Have you spread the word about SSiW today? Diolch! (and sorry!)

My partner – who still isn’t learning Welsh, although she has now conceded that if the children pick up enough of any Romance language to stop those being useful for keeping secrets, she may yet wind up having to – went for a drink with a colleague after work today, and in the pub was a woman we know who was holding a Brazilian Portuguese conversation class there. And among this group there was, apparently, a polyglot or would-be polyglot (“someone like you,” my partner said), learning Portuguese after previously having dabbled with Serbo-Croat. Apparently his wife is Welsh, and he’d tried his hand at learning Serbo-Croat after having given up on Welsh because it was too hard.

“Aha!” I said to my partner, when she told me this. “Did you…?”

“I did,” she said.

So my partner – still not learning Welsh – just told a Brazilian acquaintance about SSiW, in the hope that she’ll pass it on to one of her Portuguese learners. If an Oxford-based person turns up here in a few weeks’ time saying something about Portuguese and Serbo-Croat, well, you heard it here first :slight_smile:

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And these are the moments of joy which fuel everything we do… :star: :star2:

I met with our new landlord in Cardiff who is “struggling to learn spanish at my age cos of all the grammar and all that”. I said that I am learning welsh with SSiW and tha there is SSi Spanish too. I explained the process and I think him and his wife will be having a go soon :smiley:

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Awesome work - diolch o galon! :star: :star2:

I collected my daughter from a local-ish railway station and visited the “Siop Chips” on her behalf. The staff were English speaking, but I threw in some Welsh niceties of conversation, just to remind people gently of where we all are. The lady who served me said she wanted to learn Welsh “but …” . I stopped here there and said “Just 4 words … and Google is your friend here” “Say Something in Welsh”. She said she would look.

Well, chance would have it that I had forgotten to obtain a fork. So I went BACK into the chip shop about a minute or two later and asked nicely for a fork. And I also asked if she had remembered the Four Easy Words. Well, she said something like "Start speaking Welsh … " or something. Similar idea but NOT THE SAME. I gently coaxed her back on track with “Say Something in Welsh” and assured her that she would remember these words better the second time around. Spaced Repetition, yeah?

In a few days/weeks I will go back and get more chips. Hopefully I find the same person on shift. If so, more spaced repetition. She will remember me as "The Guy who Says Say Something in Welsh
". I should get some cards to hand out too, I think!

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Superb work - diolch o galon i ti, Bob! :star: :star2:

Mentioned this elsewhere, but last Sunday night when a big group of us were having dinner at the Bachgen Du, a youngish couple squeezed onto the table with @PhilgJones, me and a couple of others. The guy was from South Wales, and felt bad about never having learnt Welsh. His wife was English and wanted to learn for work. Suffice it to say they were subjected to a four-pronged attack telling them that THE way to go was SSiW :sweat_smile:

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:star: :star2:

I think it might take the Bachgen Du a while to get over party/bootcamp week… :wink:

:rofl:

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I was in the post office above Smith’s in Wrecsam today and started with a cheery “Haia, wyt ti’n siarad Cymraeg?”, to which the young lady behind the counter replied “No, but I’ve always really wanted to learn.”

You all know where that conversation went.

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One of the team at my new work said she’d always wanted to learn…

One of my patients mentioned her son was interested in learning…

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I returned a hire van this morning and while it was being checked over, Radio Cymru came on with the ignition switch. The guy doing the check asked a few questions about learning Welsh in a way that would fit in with a busy driving job. I recommended SSiW and explained a bit about it. He seemed keen especially if he could learn as quickly as I suggested.

Anyway, as a side - are the business cards available now? I’m sure that I could use a few.

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I’m not sure that SSi ever actually had cards … or maybe they did a fair few years ago. I made my own and I think a couple of other people have done the same. I could send you a fistful through the post if you like (the wording isn’t perfect for how the courses are these days but they work).

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Don’t think we have any cards left (Dee did some at one point) but there are different designs around, and I think there was something on the Zazzle store?

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I was given some SSiW cards at the ‘Day Out’ in Abertawe a few months ago. Yesterday I was telling my Mynediad class about practising on the hangouts and it was great to have a card handy to pass on.

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After our Oxford meetup in Cafe Bap yesterday, the guy who was painting a sign in the cafe said to me how much he’d enjoyed hearing us speaking Welsh. He said he was trying to learn a few words of Cornish, so I told him about SSiCornish and he’s going to check it out!

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O na! I was there and mustn’t have realised :frowning:

Iestyn had some new ones made up just before I went and did the TUC fair days, and I still have a few of them. The design was on Vista Print. I’ve tried scanning one in, in case anyone wants to use the wording, but it’s not very clear:

image

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I often tend to wear some sort of Welsh-language T-shirt when I go to the farmers’ market here in Dwyrain Rhydychen (East Oxford!), just in case it sparks any comment or conversation. So, today, I was wearing my old SSiW “Arafwch nawr - dysgwr o’ch blaen” shirt (“Slow down - learner in front of you”), and wound up having quite a chat with the lady on the veg stall, who said that she’s learning Welsh on Duolingo because they’re looking to move to the Bannau Brycheiniog. She’d like to be able to join some kind of class if/when they move, so of course I naturally sang the praises of SSi for developing confidence & conversational fluency. Her parting shot was that she’d check it out :slight_smile:

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Diolch yn fawr iawn i ti! :star: :star2:

Hope Oxford is as lovely as ever - we’re hoping to make it down at some point this summer…

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