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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To want to learn Welsh?

160 replies

CesareBorgiasSkeletonOnesie · 17/11/2017 13:42

When I am not Welsh, do not live in Wales, an such have no connection other than really liking going on holiday there? I like learning languages (though have a habit of getting to a basic conversational standard then losing interest) but haven’t tried a Celtic language yet. DH thinks I’m being silly and should either spend the time getting better at something I already speak or ‘learn something actually useful,’ and says if we ever do go to Wales and I try to speak Welsh people will think I’m being odd.

Verdict?

OP posts:
Maelstrop · 17/11/2017 23:01

Having lived in Cardiff, Prestyn, Brecon, I’d say I knew one Welsh speaker the whole time. The trouble is that ‘proper’ Welsh speakers are mostly in the north and will probably respond in English, much like Parisians when you try out your school French. It’s probab quicker and easier.

ProfessorCat · 17/11/2017 23:03

Proper Welsh speakers are not solely in the North Confused

How utterly bizarre. I live in Carmarthenshire which is extremely Welsh and so is Ceredigion next to us and Pembroke further over!

isernamesarerubbish · 17/11/2017 23:04

Bob lwc x

TittyGolightly · 17/11/2017 23:05

I’m 10 miles north of Cardiff and know LOADS of welsh speakers!

Toosecat13 · 17/11/2017 23:06

There is no way I could learn, even though my caravan is in north wales it is on a Haven site, where nobody speaks Welsh. I hear people speaking Welsh when we are out and about, If I had a place in France or Spain let's say there would possibly be a language barrier so of coarse I would try and learn the basics but in wales everyone speaks English as well. I wouldn't know were to start and I would worry that the pronunciation would be wrong.

Toosecat13 · 17/11/2017 23:10

Wow that's abit harsh professorcat.

ProfessorCat · 17/11/2017 23:11

Yeah, to be honest I'd give English another go first.

Toosecat13 · 17/11/2017 23:20

Yes I am thick, uneducated thanks for pointing that out. But I do however run a successful business which allows me to have a lovely place in wales. Don't hate me for that 🤣

ProfessorCat · 17/11/2017 23:22

Good, I don't hate you :) I'm not like some of them!

Creambun2 · 17/11/2017 23:26

Hate this assumption that "north wales speaks welsh" - north west maybe, very, very little welsh spoken in NE wales and welsh to GCSE in schools seen as a waste of time - especially when schools arent doing triple science for example.

Gwenhwyfar · 17/11/2017 23:41

"very, very little welsh spoken in NE wales"

Not true. It's not a community language there like in Gwynedd and Anglesey, but there are Welsh speakers all over Wales to some extent. I've posted the link to the percentages for counties before. Here they are for NE Wales:

Denbighshire 34%
Flintshire 20%
Wrexham 20%

I'd consider parts of Conwy to be North East as well and the percentage is every higher there. The percentages above are for 'some knowledge' not having all the skills asked about in the Census.

41% speak Welsh in Ruthin, which is 25 miles away from the border.

MuddlingMackem · 17/11/2017 23:49

scrabbler3 Fri 17-Nov-17 21:04:21

I fancied learning it after bingeing on Hinterland a while back. I also fancied moving to Aberystwyth. Neither thing happened.

Well, I'd already thought I'd like to learn Welsh prior to watching Hinterland, that just made me want to more. And I'll settle for just visiting Aberystwyth; I gather it has a castle, and our family like visiting castles. Grin

AnnabellaH · 17/11/2017 23:52

Welsh is more common in the Valleys and North Wales as far as I know. Maybe not as much as it was 20yrs ago but still quite common. Especially if they twigged you were an Englishman in their shop.

DullAndOld · 17/11/2017 23:56

annabelle you are not going to drag up that old chestnut are you?
'they were speaking English when i came in then they switched to Welsh'

Could i categorically state now, that that never happened, it's just something that English people repeat - it's a myth, 100 per cent nonsense.

NoSwsForYou · 17/11/2017 23:59

Do I! I love it. I'm not fluent but I lived on Anglesey for eight years and all my friends are first language Welsh speakers so I picked up lots of conversational Welsh. I taught in a first language school for a while too. The vast majority of state schools in Gwynedd and Anglesey are first language Welsh, so I'll have to brush up for when DS starts school, and we now live in a small village where there are two types of people - Welsh locals with families dating back to the dinosaur era and English climbers. I know which group I prefer... GrinGrin

SteamTrainsRealAleandOpenFires · 18/11/2017 04:01

Actually, I have mostly Cornish heritage on my dads side and would love to learn Cornish!

