like billyoh!

Whereas you are presenting well-thought through, robust arguments based on an awareness of how the Welsh language has fared over the centuries and not resorting to aggressive personal attacks at all. Oh wait...

Yes, more than you Janine who has just been petty about the smallest thing and goady. Well done you. And I'm narrow minded . Still waiting for the reason it has to be compulsory. Not convinced yet.

"Why do we all have to?"

For the same reason that everybody has to do geography or history or french if they are on the timetable.

In reality economics and practicalities mean schools offer a limited range of subjects and topics within those subjects.

Equally, if the school has chosen a particular text for a-level, from the list on offer from the exam board that they have chosen, you have to study that text.

Get rid of welsh and you won't be able to choose what replaces it.

Mama we had a little place in a remote part of southern Brittany for a few years and my schoolgirl French was not enough to make up for their lack of English. Sadly. I wish my French had been better.

Just saying'

English is widely spoken...just not by everyone. Everywhere. Even in Paris where English is a bit more widely spoken there are of course going to be people who don't speak it .

But as for your lovely welsh language I'd fight to the hilt for it. Even if all you ever learn is the proper pronunciation , how to count and the basics.

Here's a suggestion to keep welsh alive. How about the welsh government insisting on the welsh names only to be used for towns, cities etc. so when the English pour over the border they get greeted with Casnewydd instead of newport. Then instead of having the English name first, you could have the welsh name and instead of underneath having the welsh name you have in brackets the pronunciation ( Cas-new-ith). Now wouldn't that be fun. Let's do it. Casnewydd sounds much more interesting that boring old Newport anyway? Caerdydd ( kyra- deeth) for Cardiff and so on.

In fact when all 12 of us invade you on Sunday. Ive found a great game we can all play with the grandkids. Find your unprounceable welsh name and listen to it here.

www.jlb2011.co.uk/wales/sounds/

Mama we had a little place in a remote part of southern Brittany for a few years and my schoolgirl French was not enough to make up for their lack of English.

You might have fared better speaking welsh

Actually merry in my DC's old school it would have freed up an option for Year 10 at least, if not Year 9.

I have studied a number of languages and found that Welsh was by far the most difficult. Obviously this is a very personal reaction but I wonder if this is part of the problem.

I can well imagine that if your experience of learning Welsh as a second language is in a class of unmotivated school kids it must be pretty dismal. If there is no support or even antipathy from home you are sunk. I can see how such passionate resistance can build up. Believe you me I was astonished at the reactions I got when I told people that I was learning Welsh.

Welsh grammar is complex, the mutations hard to get your head round, cognates are often with French or Latin rather than English, differences between N Welsh and S Welsh all add to the difficulty.

However all these difficulties lead me to the conclusion that Welsh should be taught as extensively as possible and as early as possible. This gets over many of the later problems of language acquisition which I am persuaded lead into anti Welsh language feelings.

Schools have a budget to offer a certain number of choices. They aren't going to stop teaching welsh. They don't have to make it compulsory, but I don't think that necessarily leads to the conclusion that ditching welsh will lead to more choice.

People with higher competency (for example, people with degrees in French) who read in French for pleasure will put down their copy of Moliere to answer your question, in all seriousness,with "well, I understand a fair bit but I'm not fluent. I'm a bit rusty, too"

This is exactly what I always end up saying.

Yes OP welsh would have been better- My Dad could make himself understood in Breton, as it is similar to Welsh.
I agree with SpinDoc's post above. In my experience, of moving to London at 20 and moving back to Wales in the past decade, more Welsh is spoken now. I now live in a rather Welsh speaking area, but when I go to Cardiff I hear more Welsh than i used to, and there are plenty of children at Welsh medium schools, they seem more popular now in Cardiff than when I was a teenager.
Sometimes the lack of interest in Welsh in other parts of the UK can be helpful , my friends (late teens) dds have found it very useful to have a private language for tricky teenage situations, when visiting London etc.