At the end of the 6MWS Course I set myself a challenge of trying to cycle from Holyhead to Cardiff using just Welsh. While this was in the main successful there were times when I had to use English,; either the person I was speaking to was a non-Welsh speaker or my vocabulary ran out!
I’ve just reached the end of the 3-month Deep End course so I thought I’d try a new challenge.
I’m going to try to speak with a new person each day of Advent.
So leading up to Christmas, instead of opening a little cardboard window on my Advent calendar and getting a chocolate I will be logging into Slack and looking for anyone who fancies a chat in Welsh- everyday for up to one hour.
I hope you will be able to help me with the challenge. It will be good to chat with you for as long as you want, about anything you want.
I will post a similar message on Slack.
Perhaps you could set your own Advent calendar challenge - a SSiW lesson everyday?
Would you be willing to speak to someone on the radio about that (they’d pre-record, I’m sure!). Or at least to put something to gether for Lingo Newydd, the magazine for new readers. I’m sure there would be a lot of interest in such an amazing challenge!
How do we get this sort of stuff on Radio Wales? It’s nice to hear it on Radio Cymru, but surely it would be better for the audience to hear about this on Eleri Sion’s show?
For as much stick as he sometimes takes, Jason Mohammed is a big supporter of the language - and he speaks it exclusively with his kids at home. He’s always been great with me in person and over the web and he’s a “friend of a friend” if I can in any way facilitate communication.
Hi Iestyn,
I didn’t intend to set the Challenge for any other reason than to try to improve my Welsh speaking!
I don’t mind speaking to Radio Cymru about it but that wasn’t a reason to do the Advent Calendar Challenge.
Perhaps we just suggest it as a Challenge for SSiW learners. Or learners could challenge themselves to do one SSiW lesson a day for Advent; as Nicky points out, conveniently there are 25 lessons in each Level!
Day one of the Advent Calendar Challenge.
I went to Ffair 'Dolig in Saith Seren and bought two T-shirts from Cowbois and spent 15 minutes chatting in Welsh
My first online chat was with @Tricia. Diolch yn fawr Tricia. Lovely to chat to you.
day 2: few words with farmers son, who had found our ram in his field …oops. Thanked him in Welsh and asked if he would speak to me in Welsh (his father will only use English with me!) then had a chat with my dog agility coach who learnt Welsh on moving here 18 years ago and used to teach in a Welsh medium school. And,20 minutes talking to @AlanP thank you
Day 3: scwrs in Saith Seren. I spoke about Wrexham FC manager leaving ( luckily I have a friend who follows the football so I knew Sam Ricketts have moved from Wrecsam to Amwythig). Also discussed were camping v glamping v hotels, next year holidays and previous walking/ trekking excursions…and the forthcoming Carolau Cymraeg meet where we are going to sing Carol’s in Welsh around the piano (17th December in Saith Seren)
