You know you are learning Welsh when

….when you type “reit” on your phone and the suggested text offers “cwl” for the next word.

5 Likes

Your phone believes you, even when you might doubt yourself!

4 Likes

When you’re watching an old episode of “I’m Alan Partridge” and understand why he says about a Welsh James Bond saying “License to Kihth”

(No idea how to write LL phonetically!)

9 Likes

When you try to ask a question in German and realize the numbers you just said were in Welsh!

This felt strange because numbers from one to 10 in German is the first thing in a foreign language that I ever learnt, when I was about 4. I never learnt to speak the language fluently, but I heard and sid numbers a million times while I can hardly count in Welsh! Mystery that language experts like @aran might explain a bit

5 Likes

I know that feeling so well! It doesn’t happen in German to me (mother-tongue) or in English, but attempts to say anything in other languages that I have learnt over the years regularly hit a wall of “No, wait, that’s welsh!”

6 Likes

I’ve seen this kind of stuff as thought experiments on project work for PhD students - I’m not aware of any conclusive findings into the workings of interruption/substitution - I suspect someone may get somewhere with it one of these days, and that it might shed a lot of light on language processing if they do…

I had an odd one last night myself - I was in the Black Boy with my friend Dave, doing a Welsh/Spanish/French intercambio - and a couple of tourists stopped on the way out to ask if we were speaking Italian - and once they’d gone, I turned back to Dave and said (in Welsh, because it was just a quick comment and I didn’t want to have to make any effort) that we ought to brush up our Italian and see if we could make it part of our mix - and he answered me in Spanish, and for a moment I thought that was kind of odd, because we usually answer in whatever language the first comment had been - and then I thought that swapping languages every sentence might be a really fun challenge…

And then it dawned on me that I hadn’t said it in Welsh after all. He was answering me in Spanish because I’d spoken Spanish to him, while apparently under the impression that I was speaking Welsh to keep it quick and easy.

Endlessly confusing and entertaining… :slight_smile:

10 Likes

Just this morning I announced I had “bwyd pour le gath”…

3 Likes

Thus the title for @aran’s new book was born…How to Forget Welsh in 3 Easy Pints :rofl:

Sorry, Aran, I couldn’t resist.

6 Likes

Somewhat in the same vein, I look forward to the day when SSi is able to offer

Language “x” (“y”, “z” …) through the medium of Language “a” (“b”, “c” …), where none of x,y,z, etc or a,b, c is necessarily English (although it could be, or it could be Welsh, or something completely different).

I seem to remember that some work has already been done along these lines already (another tautology already! :wink: )

4 Likes

I can recommend this if you really want to mess with your head :slight_smile:

3 Likes

See, Giselle, Hendrick, Stephen and Delaware - even Aran can succumb to the Language Gremlins! I did warn you!!

3 Likes

Gracias! neu diolch! So my vague memory of something like this already being available was correct. Useful for 1st language Welsh speakers, but also useful for 1st language English (or any other language actually) speakers, providing they already know the basics of Welsh, but for slightly different reasons.

1 Like

I’m going to practice reading this posting every day for two months. I hope to be able to understand it afterwards. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Dwi’n eistedd yma gwylio ‘Cyw’ ar y teledu

1 Like

Dw i’n hoffi Cyw!

Brwsio i fyny a brwsio i lawr! Brwsio y fyny a brwsio i lawr! Brwsio pob un dant yn awr! Brwsio i fyny a brwsio i lawr!

Catchy songs!

2 Likes

…you walk past a stand in a supermarket (in Oxford, mind), hear a faint “woah-ohh” and think they’re playing this only to find, on doing a double-take, that they’re just doing a special offer on DVDs of Mamma Mia!

1 Like

… you go into the Welsh café Siop Shop in Manchester and order in Welsh! And find yourself trying to teach Welsh to the waitress…
Verdict: listening skills still need to be worked on, but much improved. Speaking feels much more natural.

10 Likes

One of my mythical ancestors who was half fish/snake from the waist down once a week - or so the story goes - turned herself into a dragon after her husband made her angry by calling her a serpent in front of his court, so… maybe he should have tried calling her “fy ddraig.” It sounds a little sweeter. :rofl::mermaid::dragon_face::rofl:

1 Like

You know you’re learning Welsh when… the Toyota-thon sale ad is playing in the background from the next room and you find yourself thinking, “Wait, did they just say Cymru…? Nope, they said Camry.”

:rofl::oncoming_automobile:

7 Likes

You know you’re learning Welsh when…

You’re playing Dobble with your family and you shout out the names of the picture matches in Welsh (and then you get shouted at because they accuse you of cheating :joy:)

4 Likes