“Do you speak Welsh as a hobby?”

[syme]

I think this is a ridiculous question, bordering offensive. I was at a smart dinner with a friend who was brought up speaking Welsh as his first language in a very Welsh speaking area.

We got put to sit near a friend of his and her acquaintance. For background, this girl openly admitted that the only time she had left London for Wales was to visit her friend’s holiday cottage in West Wales. She is very bright too, and studied... languages.

Anyhow conversation is moving on, and she turns to him and asks him about his upbringing etc, and after him explaining the above, she asked

“So, you speak Welsh as a hobby?”

Do French people speak French as a hobby? Is your hobby to speak the language you think in?

I am from North Wales I live in a University city and sadly see on the University facebook page for Freshers an awful lot of the "they were speaking English til I spoke it then switched to Welsh" type of bollocks.
My city is Welsh speaking, all primary schools up until yr 3 only learn to read and write in Welsh and this includes the children of international students (mainly from the middle east at our school) they flourish.
Our language us not a fucking hobby or something we switch on and off at will but we adapt to whoever we are talking to. I stray into Wenglish with some people, grammatically correct Welsh with purists and local Welsh with others.
It is interesting to note that my Welsh can differ from South Walian Welsh.

I was going to ask if there are areas where people speak Welsh only but further from above see that’s unlikely

I know quite a few people who can barely speak English.

Are there children who genuinely struggle to learn English due to lack of interest/learning difficulties etc?

There are definitely plenty of young adults who leave school barely able to converse in English and with very minimal understanding of the written language. It’s a shame because it severely limits their opportunities. It’s great that welsh is being kept alive and well though.

It is worth remembering that if you don’t live in or near Wales, it’s fsitly reasonable to know very little of the culture.
I live here now but until I moved here I had no idea that whole communities actually spoke Welsh as a day to day language. No idea at all - why would I have?

Wellerr I would be interested in whereabouts you live. I know that years ago people brought up as Welsh language purists struggled with English (my great granddad among them) but now in this day and age I find that shocking. Especially as English reading and writing is compulsory after KS1.
That is a genuine enquiry by the way, I realise that tone is hard to convey in the written word.

WellErr - I would start from the assumption that communities speak their own language in their own community.
I've never been to China, but I assume everybody speaks either Manderin or Cantones in China, in their own community, despite the fact that virtually every Chinese person I have met, speaks English.
I mean, why on earth would you think that people don't speak their home language within their home community ?

I made a reply and then my page refreshed so will try again. It was in response to the poster who asked if there are people who don't understand Welsh.
Good question.

So in my experience (which could be very different to others) I was brought up second language Welsh, mainly because my mother is English. So English spoken at home. I was put through school through the English medium. For my area this meant, all subjects taught in English and several Welsh lessons a week. In addition to this, all assemblies, songs, prayers, etc... were in Welsh. It was a heavily wash atmosphere.

My cousins grew up in a Welsh household, the only subjects they did in the English language was English! Everything else Welsh. They cope well with speaking English now.
One of them has two children currently 4 and 1. They are only spoken to in Welsh. Childcare is provided by the grandparents so they won't have picked up English in nursery. The 4 year old does go to pre school and will start full time school in September. Her pre school is fully Welsh at the moment and her schooling will be Welsh but she will of course learn English. But as it stands, if I have a conversation in English with her, she probably understands about 50%!

I would start from the assumption that communities speak their own language in their own community.

It would be a fairly erroneous assumption to think that everyone in Wales speaks Welsh. All my mum's family is Welsh, it's only the youngest generation - my cousin's children - that speak Welsh

Maybe she genuinely didn’t realise it was a living language though? I didn’t realise that people actually spoke welsh in the way that people speak French until a few years after moving to Britain. To be fair I also thought that northerners spoke a different dialect the first time I went up north. Language is very diverse in Britain yet Britain doesn’t have a reputation (not where I am from anyway) for diverse language. It may have been a genuine mistake. Like asking whether someone learned Latin as a hobby.

@backforgood well that’s a bit racist. There are lots of examples where this isn’t true. Soviet countries come to mind. My family comes from an ex soviet country. Everything was in Russian. I never even learned our ‘own’ language because Russian had surplanted it. This remains the case. You can’t make assumptions based on race like that.

Oh, and one branch of the family came from China. Most of them didn’t speak mandarin/Cantonese.

@PoutySprout

I was educated via Welsh medium schools. You are not allowed to speak English during break times or lunch times, the only time you speak English is in English lessons. Other than that you speak Welsh or get told off.

So whilst yes at KS3 English is introduced, you are expected to converse solely in Welsh at all other times.

Give the girl a break. She said something without thinking it through properly. I think she sees languages as a hobby. Also she maybe doesn't realise that some Welsh people do speak welsh as their first and main language. Not an ignorant or unlikely attitude.

