Breakthroughs: Does anybody have small successes/breakthroughs speaking Cymraeg they want to share?

I was actually planning on going down to Dolgellau myself today for a day out Pete but woke up too late this morning . Was the guy who was criticising you a Welsh speaker himself ?

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Yes. In caernarfon now @Sam84 Tiā€™isio paned?

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Iā€™m up The Orme in Llandudno now fending off some hungry seagulls. Will have to arrange a panad a chat in the near future :slight_smile:

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Well to honest i felt so proud. I told them i started last may with Ssiw. They were gobsmacked. As was mr angry when i said ā€œpam wyt ti isio dadlau efo fi. Beth maeā€™r problem? dwi isio dysgu cymraeg. Felly pam lai?ā€

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Another great moment for me today. In wetherspoons in caernarfon today i was talking to the barmaid and said weā€™d stayed in dolgellau last night. I mentioned the hotel and said it was nice. Lovely came the response so i said instinctively dwiā€™n meddwyl bod nhw wedi aildatblyguā€™r gwesty.

Not quite right but it came from nowhere.

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Did she say ā€œlovelyā€ or ā€œlyfliā€? :nerd:

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Lyfli wrth gwrs :slight_smile:

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I went to the doctor today. In Birmingham. But their automated reception machine thingy has a Welsh language option, so what better time for a bit of language practice? All went swimmingly; It was fairly simple, but I was proud of myself. I understood everything, put in my name and date of birth correctly, even understood the message greeting me and telling me I was booked in.

But the damn thing wasnā€™t working. It had me booked in as another patient. So I went to reception to check that I was actually booked in as me.

ā€œWhat name did the machine call you?ā€ the receptionist asked. I told her. ā€œYesā€, she said, loudly enough for the whole waiting room to hear. ā€œThatā€™s the name of the practice nurse youā€™re booked in with. People do that all the time.ā€

I guess I didnā€™t understand the machine as well as Iā€™d thought.

The breakthrough? Well, Iā€™ve discovered that I can use Welsh to humiliate myself in front of Welsh and English speakers alike! What a talent!

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I do not believe for one minute that many, if any, patients in Brum use the Cymraeg option, so the fault isnā€™t yours! Itā€™s a badly written program if people are getting registered in the wrong name all the time!! It clearly happens in English!! :wink:

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I think she meant that people do it all the time when using the programme in their first language. The tendency is to skim read I think. So I suppose that should make me feel better, but actually I felt like even more of a fool. Ah well, 's dim ots - there are plenty more mistakes to come. Mght as well look forward to them - theyā€™re a mark of progress!

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Managed to cancel my appointment a few months ago doing the same thing.

Also failed at more than one cashpoint and a pay and display machine.

Ond, dwiā€™n licio dathlu fy gamgymeriadauā€¦maeā€™n dda i chwerthin!

But, i like to celebrate my mistakesā€¦itā€™s good to laugh!

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Well the Pay and Display machine at the main car park in Corwen (by the Bus Station, if you can call it that) works in Cymraeg FIRST. There is a helpful flow diagram for English speakers indicating the need to press a special button to get English THEN put money in THEN press the Green Button to dispense ticket. Welsh speakers can skip the first step as the machine defaults to Welsh.

And as a bonus, the two cats who welcomed me to the town square were meowing fluently in Welsh, too :wink:

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I think I might have done that before too - must just be appallingly bad user interface design, canā€™t possibly be a refection of our Welsh! :slight_smile:

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No comment :wink: but its amazing the progress thatā€™s possible.

My constant (sorry everyone) videos are one of my ways of practisingā€¦and iā€™m really pleased with how iā€™m improving. My reason for putting them on youtube is to gain confidenceā€¦sticking my head above the parapet!

Honestly this course has been so good for me. I hope my constant plugging of it with fellow new speakers is helping people with it too. I wonder sometimes if the language researchers need to take time to look at what @aran has achieved with this.

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Ok, breakthrough go iawn! I was spurred on by a little boy who came up to @helenlindsay, @BronwenLewis and I during our meetup in Mach today, made us pretend cups of tea and talked to us in Welsh with no shyness at all, and heā€™d only been learning since he started school. So, I finally got over my embarrassment, stopped at the village shop on the way home and said a cheerful ā€œpā€™nawn daā€ to the man who runs it. It must have flicked his internal language switch, because he said a few sentences in Welsh before he stopped, looked at me in confusion and said ā€˜Iā€™m sorry, do you speak Welsh?ā€™ We had a brief exchange, but it broke the ice, and now Iā€™m confident I can do my shopping there yn Gymraeg - at last!

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RESULT!!! And donā€™t forget the skill of guesswork when you canā€™t quite figure out whatā€™s being said, and the possibility of fun when you guess wrong!

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Ah the beauty of understanding how words are built up.

Todayā€™s lightbulb momentā€¦gor- and cam-

eg gor + verb = overā€¦
cam + verb = misā€¦

So i learnt gorfwyta to overeat, and now also have gorweithio to overwork, gorwneud to overdo etc

I then came across camddeall to misuderstand, and now have camddefnyddio to misuse, camarwain to mislead etc.

Funny how this informal learning just works!

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Fantastic! Thatā€™s incredibly useful. Iā€™ll be making up words all the time now.

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Thatā€™s answered a question thats been rattling round in my head for a week now, exciting stuff this language learning!

A couple of years ago the Welsh National Sheepdog Trails took place in the field next to us. So many of the commands to the dogs were given in welsh I wonder now if they would be understood in another language or if it the tone used that makes the dog obey?

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Thereā€™s aleo ail+verb

Ail-werthu to resell

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