A very warm welcome to the forum, Alexander (to make up for the snow! 
).
@Rg1 is in Yekaterinburg, as I believe is @argkh (oh, not on the forum any more) - as is @seren - not sure how recently any of them have been on the forum, but tagging them might get a response - alternatively, if you click and send a private message the forum should let them knowā¦
Iād seen the Welsh language, but not heard it. When I found a few songs with Welsh lyrics on YouTube, that was it. I was hooked. And the more I explored, the more music I found. Thereās folk, pop, rock, instrumentalā¦ The playlist I made for Welsh music is over 200 songs right now, and keeps growing. 
I want to be a Welsh speaker because I like the challenge to learn it and I want to live in Wales one day
I want to be a Welsh speaker because I think itās important to protect our cultural heritage
ā¦because I have a shoddy working memory and learnig is such a pain in the a** for me. But ātheyā wonāt keep me from trying to become a Welsh speaker (in approximately hundred years) 
I want to be a Welsh speaker because Iām really proud of my west Walian roots and learning the language has always been on my wish list. So Iāve stopped making excuses, taken the plunge and Iām absolutely loving it so far.
My goal is to be able to siarad Cymraeg within the community and in the workplace (mastering how to say Ymddiriedolaeth Genedlaethol has taken a bit of practice! 
).
Have since been brave enough to speak Welsh with my Nana on her 89th birthday. Made my dad so proud, as I was the first grandchild of hers to speak Welsh with her. Nana just took it in her stride!!
I want to be a more fluent Welsh speaker to open up my job opportunities. People will be impressed by the effort Iām making and the results Iām achieving and offer me more supply work! Also, my family will be proud of me and my children will be inspired to learn Welsh eagerly at school!
I want to be a Welsh speaker because ā¦
I work for Conwy Council and I would really love to be able to communicate with my customers in both English and Welsh.
I have also moved to a bigger Welsh area and would love to be able to converse with my neighbours in there first language.
ā¦Iāve always assumed that I one day would be, at least since I was a child walking in the Preseli mountains.
Slightly more immediately: itās looking somewhat feasible that my family might be moving to Wales in the next few years.
Even more immediately: I was ordering a book for my daughter (a cheap copy of Dick King-Smithās āThe Fox Bustersā, if youāre really curious!) and ended up receiving the Welsh translation (energetically titled āWham-Bam-Bang!ā) which had accidentally been listed alongside the English copies. It seemed like as good an excuse as any to get started! I should try actually reading it soonā¦
I want to be a Welsh speaker so I can speak to my loved ones in their first language 
and to prove to myself Iām capable of learning it!
ā¦I feel the need to connect with my roots. Iām of mixed English, Welsh And Irish descent, but the connection I feel with Cymru calls to my heart.
I want to learn to speak welsh because I am very proud to be welsh and have always wished I could speak Welsh. As I have got older and as I have begun to work with more welsh speakers this wish has grown stronger. When I am a welsh speaker I hope to feel very proud of my achievements and I look forward to being able to speak Welsh when I can 
I am half Welsh and have always had an uncanny feeling of being a hairs breath away from understanding and speaking the language, and now thanks to SSiW I am overjoyed that that is becoming a reality.
Croeso, Amanda-Taylor iār ffwrm (Welcome to the forum). When I read this dependent clause my first thought was to remember asking myself how much Welsh would I need to know to consider myself a speaker? I think most learners, including myself, think we need to be mostly fluent before we perceive outselves as speakers, but that isnāt true, at all. SSiW helped me to understand if you can string together 4 sentences in Welsh, then you are a Welsh speaker! Yes you truly are! And youāll build upon that and become a Welsh speaker with more words and phases.
This I totally understand. Iām American, born, raised and still live here. I started learning Welsh a year ago to gain an understanding of my ancestors. If I learned their language, then I would understand them. I can honestly say, learning Cymraeg through SSiW, I feel I belong to a larger group than just my family. I get that feeling of hireath, which is surprising as Iāve never been to Cymru.
YES and YES!
I agree wholeheartedly with both of these posts so much, @delawarejones !
@amanda-taylor I think I felt like I was really a Welsh speaker the first time a song filtered in from my laptop the next room and spoke right to my heart, without having known the lyrics beforeā¦ even though I was technically being āspoken to.ā When Iestyn said at the end of Level 1 last week that I really am a Welsh speaker now, it was a bit easier to believe him, and I was moved so deeply.
@essenbee I, like @delawarejones , started this journey in search of my ancestors. I never imagined the connection it would create in the present, to a people and a land far from where I was born (I was born in California, USA), and what that might mean for my future as a Welsh speaker. I spent the last two years in isolation and depression, and I have always felt a sense of hiraeth for a place I did not know - I was adopted and so was my birth mother, so I didnāt know where I came from until very recently. Through learning Welsh with the lovely people here I have found a community and a place for myself in the worldā¦ and that place is centered around Cymru.
Thank you @delawarejones for your reply to @amanda-taylor. You both spoke from the heart and struck a chord with me. I have so longed to be able to āproveā my welsh heritage but not being a welsh speaker has made it hard for me to feel justification of it, and I have also wondered just how good at speaking welsh do you need to say you are a welsh speakerā¦ I love the idea that 4 sentences is enough because I can do that already! Thank you @delawarejones I may print out what you said and frame it!
Yes, same here. Iām nearing 72 but better late than hever.
I agree. And Iām the same age. Ever onwards.
Sue