To not want my ds to have to take Welsh for GCSE

[slushy06]

He is only 3 but it has started bothering me the thought that like me he may not want to take and may be no good at it and may have to take it and get a poor grade when to be honest I just don't see the point of it and would much rather he learn something more useful if he doesn't like it.

I would have no issue with if he wanted to and I have no problem with Maths English and Science being compulsory but I just don't think Welsh is as important as those subjects and should not be compulsory.

I am posting this but I have to go out then so will reply when I get back. But I will be very interested to hear responses and maybe a reason as to why it is compulsory.

Good job you don't live in Scandinavia then, Anna: at least two foreign languages were compulsory when I went to school and if you did the humanities programme you would be have to do three of them (and have a choice of adding Latin and Greek in Sixth Form). It's only the British who think that ordinary people without SN can genuinely be too untalented to learn a foreign language. In other countries they assume it's just a question of forcing them to do the work.

my Mum spoke only Welsh til age 5. Went to school in the Welsh valleys and was only allowed to speak English.

These are British languages that we need to preserve and protect. Making each child who attends state school in these countries learn the native language of that country does not sound unreasonable to me.

i was forced to take an RE 'O' level - got a rubbish garde and it has been of no use whatsoever, but it hasn't had any kind of impact on my later life. OP just being OTT.

Aww don't be so hard on Mosschops. She wasn't implying Welsh people were small and orange and worked in a chocolate factory! She just meant a minority language - which it is.

The woman is pregnant and vulnerable!

Actually, I worked with someone (who is Welsh, as are most of the people I work with, what with me being in Wales) who we used to call oompa loompa as she was small and orange (due to her overuse of fake tan).

Not sure what languages she spoke tho'...

It isn't that much of a minority language as you may think! There are large parts of Wales where you barely hear English spoken. Would Moss make similar comments about other racial groups/ languages I wonder without being pilloried??

MerryWifeOfWindsor I have lived in Wales all my life and I have only once come across one place that speaks Welsh fluently.

A isolated village up in north wales these people however only speak Welsh and can therefore never leave their village.

Most of my friends have been forced to learn Welsh we mostly bunked off the welsh lessons and I have only met one person outside of that village who can speak Welsh fluently.

My dp best friend went to a Welsh school and got straight A's however as he could only do Exams and sums and geography and English grammer in Welsh he was unable to find a university that was fluent in welsh speaking enough for him to do a degree and works in a factory.

Cory, I speak Spanish no problem, living languages are 'easy' compared with gaelic and WElsh imo.

My mum who has a gift for languages learnt gaelic and latin, both dead languages. that's really sad imo.

I have been in the position of struggling at school, and using up valuable time and energy learning a dead language.

It's not a concept to me, as in, yes, abstractly thinking Welsh people should learn Welsh. The.End. It depends.

Hmm..I think it will actually be an advantage as there is such a demand for people in jobs who can speak welsh. My friend who is welsh speaking just got a great job because of her ability to speak welsh. Jobs with the council etc all like it.

I was born and brought up in Wales (English parents) and my (SE England) husband and I live here. Most of my Primary School teachers spoke Welsh as a first language, even though we were taught in English, and it was more a question of absorbing a language, rather than learning it. You were praised, told off (definitely the right sounding language for this!) and given instructions in Welsh and the rest in English.

Ds is nearly 3 and I have to really concentrate when reading the free books which come in the packs given out at certain ages, as they're all in South Wales welsh, even though we're in the North. Never mind ds having to learn a new language, I am too !

If you're living in a country with a living and active language, then you have to put up with it. I rarely use Welsh but my brother speaks it regularly. Don't speak it at home if you object but please don't decide at 3 years old whether it will be useful or not.

