When speaking to my son sometimes he dissent understand me on the ssi I’m learning South welsh so do schools in the Cardiff area teach north or south dialect ?
Hi @Robbins
Does your son go to a Welsh medium or English medium school? Welsh medium schools don’t teach a particular dialect. The teachers speak their native dialect. So everyone is exposed to whichever dialects their teachers speak.
Are there particular phrases your finding are misunderstood?
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How much salt do you have in the house, @Robbins?
Children can be a pain in the proverbial wossname when it comes to trying to communicate with them, so it may be that very small differences are giving your son the excuse to not understand, or to get one over a parent, etc. Or it could be that your pronunciation of a word, or use of a pattern is still a couple of degrees off course, and that your son hasn’t got the wide experience of Welsh to pick up the subtle miscue.
It may genuinely be that you are using a pattern or word that he hasn’t come across - I teach quite colloquial Welsh which may not be what the school ios teaching as “correct”, even though it is common, even the standard, in spoken Welsh.
Whatever it is, though, remember that Welsh is your language as much as his or mine, so keep on talking the Welsh that you are comfortabel with, and he will come to understand you, and you will come to adapt your Welsh to the people you speak with most. If that’s your son, then your Welsh will converge, and you’ll start finding some of my Welsh familiar but different in the lessons. That’s how a living language works amongst it’s speakers, and as you get more experience as one of it’s speakers, you will soon get used to the occasional “eh? Oh of course” as you speak.
Well done for using your Welsh with your son. One of the big problems with Welsh schools in areas where Welsh isn;t the main language is that the kids get to see it as a school language, which makes it less valuable to them. But by speaking Welsh at home, and showing that you are willing to work yourself to learn it, then you are encouraging your son to develop his language, which will help him in all manner of ways as he goes through school. Da iawn ti!
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Our 5 and 6 year old nieces are doing Welsh (second language) Welsh at a basic level in primary school - for example… but struggle when we say “sut (shwt) wyt ti?” to them, because they’ve learned quite strictly (as do lots of schools in the south) that it’s “sut (sit) wyt ti?”
Carry on speaking with him and don’t worry 
Always subtle differences in language. Londoners say “How do, cheerio chap” whilst Liverpudlians say “Sound boss, see youz later la’” - both mean the same thing 
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Hi thanks for the information you have cleared up up a lot for me just was getting frustrated. I have decided to learn welsh because I’m a Rhondda valley boy and don’t know our national language and so want to learn it dioch
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Good to see another Rhondda boy on here!
I was born in Pandy and lived in Edmondstown for most of my life. Now in Aberystwyth!
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