If you learn to speak Cornish, then in theory you should be able to learn Welsh & Breton.

Same as learning Irish Gaelic, Manx & Scots Gaelic.
___
I suppose you if you wanted to read Beowulf in the original Anglo-Saxon you could always learn Frisian (take your pick from the list Grin )

BoardGameBlues · 18/11/2017 06:31

Annabella Welsh is not particularly common in the Valleys. Welsh is spoken more now than it was 20 years ago. No one switches languages when you walk in. They pause because someone's walked in, then go back to whatever they were saying originally.

People are right that Welsh is spoken by fewer people in places like Cardiff but it's still spoken by about one person in ten which isn't vanishingly small. I often hear it on the streets when walking around Cardiff. It's often just a few words as I pass though and while my ears prick up I doubt someone who didn't speak Welsh would clock it. I think that's why you get non Welsh speakers saying they never hear as Welsh speakers saying that's bollocks.

Anyway try it, OP! If it doesn't work out you can stop, it's not a binding commitment. ;)

Gwenhwyfar · 18/11/2017 09:25

"People are right that Welsh is spoken by fewer people in places like Cardiff "

No, they're not right. The percentage is lower in Cardiff than in Gwynedd, but 10% of 300k people is 30k making Cardiff possibly the place in Wales with the highest number of Welsh speakers.
About 90% speak Welsh in Caernarfon, but it's a much smaller town.

Gwenhwyfar · 18/11/2017 09:27

"Welsh is not particularly common in the Valleys."

Not in the eastern valleys, but it is in the western ones e.g. Gwendraeth and Amman.

TheNoseyProject · 18/11/2017 09:30

Wlpan is an excellent course

ColonelJackONeil · 18/11/2017 09:35

I know a bit of Welsh as we lived in Wales for a while when I was a child and I went to a Welsh speaking school. Can't remember loads but I sometimes think I would like to learn more. It's a lot of work to learn a language though, maybe only worth it for non Welsh people if you have plenty of holidays in Wales and make some Welsh speaking friends. There are some good resources online though and the S4C is easy to pick up on TV. I've seen a Welsh language thread on MN before. Is there a Welsh equivalent to Spanglish? Wanglish?

ProfessorCat · 18/11/2017 09:42

Wenglish Smile

EBearhug · 18/11/2017 09:48

I've been learning Welsh for the past few years - our class in our English town Skypes to our teacher in Wales, and it all comes up on the Smart board in the classroom. There are occasionally technical difficulties, but usually it works really well.

There's some good online stuff. Duolingo is good for speaking, but doesn't explain anything about the grammar or anything. Say something in Welsh has been mentioned by a few people.

I've learnt French, Spanish, German and Latin before, (no non-European languages, so can't compare with Mandarin) and Welsh has definitely been the hardest to learn. It took me ages to get my head round mutations - some words mutate at the start of the word, and it can feel like there are about a billion rules. When you're first learning, it can make looking up unknown vocabulary somewhat challenging. But also, you realise on speaking, it won't matter as much, because people will still understand, so I just got more relaxed about not always getting it right.

Also, there are differences between north and south Wales - the word for milk is different, for example, and there are some differences in grammatical construction's, which aren't a big deal after a while, but are confusing when you're starting.

My main issue though, is that I find it harder to remember vocabulary than I did when I was younger. Every week, I'll be reading something and think, I've seen that word before, and I just cannot remember what it is. Or I'm trying to say something, and I can think of the word in Spanish or German or French, but not Welsh. This is me, not Welsh, though!

But I still enjoy it. Don't care if I never speak it for real, but I like being able to read it.

ManicUnicorn · 18/11/2017 09:48

I'm Welsh and have a fairly low level, basic understanding of it. I'm far from fluent though. One thing Ive noticed is that non Welsh people really struggle with the pronunciation of words and places beginning with Ll. So Llandudno is Clandudno and Llangollen is Clangolen or Langowlen lol. They just can't get their head around it ag all.

BoardGameBlues · 18/11/2017 15:03

Gwenhwyfar - I meant per capita which affects the likelihood of random encounters. My overall point was that there's a thriving Welsh speaking community despite the "impression" of it being absent. Something I'm well aware of as a member of that community ;)