to not teach my DS any English

[DewinDoeth]

Ok, moved from another thread as it seems to have got people going!

DS is two and speaks quite a lot, but only in Welsh.

I live in a Welsh-speaking community, I'm a native speaker and Welsh is my first language (in fact I'm a lecturer in Welsh lang&lit), my entire family are Welsh. DS attends a Welsh medium nursery 2 days a week, and is cared for by my mother 2 days a week. And me the other days! None of the carers speak English with him.
My DH has learnt Welsh to near-fluency, and only speaks Welsh with DS: it gives DH a chance to improve (slowly, with an nonjudgmental speaker ) and has given him a massive confidence boost when it comes to it.
I am not teaching DS any English at all, and I never speak English with him. DS will learn English quite naturally, mainly from the television, or from hearing it around when there are people who don't speak Welsh. It's how it was with me and my English is of a very high standard (no doubt there will be grammatical errors in this post now - but I have an Oxbridge PhD so it can't be all bad).

PILs are not Welsh, live 250 miles away, and have expressed sadness that 'they can't communicate with him'.
They learnt to say hello and thank you in Nepalese when they went on holiday, but despite knowing me for 10 years and my family for 6, they have never learnt any words of Welsh at all, not please or thank you, and say it's pointless because it's a dead language, and it's not an useful language.

Go for it, Buddleja! I'll raise a glass of wine to you across the miles for old time's sake!

If you think it's disturbing that you left Aber a decade ago, it's now almost two decades since I left (if I didn't feel old before, I did now). Although I suspect I was slightly younger than you when I left...

Enjoy your meal (and let's hope you don't bump into Ianto - although he's probably still doing the rounds in Aber...)

I've only been working in Aber for the last six years helyg and I'm mainly stationed in Cardigan now, when I work, which is not a lot due to the astounding lack of childcare round here. It's just the memory of my last night on call in Aber (16 weeks pregnant, with two small boys at home). Trying not to accidently bump the injured head of a drunk student as he moaned ' I shouldn't be here, I should be in bed'.