Welsh in a Year

The Beginning

Since I decided that I wanted to learn the welsh language, there has always been things that distracted me form doing so. But lets face it, it was all down to me. As when I started researching, courses were plenty, cheap and close to where I live and work in Bangor, North Wales.

I started by joining the Wlpan course in Bangor University. I started in October. The first day we were introduced to greetings and simple ways to say: Who are you? “Pwy dach chi?” which is quite rude to say to someone you don’t know and met for the first time. Although, it sounded a lot easier than What’s your name?

After a couple of classes in Wlpan, and I had to be absent for 2 lessons, as I was going away to Nant Gwrtheyrn!

Wlpan

Finding this course was pretty easy and straight forward. I just called them and they told me all I needed to know in about 10 minutes. I had a think about it and got back to them and booked my place straight away. To find out more about them go to their website from the Useful Links page.

The Course

The course is at Bangor University's Department of lifelong learning. It is part of the “Welsh for Adults” scheme, so they have courses at different times of day to suit.

The course is split into levels (i.e. beginner, intermediate, etc...) and levels into units. The units are basically page chapters within the course book that they supply at the beginning of the course, each about 5 to 10 pages.

Course levels go on for around 4-5 months per level, and next levels start immediately after he finish of the previous one.

Stuff

As I mentioned in the Nant Gwrtheyrn section, I have missed a week of this class as I had to go away to Nant for intensive course, so by the time I was back I had missed some things they taught during that week. Obviously things go much faster in Nant Gwrtheyrn, so I caught up with the rest quite well.

The course takes place twice a week, and I have chosen the 12:30-2pm slots as it fits well with my working hours in the office. This time slot, like all others, happens twice a week, and this way it’s less likely that you’d forget what you’ve learnt. Quite a good idea I thought, but I still need to practice on my own.

The course is more intended towards conversational Welsh, so there are plenty of activates where you’d practice your pronunciation with other class mates. Sometimes the activities seem a little silly or awkward, as the sentences or pictures used can be quite simple and naive, but it abolishes the awkwardness between class mates, and gets you to meet new people and start conversations.

I became friends with one of my class mates, Shelley, who sometimes works as an extra in the Welsh soap opera Rownd a Rownd. We meet every now and then and get to practice welsh outside the class, as this way we can practice talking about things that are outside the course book, and sometimes we invite some friends that are first-language Welsh speakers, so they get to correct and teach us some casual things to say.

11 Months On...

Here we are, 1 month to go, and I have to say I know a lot more Welsh than I did 12 months ago. But it’s not gone as I would have liked!

There is nobody to blame but myself, obviously. But the journey isn’t over yet.

I guess a good place to start is with the courses.

Nant Gwrtheyrn is by far the best thing since sliced bread, and more fun than a slinky. But even though it doesn’t last longer than a week at a time, the amount of Welsh I got to learn there could be equalled with more than a month in a normal evening class anywhere else. My memories of Nant will stay for a while, and I’ll be looking at returning some day for a second intensive course. So I’ll post that online once I decide to go ahead with something like that.

With regards to the courses, I would say it’s a mixture of the dedication of time and effort I had to put in, and the difficulty of having to run a business alongside attending the courses regularly without missing too much. The latter was especially difficult to maintain, so I decided to learn some Welsh in my own time, so what better ways than socialising, reading and watching Welsh TV.

I purchased some little books from a touristy shop in Caernarfon. Without going on about the controversy of a big supermarket-style tourist shop vs. small local businesses, the books were pretty good. Each page split into two columns, one in Welsh, and one in English. So you could read one and if you don’t get it just have a look across and get the translation. Obviously things didn’t line up so well, but that was due to the length of words being different between the two languages. And in case George W. Bush is reading this, there were some pretty pictures too!

The books were about 20-30 pages each, short history about a specific subject, using a simple and easy to follow language. I got 4 of them (about £3 each) and they were:

  • Owain Glyndwr
  • Llywelyn the Last Prince
  • The Red Dragon (nothing to do with Hannibal Lecter)
  • The Rebecca Riots (the most interesting story in my opinion)
They had other interesting ones, but I thought I didn’t know so much about these subjects, so I might as well have a look.

If you’re interested in getting these, they’re published by Gomer Press, and are part of a big collection of similar books titled: Cyfres Cip Ar Gymru / Wonder Wales.

Anyway, before I finish off this update, I thought I’d share a couple of thing I learnt a while ago that could be used with your mates…

Brensiach y bratia, mae hi'n bwrw glaw eto!
Oh bloody hell, its raining again.

Ti wedi bwyta darn olaf o pizza fi, mae rhaid i ti farw.
You have eaten my last piece of pizza, you must die.

If you have any questions about the Wlpan course or if you are thinking about learning Welsh or have any suggestions, don't hesitate to contact me :)

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