mobile Welsh back again and some history

For a number of reasons I have been less active on the Welsh front in the last month or so. Visiting Conwy gave me a bit of a boost and, perhaps more importantly, some Welsh books. It is always much better browsing in a shop rather than buying a bit blind through the internet. But what would be best would be a Welsh lending library by post - so if anyone reads this and knows of one, please please let me know. Meanwhile digital media play a large part in my attempts to build up my vocabulary in this rather un-Welsh spot of the UK. I am starting to catch up on Welsh music - there is a wealth of great riches out there. Not surprisingly it has moved on a lot since I left, but I am only just starting to find out about some of the singers and bands. I'm very much looking forward to having time (some time maybe........) to get to some live events but of course these are also thin on the ground in Milton Keynes.

I also try to watch the regular evening magazie programme "Wedi Saith". This is a really creative and excellent programme. Imagine you have a TV channel in a language that has a relatively small number of speakers and who are distributed over Wales - what would you put on as a regular half hour slot in the evening? Wedi Saith is a really interesting magazine programme featuring mainly Arts and cultural events in Wales, but quite a diverse range of features. Through the programme I have discovered that there is a Welsh 'lost garden' (think Heligan but with an amazing series of underground passages/grottos which I am now itchingn to visit). I have also learnt about the history of the ferry to Anglesey from my home town of Caernarfon and of the time when all but one of the passengers were drowned after many were drinking heavily at the Christmas fair. The "Arvon" (note the English spelling) was quite a large steamer licensed to carry 300 persons : bought in 1896 and sold in 1923. In addition to passengers the steamer carried animals and goods destined for Caernarfon Market. And excitingly there are plans to perhaps re-introduce a ferry/boat crossing - wh ich would mean crossing in possibly 15 minutes instead of having to go the 9 miles or so to the Menai Bridge.

Conwy and the London Welsh Centre

Am amazed to find that it is a month since the last blog - and indeed in the absence of new books, courses or anyone to talk - and the need to get my French back in gear a bit for a holiday in France, the lack of motivation continued. And any time on languages was spent on French (not that it seemed to make much difference...........)However, I went to Conwy last week to do a bit of walking with a friend Conwy and Llandudno and to buy a couple of new books -not that I could get many given that they were all being carried in the rucksack. The weather came good and we had a lovely walk on the Great Orme and another on Conwy mountain.

And then the day after returning I did a day's course at the London Welsh Centre. I have done one of these before and it was excellent - as was this one. It really makes me realise the need for practice talking. Reading is great (once I can get the books) as is listening to the radio and watching Welsh television but it is only in spontaneous conversation that I realise I am still struggling to think of the words that I need - though writing might also help.

I am now going to the highest level classes when I book the courses. This means that some of it is quite hard - especially the grammar - for me at least, but it also means that there tends to be quite an emphasis on conversation. On this course, on Saturday, we had a North Wales tutor which was great for me as I have struggled with the South Wales dialect. However, of course the Abergavenny courses have been in South Wales Welsh so I have also learnt some of this and am probably now using some weird mixture of the two and not always sure which is which. Determined to try to keep it going a bit more now - so need to think of some tasks to set myself I think. I will also try to find out about future events at the Welsh Centre and try to get to some.

Motivation and reading

Motivation for my Welsh is a bit low at the moment, which may be why I haven't managed an entry for a bit (though that might be me making an excuse), though I am always amazed to find it is a week or a couple of weeks between entries as it never feels like that - I am probably not meant to be a frequent blogger, or something

Anyway, in the absence of a device on which to listen to Welsh on the move, I have returned to reading. I have been reading two quite different books: the first a Science fiction about a future Big Brother world apparently run by the US (so perhaps not so fictitous then) in which Welsh is disappearing and has been driven underground (Annwyl Smotyn Bach) and the second is a romantic novel set in Patagonia. Very different books, but both quite challenging to read, because of vocabulary I just don't know. So I find myself wondering what proportion of new (i.e. unknown) words is optimal. With both these, there were passages I had trouble with without a dictionary, though the second Patagonian one was worse as that also has what I presume is South Wales dialect which isnn't even in the dictionary. Hence it gets a bit depressing and demotivating as it seems that however many new words I learn, there are so many I haven't encountered waiting for me in the next book.