Yes and Millions of pounds are spent double siding all leaflets and books in order to resurrect a dead language. That IMO could be spent on more useful things.

oh hobnob dont start me off on the race thing. I have been racially abused on a number of occasions for being english and living in wales, including at work! I havent made on racist comment, so please dont throw that at me! If you dont have anything stronger to chuck then dont bother

You know that I didnt mean small orange people, I meant minority language. And if you'll read my previous posts I said there should be a choice, which is then fair to all.
I would want my children to learn Flemish or Zulu or Mauri, it has nothing to do with the race or culture its to with how useful it will be to them in the years to come

I think you may find the university situation has changed since your time, Slushy; have been in touch with Welsh universities lately and have noticed that they do seem to offer quite a bit of teaching in Welsh.

I met quite a few Welsh speakers when I went holidaying in Wales, so would assume it depends on where you go. On the buses and trains people were speaking it to each other and to the driver and into their mobile phones, so I think I would have to assume that they were capable of using it. However, these amazing people were perfectly capable of leaving their village as they...spoke English too .

Why would the natural result of speaking a minority language be that you couldn't also speak a majority language

sorry meant wouldnt want

Where i live in North Wales the Welsh language is very predominant,i would say approx 50% of the people i know speak welsh fluently.

Its not just isolated villages where you will hear it being spoken.

In fact most of the jobs round here say at the bottom of the description welsh speaker would be desirable.

It is a minority language though. I have just looked up the Welsh National Assembly website. 20.5% in a population of over 2.9 million claim fluency in Welsh and 28% of the population of Wales claimed to understand the language.

But I don't want to fall into acrimony here. I hope my actions on this issue are not offensive to anyone. Dh got a job in Wales but we are not Welsh and did not want our children learning Welsh as they probably will not live there in adulthood so we chose to live just over the border. I wonder if there is this option for slushy when her son gets to school age?

Learning a second language, whether Welsh, Gaelic, French or Hebrew as a child makes it easier to learn a subsequent language.

When do they start to learn Welsh then?

It has been proven that the best age to start learning a second language is before 7yo so if they start young then they will pick it up reasonably easily and it will aid them in learning French, German or whatever modern language they might want to study later.

slushy, you can't have visited many places in Wales then. And you've only met one person who can speak Welsh fluently?

I definitely think you need to explore this beautiful country more, and talk to more people.

Dh did all his studies up to A level in Welsh (ie did all subjects through the medium of Welsh). He didn't have any problems when he came to go to uni in Bristol, and did all his degree in English. Admittedly he did social studies (or something) - I think it would probably be harder in more "technical" subjects if you didn't know the terminology in English (like sciences for example).

I really cannot see that a language that is still used for communication- as Welsh clearly is- can be considered a dead language. Don't seem to hear many people jabbering away in Latin on their mobiles. I wouldn't bury Welsh quite yet: think of Hebrew, which was a dead language and is now very much alive. I don't believe it's being dead that makes Welsh difficult, but it's structure in itself: Arabic is said to be far more difficult, but you can hardly call it a dead language.

Slushy I really dont get how you can call Welsh a dead language?

And what pray tell would you rather the wasted millions were spent on??

If you ever come to Wales see how long it takes you to find a Welsh person who actually speak Welsh as I said I am welsh as far back as I know as are most of the people I know as someone English sticks out like a sore thumb here but none of us speak Welsh.

Though speaking of dead languages, most people I know who have done Latin think of it as something really useful.

Agree that Welsh cannnot be described as a dead language. If only by the Welsh speaking radio stations I come across and the bilingual roadsigns it seems very much alive.

Intrigued at slushy's comment though that English people stick out like sore thumbs though. What does that mean?

If i ever come to Wales??

Erm i am Welsh & i live in Wales.

I could actually show you many,many people who speak Welsh.

I have been on holiday in caravan with my grandparents all over this beautiful country I used to go traveling all through the six week holiday I have been to the north, east, west, and south thank you and I hear people saying it is not dead but I genuinely have yet to see much evidence of that.

Dumble, I agree - if you were living in France and they were learning French, then excellent.... but. Well, I agree with you. I think I would just not bother too much with the homework when it comes back in the bag. Leave Welsh 'til last.