Dw i'n dysgu Cymraeg - I'm learning Welsh

With a name like mine, you might expect me to be Welsh-speaking or at least from Wales. I grew up in England but my father is Welsh and spoke it as his first language. He speaks it now with relatives so I have always heard it and wondered what was being said. I suppose that if I had learned it while I was younger, I would be fluent by now, but we didn't go to Wales that regularly so I suppose he thought it would be of little benefit to us. And perhaps we never showed much interest as children. However, as you grow older I think it is natural to look back and question where you come from. I wanted to embrace both sides of my family and to find out more about them so that I have a sense of who I am and what came before me. My sister decided to start learning Welsh when she had some time off work. I also decided to start learning a little while afterwards, when I realised that classes ran in Birmingham. By learning Welsh I wanted to show my interest in my dad's culture and family.

I went to beginners Welsh lessons at the Brasshouse in Birmingham for two and a half years. It was a night class so by the end of the ninety minutes I always felt a bit tired and was losing concentration. However, we covered a lot of material, including different tenses, aspects of culture, and differences between southern and northern Welsh, as there were learners of both in the class. My tutor, Gareth, was a native Welsh speaker and had a lot of teaching experience. He was knowledgeable about languages and made some interesting connections between words, which made it fun. He was gently amusing and I enjoyed the lessons. I passed both levels 1 and 2 which were tests in reading and listening, with the top grade. I started the third year but unfortunately had to move away so was unable to complete it.

I loved the classes but it was difficult to practise much in the week while working and I found that I forgot things from week to week, much like some of the others. To help, I watched some DVDs called Talk About Welsh, which I think are excellent. I am not sure if they are easily available now. They are like a soap opera and you watch without subtitles, as they use basic phrases which you can understand. There is a narrator figure who explains what key phrases mean. The lessons work through repetition, as everyone says the same things a lot of times, such as "mae'n flyn gyda fi" to mean "I'm sorry" and "pam" (why), "beth" (what) and so on. It is an amusing story and you find yourself wanting to know what happens next. Jaci is a Welsh learner so you can empathise with her character as she asks people to slow down and questions what things mean.

Another resource I use is Big Welsh Challenge. It is by the BBC and available through their website, which has many more games and learning resources. Funnily enough, one member of the cast of Talk About Welsh pops up, looking older, in these clips. There is a loose storyline that develops as you go through the units. This has additional help in the form of short grammar explanations and plenty of chance to practise what is said in the clips.

A year or so after leaving the class, I have begun learning again with my sister. We are learning using the online course "Say Something In Welsh." This for me is a different approach to learning and is working extremely well. You listen to a lesson online and actively participate. The tutor gives you a phrase in Welsh, such as "Dw i'n gallu siarad" I can speak. He then gives you different Welsh verbs, such as "mynd" to go, or "gweld" to see.  He then says the English phrase, eg "I can go" and using your knowledge of how the previous construction worked, you are expected to come out with the Welsh ie "Dw i'n gallu mynd."  It is amazing what your brain can work out, given a basic construction. The emphasis of SSIW is on listening and speaking, not writing anything down, or reading. My sister and I have found that we are making great progress, as we are not getting confused with how to pronounce a written word (not always straightforward to us!) but we are listening to the sounds and repeating them.  The lessons are half an hour at a time. You can pause them to fill in the gap with your answer (and believe me, we need to sometimes!) But we have both found that the format is very effective. The sentences get tougher and tougher and they are really setting you a challenge sometimes. But when you get the sentence right, (they give you the correct version after the pause), you feel a real sense of achievement. We have said things to each other we never thought possible.  The units are available to download so you can listen to them wherever you like.

The rate of progress is also amazing. We have completed six lessons now and that has taken us about two weeks but we have not been doing them every day. However we are practising between lessons with each other and we have found that we can form basic sentences and communicate a lot, using what we know. We know how to say things in the present, the simple future and one of the past tenses.  We are both determined to keep it up, as repetition and practise are key to learning any language. We both think that our accents are better than they were before by having listened to the pronunciation and rhythm of the words. The key thing is that it give you confidence to speak and to use what you know to say new things.

We were thrilled at the weekend to try out what we had learnt with our dad. He was impressed, I am sure, and he enjoyed helping us to learn new words. We went for a walk so we could talk about things we saw. There was one point when I said I could see a bird, and he replied, and I understood it, and I realised we had just had a perfectly natural exchange in Welsh which both of us understood. We were talking Welsh together! It really felt quite special to know that after thirty-something years, all three of us were chatting together. My mother also understands a lot of Welsh having heard it over the years, and she has learned some herself, so she was not excluded from the conversations.

My parents both watch S4C which also has programmes available online. We have enjoyed watching children's programme Hafod Haul (except the theme tune goes round your head for hours!) and I am just getting into top drama 35 Diwrnod... which you can watch too as it has English subtitles - many of the programmes on S4C have subtitles so if you want to hear what Welsh sounds like, get along to the site!

It means a lot to me to have embraced this part of my family and background and I am glad to see that there are many resources for learning, although understandably classes are only offered in a few areas. It is a nice sounding language and it seems as if people are being encouraged to learn it. What would be really good is if I could find a job in Wales where I can practise speaking Welsh as part of it.