I do cheer up though (and regain a bit of motivation) in listening to the audio book I have of Kate Roberts's Te yn y Grug - which I think I have mentioned before. She was born and raised in Rhosgadfan, Caernarfon (which as I commented on excitedly before is where my father was brought up) I love this description of her work from one of the websites: She quarried her own idiom from the local Welsh dialect and from her reading of Welsh literature at the University of Wales, Bangor. Her writing really is wonderful - social history mixed with such a perceptive take on childhood - and writing that is warm and humorous to boot - and, pretty accessible - though I think because it is such good writing and so interesting and of course personally relevant because of where she is writing about maybe I am up for more of an effort in looking up/findning out the words I don't know. So maybe the message is I should read more of her work .

Musings about words in Welsh and English

I've been musing about how words translate (or not) between Welsh and English - and how different the literal meanings are. One of my interests is wildlife and so I have found myself looking up the Welsh names of animals and birds especially. Sometimes they are close to the English, (Like blackbird) but at other times they are interestingly different. So, like in Ennglish, some of the names are descriptive -but focus on a different kind of description - hence Oystercatcher becomes Pioden y mor; (sea magpie) and thrush is Bronfraith (which I think is speckled breast) and the chough (where does that word come from??) becomes Bran coed goch - nicely straightforward as this means crow with red legs! (which can be seen in the picture and are much more common in Wales than in England).
Then there are words or phrases that are much more concise than in English in two senses. A) in the sense that there is one Welsh word for several in English. Examples here are – betws (grove of birch trees, so one dictionary says); echddoe – day before yesterday; echnos (night before last) . Quite helpful to have one word for this I think. And b) a kind of conciseness where one word is used where there are two in Englishb – e.g. dysgu (teach and learn) or menthyg (lend and borrow) and the precise meaning is worked out from the sentence . (and the marks of these can be seen in Welsh speakers who often use lend or borrow for either – not surprisingly)

Then there are also just interesting and fascinating words or phrases. I was watching a countryside programme and wondered what the reference to ceffyl wedd meant literally - it was clearly what we would call a heavy or work horse, and it turnns out that wedd means yoke - so it means yoke horse. Annd there are so many words for toad that I don't know which if any is the most commonly used. I don't remember the word from our childhood - we probably used llyffant (frog) for both - but apparantely toad can be "llyfant dafad" which initially looks like it is a sheep frog - but further enquiries reveal that dafad also means warty - so that makes sense

Dim llawer o Gymraeg yng Nghymru (not much Welsh in Wales)

Well I'm having problems synchronising and therefore putting mp3 files onto my PDA - so no Welsh on the move for me at the moment - not on the bike anyway. I have spent a few days walking on the Cambrian way in South Wales though. Lovely walking but quite disappointing in tersm of not bumping into ANY Welsh speakers, really. Now I know that there are not so many in those counties but I thojught we might have found a few - S4C must get its speakers from somewhere (they are not all South Waleians). Even so I was really interested to walk in an area of Wales I had never been to - except one trip to a Rugby match in Cardiff on a coach when around 17..................
We walked from Cardiff to Abergavenny over four days.

I felt that as I was in Wales I did need to do some Welsh hence kept up my walk diary in Welsh - so far it is just in a note book but I think that soon I need to be brave and start bloggin in Welsh. I have been looking at other Welsh blogs and have found some fascinating ones: more on that in a future post. But now I am back from my walk and without mobile resources am back to reading. The book I have completed most recently is William Jones by T Rowland Hughes. As with O Law i Law this is a somewhat abbreviated edition, with some notes for Welsh learners. But I think I am getting to the point where I might try the original (bit scary, though). Anyway, as with O Law i Law this is a fascinating and humorous story about a slate quarrier who decides to move to the "Sowth": that being South Wales - which enables the story to provide a commentary on the hardships, comradery annd humour of the South Wales mines (from the perspective of a North Walian) at a time of depression and unemployment. What I find fascinating about the books I have been reading from around this period - which includes Kate Roberts' work too is the social history, and moreover, a social history that feels as though it has a strong personal connection. Roberts, as I have said before was born in the same village as my father, whilst Hughes lived in Llanberis, a village some 7 miles away.

Learning on the move again

In my regular emails from the BBC learnwelsh website, I received one about the recent Welsh podcasts. So far, there aren’t too many: one which seems to be the equivalent of Radio 4’s Pick of the week (pretty good); another which is a nature programme (fine - another interest) and a third which is a very light magazine program with a bit too much focus on celebrities I have never heard of. Nevertheless, this looks like giving me, once again, a resource I can use whilst cycling, thus making good use of the 80 mins or so a day when I cycle in and out of work.

