So, itās a couple of weeks since I came back from the 5-Day intensive course, and I thought Iād share a couple of comments and observations.
The first is, @aran, you were right about how much weāve learnt, almost without realising it. Talking to @helenlindsay last weekend, she mentioned that there was a general store/coffee shop in Corris, where they speak Welsh (and do nice veggie/vegan grub - not that that had anything to do with my decision to have a trip thereā¦ ) , So, today, I took my long-suffering partner out for a trip and we āfoundā ourselves in Corris, and sure enough, there was āAndy & Adamāsā general store. And what a lovely, welcoming place it was. Iād made myself a āDw iān dysgu Cymraegā badge, but suddenly felt very self-conscious as I realised that neither Andy nor Adam spoke Welsh, and on asking, they said they didnāt, but there was a group of Welsh-speakers (mostly native, I think) in the back room. I tentatively went through and āgate-crashedā their morning coffee. I managed to say that I was learning Welsh (which was probably obvious, as they could see my badgeā¦), but suddenly felt lost as a wave of comments hit me. I managed to say where I lived, by which time I think theyād realised it was perhaps all a bit overwhelming for me, but I managed to smile and utter "tro nesaā ", which they all seemed to understand, as there was a lot of nodding and echoing of ātro nesaā, tro nesaāā. I then beat a hasty retreat, which I neednāt have done as they were a super-friendly bunch, but it was more because of my own embarrassment In the quiet of the front room, Andy (or it might have been Adam) accosted another customer, who he said was also learning to speak Welsh. She joined us and as we shared a few sentences in Welsh she said she was surprised that Iād only been learning for 3 weeks (this is the bit you confidently predicted, @Aran!). (If youāre reading this, Helena - thank you for your time - it was lovely talking to you )
The other thing which struck me today was that one of the reasons Iād wanted to do the 5-Day course was that Iād wanted to get past some of the hurdles Iāve faced when learning Welsh in the past. One of these was lack of spare time and then becoming too impatient and easily disheartened while working through the lessons, so never making it past the first two or three. Not being able to dedicate much time to actually get going with learning Welsh, it began to feel insurmountable, but going on the 5-Day course gave me the time to plough through those initial hurdles, and has got me to a place where I can happily tell myself that I can achieve my desire to speak Welsh. Itās sort of like the opposite of going cold-turkey - getting the most difficult bits (the actual starting and sticking with it for a few sessions) done in a short space of time.
My final thought/observation was that one of the things Iād wanted from the course was the ability to read bilingual road signs, before having driven past them and not having had chance to find the bit I could understand, i.e. the bit in English. Iām happy to say that Iāve been past a few roadwork signs today, and it struck me that I was actually reading and understanding the Welsh bit, and not needing to read the English, so āGwaith yn dechrau ymaā¦ā was no longer a mystery to me Result!