That's fab, Courtenay! Time well spent during miserable weather. Better than watching repeats on the telly!
I've often thought about re-learning Welsh. I used to speak the language very well between the ages of 7 and 12 whilst spending a great deal of time in Snowdonia in North Wales, and could communicate quite well with the locals. Unfortunately, our frequent family visits to Wales suddenly became sporadic and I gradually stopped using Welsh, which resulted in losing a lot of knowledge. I can still speak a bit of the lingo, but I'm quite rusty. As they say, use it or lose it! I still visited Wales often on my own, but didn't bother with the language for some reason. Maybe this was because I did a lot of walking in the hills and mountains, with hardly any contact with local folk.
I had a short stay in Bala last year and really enjoyed trying to read all the Welsh street signs and shop names. Some of them I could understand from knowing Cornish!
I'm pretty sure it was shared right at the start of this thread, but the online audio Say Something in Welsh course has really taken off in the past few years, so that's worth looking into if you do want to start learning again. (It's what got me started in Cornish.) It's a bit of a challenge but lots of fun, as it gets you speaking and putting words together to make real sentences right from the start!
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It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
Thanks for the link, Courtenay. I shall find time to give it a whirl. Whenever I went to Wales, I'd usually stop on the same farm near Porthmadog in North Wales. The family were lovely and they taught me the vast majority of Welsh I know. The best way to learn, I think.
We'll never be fluent but can now hold a basic conversation in Welsh and tend to use Welsh for everyday street and place names, and have been taken as being Welsh when we go to England. This is not a major Welsh speaking area unlike Ceredigion which neighbours Sir Benfro! We find pronunciation in North Wales very different to the local dialect though, and the Valleys totally different from both.
A lot of people don't realise that Wales have regional dialects, floragord. They just assume Welsh is Welsh and everyone speaks the same. Just as here in England, the local dialect can change dramatically from one County to the next. I was based in Porthmadog most of the time and learnt Welsh in that particular area. However, there were subtle differences just a stones throw away at Harlech..and between Harlech and Dolgellau just a bit further South! As you know, there can be lot of differences between North and South Wales, too! I found it frustrating to start with, but it got easier as time went on. I also found it a lot simpler to pick Welsh up and pronounce words easier when I was a youngster, but I suppose this is true for the majority of young people learning a new language.
Untill we came to live here I hadn't even registered dialects, No 6, but now we're well tuned in! Regarding learning languages I remember being convinced all Greek toddlers were geniuses, guess some of us have more linguistic ability than others, but hey, everyone shines in different metiers!
Being half-Welsh and having relatives in North Wales - I can definitely recognise dialects - my dad always said North Wales accents were 'proper Welsh accents' lol.
I should really be able to understand more Welsh than I do...and although my dad understood a fair amount, he was never allowed to learn Welsh at school, as he was only second-generation Welsh (his dad was born in north Wales but his grandfather was born in Lancashire) and so he was removed, with other so-called 'English' children, from any Welsh language lessons!
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'
North Wales is a totally different language to South Wales, they have completely different words (and pronounciations) for things than us and Anglesey are different again! Having three different names for the same thing is pretty confusing, even more so when some of them don't make any sense. For instance, "buwch coch" is red cow so you'd think a "buwch goch gota" is a red cow something wouldn't you? Nope, it's a ladybird. Which have nothing to do with cows. Or how about a "iâr fach yr hâf", a "iâr fach" is a small chicken and "hâf" is Summer. So little chicken of the Summer? No, it's a butterfly, which has nothing to do with chickens. And it's also known as a "pili-pala" or a "gloyn-byw". Just to addle the brain a bit more .
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I'm just an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned mind
Not sophisticated, I'm the sweet and simple kind
I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence
And A̶n̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶h̶i̶o̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶
IceMaiden wrote:North Wales is a totally different language to South Wales, they have completely different words (and pronounciations) for things than us and Anglesey are different again! Having three different names for the same thing is pretty confusing, even more so when some of them don't make any sense. For instance, "buwch coch" is red cow so you'd think a "buwch goch gota" is a red cow something wouldn't you? Nope, it's a ladybird. Which have nothing to do with cows. Or how about a "iâr fach yr hâf", a "iâr fach" is a small chicken and "hâf" is Summer. So little chicken of the Summer? No, it's a butterfly, which has nothing to do with chickens. And it's also known as a "pili-pala" or a "gloyn-byw". Just to addle the brain a bit more .
And then in Cornish, a butterfly is "tycki Duw" ("God's gem") and a ladybird is "bughik Duw" ("God's little cow"). There's definitely something about Celtic people envisioning ladybirds as cows, for some reason I can't fathom either...
(I don't have any Welsh ancestry myself, so will stay right out of the North / South war. )
Society Member
It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
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