Interesting to reflect on how what I use to resource and support my Welsh activities is serendipitous – depending on what resources I have managed to procure recently or what new resources have come to my attention. What I am using changes my pattern of learning quite a lot. The podcasta are quite timely as I have just finished Hari Potter. Yes, it is spelt correctly - it is a Welsh version of Harry Potter, bought when in Abergavenny in March – and have found it, as with the BFG I read previously, to be a really motivating resource. Sad, you might think, but the fact is that the story is quite a page turner – and I can keep reading it in Welsh with only occasionally recourse to either the dictionary , or, better, the English version. So children’s books seem to be good (if well written) for extending vocabulary whilst maintaining a good narrative that pulls you along. (Though of course some of the language in Harry Potter is quite specialist – not sure how useful all the words involved in Quidditch will be, if I ever remember them)

Back from Welsh weekend

Had another great weekend at Abergavenny learning Welsh – I nearly said speaking Welsh – and that is certainly one of the big motivators for me. I haven’t yet found a local(ish) person or group. Obviously working on learning a language without opportunity to speak it (except to the dog) is a bit problematic, and although my background as a Welsh second language speaker helps enormously, it was great to be able to focus on this for a weekend.

I opted for a higher level class which had a tutor I have had before who puts a fair emphasis on grammar. This is undoubtedly a good thing for me: I know I have big holes in my grammar – and I find working on these hard on my own, and much less tempting than reading, listening to the radio, watching Welsh TV or even occasionally writing in Welsh. Karen got us to do a test (from some examination paper, or course, I think) at the beginning of the weekend; took it in; worked on the things that most people in the class were getting wrong – and re-tested us at the end. Classic pre-post test stuff. I had to leave early to catch the train and so took the marked test and promised (1) to redo the test on the train and (2) not to look at the marked version until I had. I kept both promises and found the result really interesting. I had indeed improved on some things that we had been taught – but had introduced new mistakes! I cheered myself up my reminding myself that this is exactly what happens in skill development in children – and indeed in language development; new things are often over-generalised leading to a dip – which is of course followed by an increase in performance. Looking forward to seeing that – and promising myself I will do some grammar exercises before the next course as well as looking out for and noticing grammatical structure in my reading

Talking Welsh in Wales

I'm really looking forward to getting the opportunity to talk Welsh over the weekend. The course, like the others I have been on is in Abergavenny, which of course is right on the edge of Wales and has spent part of its life in England. Apparently, around according nto the 2001 census just 10% of those living in the Abergavenny area are able to speak Welsh. This seems pretty low to me who comes from Caernarfon in North Wales where the percentage of Welsh speakers is is quoted as 90 or 80% (depending on the source) but is a substantial increase since the last Census back in 1991, when only 2% of local people spoke Welsh. However, even though there might not be a lot of Welsh spoken outside the course, there will be plenty of opportunity over the weekend - and I have to say I am getting quite excited about it now. It will also be good to have some of the responsibility for my learning handed over to a teacher, as it were.

Weekend course ahead and the gift of on-demand TV

Bit of a gap since the last posting! I am not managing to make the number of entries here that I had expected to. I guess the practice of blogging has not become sufficiently embedded into my life - and of course I have kept the subject matter of my blog fairly narrowly confined to my Welsh learning - and sometimes wonder just how much there is to say - though my husband would say I can go on about it quite a bit. The main focus for me right now is that I have another weekend course coming up. The timing of this feels very good in that work is very busy and I have a difficult day ahead in my personal life so I think I am going to be really ready for this course by Friday. I have now suggested that I go into the level 5 class - one up from where I was last time. It would be good to think I was doing this with more grammar sorted and under my belt, but hey, I must be picking some up along the way and I will have a good go on the train. I do think my vocabulary is increasing though. One of the resources that has really helped is the Welsh channel (S4C) making many of its programmes available on the web - the equivalent of BBCi. So I am trying to replace some of the TV watching that I would do anyway with watching Welsh TV. I tend to move between pretty low demand soaps (there is one from near where I come from so the accent and dialect is right- but the vocabulary is not very stretching, nor the storylines.....) and news type programmes. It is really helpful being able to pause etc. I have watched a programme on bullying in the workplace 2-3 times now, and have written down a lot of the vocabulary.

There is also a new nature series by Iolo Williams - see
http://www.s4c.co.uk/c_watch_level2.shtml?title=Natur%20Cymru
I already have Iolo's book - mentioned in a previous post - and so am looking forward to watching this. So what I am finding is that I am using different resources at different times as and when they become available. I have moved from being a regular Welsh news listener to watching more Welsh TV. I have run out of books for the moment and will restock at the weekend. I am also trying to produce more Welsh, but of course don't have anyone to check it. Here is a recent poem. If you can read Welsh - feedback welcome, (there may be all kinds of mistakes) but be kind!(and I don't know how to do the accent we put on mor - must find out - till then it looks more French!)