I went to university in Cardiff. Of all the welsh people there, very few spoke Welsh (and they had a shocking attitude towards Welsh-speakers that would have been considered very racist if said by an English petson). Being in Cardiff all the signs are bilingual, but it is rarely heard (if at all). So you get the feeling that lip service is just being paid and it is not a living language. This is definitely the same in most parts of ireland in regard to the Irish language.

I actually studied with an irish woman who was learning and did speak irish as a "hobby". By this I mean very few people in her life spoke Irish, she wasn't a native Irish speaker and used it in her spare time for her personal enjoyment.

Instead of getting offended, seething inside and bitching about the girl, the OP's boyfriend maybe should explained about the situation regarding Welsh. As a languages graduate she probably would have found it interesting.

CouchBombay my dd goes to a Welsh school and they can speak whatever language they choose in the yard or any social occasions. It is not a blanket ban.

"Not an ignorant or unlikely attitude"

??? How is being somehow surprised that WELSH people speaking in WELSH not ignorant?

I was educated via Welsh medium schools. You are not allowed to speak English during break times or lunch times, the only time you speak English is in English lessons. Other than that you speak Welsh or get told off.

Not so at my daughter’s Welsh medium primary school. (She’s 8 and in Bl3.)

So whilst yes at KS3 English is introduced, you are expected to converse solely in Welsh at all other times.

KS2.

And again, at DD’s school children do tend to communicate in Welsh at break times but not exclusively, and they certainly aren’t told off for it. There may be schools that are stricter in Wales, but they certainly aren’t in this area.

*iklboo

I'd have been tempted to reply 'No. But I see you're fluent in twat'.*

I wish I'd thought to say something like this just before xmas when I was rudely insulted by an absolute twat who loudly declared the Welsh language to be dead and pointless and what a ridiculous waste of time and resources having people learn it, but apparently it's OK for him to say that because he's Scottish and they have Gaelic there and he feels the same about it. Right after I said how many welsh qualifications I have for an English lass.

I was so upset. It's so hard for me to big myself up. I'm a nobody. But languages seem to be my thing. And the Welsh language and culture are extremely important to me. My youngest is welsh through and through. Born and bred. She's half me, but until we recently moved out of Wales, she was learning bilingually. It's been six months and I still speak Welsh to my kids. It's a wonderful language. People are so ignorant and pathetic sometimes.

I'm Welsh but I live in England. I once had a weekend away with colleagues in North Wales. The waitress in a restaurant we went to wrote the bill in English. Her spelling in English was phonetic. My colleagues thought it was fine to take the piss afterwards. Not one of them considered it was her second language.

My colleagues thought it was fine to take the piss afterwards. Not one of them considered it was her second language

AornisHades Why did they do that? What part or Britain did they come from? No one from my part of Britain would do that

The ignorance about the Welsh language is staggering. A friend was asked - by university language tutors - how her kids would learn English if she spoke to them in Welsh. It didn’t occur to them she was speaking perfect English to them though her first language is Welsh.

Unless someone is clearly being purposefully rude I tend to assume thoughtless comments like that come from ignorance rather than a deliberate desire to insult or belittle. Explaining that Welsh is his mother tongue not a hobby would probably be more helpful than calling her a twat.

Yes she should know but clearly she doesn't. Bitching about that isn't going to change it. Educating her will.

I’m welsh, all my family are welsh, yet no one can speak welsh excep a few from my age down where we’ve learnt it in school. I can remember bits- my name is, good morning, good night etc and I had to teach it for my degree (primary school).

But as I’ve haven't taught for 15 years and never use it I’ve lost it. I and many, many people around here would rather the welsh language was dropped in favour of more French and German. As most see it as a dying language. Where looking further afield when job opportunities require a second launage it’s often French and German that are mostly required.

*"Not an ignorant or unlikely attitude"

??? How is being somehow surprised that WELSH people speaking in WELSH not ignorant?*

The numbers of Welsh speakers who speak Welsh on a daily basis is 361,000 out of 66.8 million in the UK (approx. 0.5%). The percentage of them who speak English is 100%. They are spread throughout an area roughly half of Wales (north and west).

My point is that I understand how someone might not perceive Welsh to be a living language and consider it to be an interest instead. I am not saying it is the correct attitude, but an understandable one. I am exercising empathy.

BTW by the same logic are you surprised when you get to Dublin and find everyone speaking english? Irish is the official language there and everyone has to study it in school.

I am Welsh. Welsh speaking parents who only spoke Welsh to me. We did not live in a predominately nantly Welsh speaking area. I was educated (in the 60s and 70s) through the medium of Welsh other than English and sciences. I could converse, read and write in both languages by the age of 7. We were expected to speak Welsh at all times but most of us spoke Englishh to each other as a form of rebellion. These days I speak and use Welsh every day (and no I do not work in a school, or live in a predominantly Welsh speaking area).

I and many, many people around here would rather the welsh language was dropped in favour of more French and German. As most see it as a dying language. Where looking further afield when job opportunities require a second launage it’s often French and German that are mostly required.

Speaking and learning Welsh from a young age makes it easier to learn other languages. It’s not a case of either/or.

Meant to say I studied both Welsh and French at A level.