[quote ChargingBuck]@Autumndays123 what I'm genuinely puzzling over is how you grew up in N Wales, in a solidly Welsh ancestral family, yet chose not to be bilingual.
That decision is what has made you feel excluded you from your native country.
But you are so angry about it that you would rather blame your country for speaking Welsh, that accept that your opportunities were limited because you chose not to.
And you seem curiously unaffected by the fact of centuries of English oppression in Wales & deliberate extermination of Welsh language. You seem to equate being expected to be able to ask for the ty bach in Welsh, with small kids being daily humiliated & ritually beaten by a hostile invading force, when under English rule.
You chose not to speak Welsh.
You chose to leave Wales.
You choose to imagine the Welsh are all xenophobic bigots hellbent on harming children through the medium of ... reasonable educational expectations, yet ignore the centuries of war, murder & oppression by the English that led to the near extermination of the native tongue you won't speak.
That's fine, & entirely your choice, but you don't get to pretend that raising bilingual kids is some kind of fascistic policy decision.
I live further south than you did, & all the kids in my village are bilingual, so this isn't a goad, it's genuinely curiosity as to what the circumstances, were that prevented your fluency - in the north, where Welsh is far more routinely spoken, & far more likely to be a first language,[/quote]
Honestly? I can hold a basic conversation in Welsh and can understand it for the most part. When I was in school, there wasn't as much emphasis on Welsh because the Welsh Act and such had not yet been introduced. This meant that Welsh was taught in welsh-medium schools and in other schools, it was taught as a Welsh lesson. I'm not saying this was right, I think it's a shame.
As I got older and furthered my education (as noted, Welsh language isn't a must in medical careers/university staff etc) I didn't choose to become 'fluent' because quite frankly, I was too busy studying advanced degrees whilst working full-time and raising my family. It matters little to me that you're 'puzzled' by this, it is my choice. I am no less 'Welsh' than anyone else just because my language skills are not as advanced. To think otherwise in my opinion is the root of xenophobia.
I had my child around the time when the Welsh Gov decided to 'promote' (I use that word loosely) the Welsh language. They did this by making most schools in North Wales (the deepest parts) Welsh only. My career, house and husband's career were in our hometown, therefore, contrary to suggestions in this thread to just 'move to an English speaking school' we had few options other than to make the two hour each way trip to the border in the morning and again in the afternoon.
My child started school and I honestly did not quite anticipate how coercive it would be. As raised earlier in my post, my daughter in her first week needed to use the toilet and was not allowed until she perfected her pronunciation in front of the whole class whilst other children sniggered. From then on, she was bullied and assaulted by children for being 'English'. As she got older, maybe aged 7/8, the children would add other insults to the 'English ', which I will leave to you imagination.
In around year 3, an international child joined the school. Unfortunately, she received the same treatment from pupils and having spoken to her distressed mother at length, I can tell you that the advice from the teachers to combat the bullying was 'speak more Welsh at home'. My daughter did learn Welsh and as I mentioned earlier, by the time she finished primary school, she was fluent. However she was still not 'welsh enough' for the other kids and the bullying continued. The fact other children were told to 'report' any English being spoken on the playground only compounded the issue, as the teachers were advocating the 'naughtiness' of the language.
Teachers would regularly threaten my daughter with being excluded from activities (including the class trip) if she continued to speak English to her international friend. I was regularly pulled up on it in parents evening, where I was reminded that it was a Welsh school.
In my opinion, you cannot and absolutely should not tell anyone what language they must speak in their free time (which is what the playground is). The fact there are teachers on here agreeing that they wouldn't allow any other language to be spoken on the playground other than the native language has honestly sickened me. I'm also baffled how the same people are outraged on the OPs behalf that someone's body language changed when she dared to speak her mother tongue in a different country.
I left Wales because I wanted better for my child. I saw several Welsh friends attend English universities and just did not do well because their whole education has been Welsh only and they struggled to write academically in English. I wanted more for my daughter than that. Unfortunately, whilst Welsh is a beautiful language in terms of employment prospects, it is actually a barrier to receive a Welsh-only education, if you want a job anywhere else in the world. As I said in an earlier post, Wales are notorious for very, very poor jobs prospects and low wages. Particularly in the North.
At the end of the day, everyone on this thread has different experiences and it's bizarre that other posters with absolutely no knowledge on the subject can come here and tell people they didn't actually have those experiences. The ignorance and sheer uneducated views are almost tangible!
Xenophobia is rampant in North Wales, in my experience. Far worse than anything I've ever encountered in any other part of the world. It always amazes me that it is acceptable for a Welsh person to scowl and ridicule a non-speaking Welsh person for speaking English, yet if this happened ANYWHERE else in the world, they would be a racist.