With all do respect, I believe you who of those authorities are checking this topic, it might worth to check this topic too. You might get some suggestions and picture of the whole situation with classes and courses for adults.
Maybe it comes the time for just doing something not calculating too much if your country is about to get that 1.000.000 speakers in the future. Implementing Welsh in schools in Wales, teachers training for doing that job … all this opens new jobs and gives perspective to the language. What about to go from this point on rather then looking into the past and calculating how many teachers there was/is to teach the language and how likely would kids and their parents agerr with learning Welsh. It’s Wales so the country of the language …
(will not go further as it was all said already …)
I think that a hypothetical schedule will help with decision making, because if we need a certain number of additional pupils enrolled per year, we can look to see which areas will be the easiest to start with, where there is likely to be the most support and focus our efforts and resources there initially, rather than spreading things thinly over the whole of Wales.
Some parts of Wales simply won’t want it initially, so don’t force it when there is no real need. Also get people in areas that buy in to this, to tender and campaign for it to happen in their area.
doing things this way, we will be reponsive to demand and not flogging dead horses in places like Tredegar for example and risk stirring up resentment and vocal opposition.
Ladies and gentlemen, please leave this thread for your actual submissions to the Government, and put any discussions over in the other thread (it’s very tricky for me to unpick discussions which may have elements in them which you’d like to submit formally).
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-encourage buy-in from younger people by promoting Welsh websites run by young Welsh speakers dealing with topics that interest their generation
-promote Welsh poetry submissions by youth in public spaces ie buses, bus stops, in local newspapers etc
-promote local Welsh talent with contest submissions for skits, singing, music etc, all in Welsh on TV. Winners can get 30-60 second spot on TV or some such.
-ensure labelling on products is in Welsh and English
-ensure tourism industry is bilingual
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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: A quick collection of off-topic stuff from the Government opinion thread
A further thought: All businesses, large and small, serving the public should be required to display prominently a standardised notice/sticker saying something along the lines of one or other of ‘We speak Welsh’ or ‘Sorry, we don’t speak Welsh’. It would underline that the language is an important issue, in a similar way to the food hygiene gradings displayed by cafes etc, and it might also provide a nudge to businesses to consider seriously whether they could try to offer a service in Welsh.
Rather than people wondering if they’re wasting their time trying to spot some voluntary ‘We speak Welsh’ sticker which may or may not be there anyway, with every business displaying one or other notice the standardised notices would soon become familiar, and so quicker to spot. Also a requirement for all businesses to display one or other notice would ensure they were all treated equally as well as being amore practicable to administrate.
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This is an excellent idea and should certainly be passed on to the Government!
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I’ve submitted my comments and am going to do the young person’s version with my students on Wednesday. I shall feed back!
I think this is a brilliant idea. (Or ‘Some of us speak Welsh’, of course, which would encourage people to wear the little orange badges maybe.)
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Just as the NHS do!
I learnt Welsh five years ago and a now pretty proficient, but when I go to Wales, even in the North, the first language used to me is English. When I reply in Welsh then sometimes I get an answer in Welsh,but sometimes in English again! Yet I know these people can speak Welsh. They just choose not to. As well as encouraging more people to begin to learn Welsh, we need to encourage those who already can do to actually use it! They don’t seem to see the point, or value their native tongue. Somehow we need to stir up some National Pride in the language of heaven. It is the motivation we need to work on. If people really want to speak Welsh they will do so, even if they have to spend time learning it. How about having some roving Welsh language spotters? These people would mingle in crowds, incognito and occasionally give out say £100 when they heard someone speaking Welsh. If this became known I bet the frequency would rise.Those who can speak Welsh but generally don’t might take to speaking welsh in public just on the off-chance they might be lucky and be overheard, in a cafe, or at a match, or in a shop etc… After all, why not? It would not cost them anything. The names of the “winners” could be announced, or if they did not wish this, they could be referred to, like with the lottery, as " a resident of Cardiff".
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Perhaps a bit late in the day, but I’ve noticed that news on BBC Wales often fails to mention items concerning the Welsh language that appear on BBC Cymru Newyddion (please bear with me - I realise it’s not within the Welsh Government’s remit to instruct the BBC, but there is some relevance to policy!).
It’s inevitable that editorial decisions taken separately by BBC Wales and BBC Cymru lead to differences in content, but if Welsh language stories/issues were to be given higher priority by BBC Wales News it would surely help boost awareness of the importance of the language etc by those using BBC Wales but never BBC Cymru and hopefully also strengthen support for the language and lead to an increase in the number of learners.
Although the Welsh Government (rightly) doesn’t have power to direct the BBC, they should be able to make strong recommendations and use their powers of persuasion on BBC Wales with the aim of making coverage of Welsh language issues/stories by BBC Wales mirror more closely that of BBC Cymru
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Conversely, I often wonder if some of the language stories covered by Radio Cymru are a little too introspective.
I recently spent a week in Gogledd Cymru (mostly on Ynys Môn, but took a couple to days to visit Aberystwyth and Pen Llŷn) and noticed that many businesses in this part of Cymru appeared to be taking part in a bi-lingual door sign scheme. (I’m now kicking myself for not taking any photos of the signs!) If Welsh was the dominant language in the shop, “Ar Agor/Ar Gau” featured prominently on the sign (with “Open/Closed” in a smaller font immediately below); the converse was also true. I don’t remember noticing this scheme last year when I visited, but to be fair I hadn’t started learning Welsh at that point so I wasn’t exactly looking for something like this.
I found this scheme to be a great help when it came to speaking Cymraeg “in the wild”. For this American, it took the guess work out of “did the person behind the counter say ‘helo’ or ‘hello’ to me?” when I walked into a shop. I simply assumed they said “helo” and responded with a quick greeting yn y Gymraeg myself and the rest of the visit was conducted mostly or—as I got more comfortable—entirely in Welsh. I found shopkeepers and workers to be tremendously supportive of my efforts. It’d be great to see more businesses—especially those outside traditionally Welsh-speaking strongholds—voluntarily subscribe to this subtle, but important scheme.
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I take your point - I suspect though (admittedly without any evidence at all to back this up!) that the difficulty might be persuading BBC Wales to take on board even the more mainstream language stories.
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Interesting - and all very encouraging!
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I notice BBC Wales advertising BBC Cymru programs sometimes. I don’t remember this in the past!
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I can remember once being “accused” of sounding like a gog…I took this as a compliment, given that I’m an Englishman (of mixed drinks…) who has never lived in Wales My acquired “gog-ness” is all thanks to Aran, Catrin (and maybe a bit to Rownd a Rownd). (Don’t think I really sound like a gog, because I don’t think I can do that gog “u” thing that’s supposed to be a thing anyway).
What is a “Westy”? _ West Wales? Ceredigion?
“ar lafar” is what SSiW is all about, I would have thought,
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Perhaps the only way is to be at least as obstinate as they are being, and sooner or later they will get the message. But it’s easier said than done, I know.