Ger y mór, y mae y tywod
Yn disgleirio ar ol y cawod
Ar haul yn gweny ar u traeth -
ac ar fy hiraeth

Presents in the post and heritage language learning

Learning a language in a place where it is not spoken (like learning - or brushing up on) Welsh in Milton Keynes is extremely frustrating at times. I often muse on the irony that were I working on my French or Italian (and oh yes, I hope to get back to these once I feel the Welsh is settled enough) it would be easier to find resources - and spaces in which to practice. I could get French radio - and possibly Italian; and I could certainly find classes in both. But I have not bumped into people who speak Welsh in Milton Keynes - though I have to admit to not having done a thorough search, and must do that as I am sorely feeling the need to talk to someone other than the mp3 track (yes, in my darkest moments I comment out aloud - in Welsh of course - on the latest happenings in the soap opera). However, there are silver linings and all that. As there are no Welsh bookshops to hand, I buy resources from a website called Gwales that sells both Welsh and English titles (of books by Welsh authors, about Wales, etc etc). It's a bit hit and miss because sometimes the descriptions are a bit short - and of course, sometimes there are bits of the synopsis I don't understand. (This is usually a huge CLUE that I will find the book hard). However, it does mean that every now and then a parcel arrives in the post - and it is like Christmas all over again! My recent parcel (today!!) included my first Welsh DVD (of a programme from the Welsh TV channel); a magazine; one of the Welsh learner books and then I pushed the boat out and bought a book of short stories by well known Welsh authors. I tried one by a woman who came from the same village as my father, and who is pretty well known in Wales (in fact the village - whose population must be pretty small - boasts two famous Welsh authors) and this particular story proved to be fairly hard going, but I shall keep trying. I failed to keep up my however many new words to learn a day - but I have been let us say engaging with Welsh on a regular, probably daily basis since Christmas. I have been using two main resources: the Welsh soap opera that I mentioned before and Welsh books (and now of course I have some new unread ones - I was having to re-read ones I had previously read!) I have run into trouble on the soap though - I download it from the BBC - and the episodes just run out when you get to number 110 - so now I will never know whether Arwen dies having been stabbed by Chris - how could the BBC do this?

I have got to the end and not mentioned heritage language learning - so that will now have to wait for the next post............watch this space

Vocabulary, reading, writing and children's books

I am still on the hunt for the best - and easiest way - to increase my vocabulary. Over the Christmas period I have been reading fairly assiduously, drawing both on books for learners - which I've mentioned before, and are great - and have also been reading an autobiography which is not intended for learners but is by someone who had learn Welsh as a second language. The mix seems quite helpful but I do wonder what the optimum vocabulary 'difficulty' is. I have found reading the autobiography fairly frustrating and hard work at times because the proportion of unknown words has been just a bit too high and then I find myself wondering whether to just continue, using the context to guess the probably meaning or whether to stop and look up the words. This brings in another problem - there are words used in the language which are not in the dictionary (perhaps I need a slang dictionary?) and conversely, words in the dictionary which tend not to be in everyday use in the language.

I have also been reading more of the books for learners. There is a nice series which is a bit like the English Bridget Jones diary about a Welsh learner (may have mentioned this before..) about Blodwyn Jones - which is amusing, well written and does have unknown vocabulary - but not too much, so allows me to read through at a reasonable pace.

So I do a mixture of highlighting the words or circling in pencil and adding them to my vocabulary book or just repeating them to myself. But I am not sure how much that really helps me to remember them - often I will recognise the words after a few encounters, but not know them enough to use them. This is the classic recognition/comprehension versus production gap.

I am trying a different system now though which is to set myself three new words to learn a day which I decide on in the morning and then come back to at a later point in the day and check that I have indeed learnt them. So far so good - but only on day two of this particular project!

I have also started reading children's books that have been translated into Welsh - in particular Roald Dahl's BFG - which I read years ago when our children were young and enjoyed again in the Welsh version (CMM - if you want to know! Cawr Mawr Mwyn!) Interestingly there is enough new vocabulary to make this a bit of a stretch and it turns out that a few of Dahl's books have been translated - and I so love Quentin Blake's illustrations (couldn't find one from BFG) so will look forward to that.........