I’d just moved to Porthmadog, after my first intensive month of Wlpan in Aberystwyth - and was slogging away at a twice a week Pellach course - and getting to know new people in my usual way: spending my time playing pool.
I was in the pub one night when a guy I’d played a few times came in.
‘Hei, ti’n iawn?’ he said. ‘Sut mae’r dysgu Cymraeg yn mynd?’ [How’s the learning Welsh going?]
Not too bad, I said, apart from the bloody mutations.
‘The what now?’ he said.
I paused suspiciously.
You know you change the beginning of a word, right? It’s ei char hi if it’s a girl, but ei gar o if it’s a lad, that sort of stuff?
‘Oh, yeah, I suppose.’
Well, that’s a mutation.
'Wel, wel. Difyr iawn. Dysgu rhywbeth newydd bob dydd, ‘de!’ [Very interesting. Learn something new every day, eh!]
I tried not to scream.
As I walked home that night, I decided it was over for me. There was no bloody way I was going to worry about them any more if there were first language Welsh speakers who didn’t even know they bloody EXISTED… 
