Swans help you with the basics.

(image via Visit Swansea Bay)

Dan Rhys ar Y Lle Siarad: dysgu Cymraeg ar y we (Cyfweliad da iawn ar YouTube)

Dydd Sadwrn 15fed mis Hydref 2011
9YB

Llun gan Hedd Gwynfor

Word of Mouth on BBC Radio 4 this week featured Les Barker, who is from Manchester and has learned Welsh to a very high level. Here’s the programme blurb:

Tired of living next to his noisy neighbours, Les Barker opted out of urban Manchester and moved to North Wales. “Although I’d spent half a lifetime an hour’s drive away, I’d never heard of Hedd Wyn. Or any other major figure in Welsh history or literature, apart from Max Boyce and Dylan Thomas.” So Les began to learn…and learn…and learn…..

“After toying briefly with ‘Teach Yourself Welsh’, I went on a four-day course in Denbigh; Craig Jones was the tutor. Over the summer I did a couple of week-long courses in Denbigh, initially with another Mr Jones, but he went off sick and was replaced by a Mrs Jones. Wales is full of them.”

“Being a beginner is frustrating. After a lifetime of being fluent, I suddenly had the vocabulary and grammar of a three-year-old.” But Les persevered, and is now a serious performer on the Welsh poetry scene, and one of the organisers of this summer’s Eisteddfod. Chris Ledgard meets Les as he makes last minute preparations for the festival.

30-minute programme on BBC iPlayer

Hwn ydy cofnod cyflym i ddweud bod rhaglen newydd am ddysgwyr Cymraeg ar S4C: cariad@iaith:love4language

Pennod 1 ar S4C Clic (gydag is-deitlau Saesneg a Chymraeg)

Pennod 2 ar S4C Clic (gydag is-deitlau Saesneg a Chymraeg)

Just a quick post to say there’s a new programme on S4C about Welsh learners called cariad@iaith:love4language. Follow the links above. Subtitles available.

Datganiad y wasg newydd (Cymraeg)

New press release (English)

Ifor ap Glyn has a new S4C programme called Ar Lafar which is an exploration of the dialects of Welsh around Wales. The first part visits Caernarfon to meet the locals, the cofis, and also Pembrokeshire and the recordings archive at Sain Ffagan near Cardiff. It’s on S4C Clic with optional subtitles in Welsh or English.

If you don’t know of Caernarfon’s Ifor ap Glyn he’s a fascinating chap, born in London, a bardd o fri (a poet of renown) and one-time musical collaborator with Llwybr Llaethog.

With his TV producer-presenter hat on, he’s well acquainted with the A470, A55 and M4 having already toured Wales some years ago for his Popeth yn Gymraeg series – in which he attempted to rely on Welsh alone in different parts of the country. While the realisation that almost everyone who lives in Welsh knows at least a word or two (almost nobody in Wales is completely di-Gymraeg, non-Welsh speaking) was an insight probably worth a series alone, I’m already enjoying Ar Lafar more.

(I blogged about tafodieithoedd and the highly prized and long out of print book Cymraeg, Cymrâg, Cymrêg last year.)

A few gems in this New York Times interview with Ellen Bialystok, cognitive neuroscientist and expert on the bilingual brain.

New lesson-by-lesson blog from learner in Caerdydd which is well worth a read:

Deaf. Learning Welsh.

And if you have anything helpful to write in the comments, cer amdani.

Here’s a cracking post from a fluent “learner” about his everyday use of Welsh in north Wales:

I’ll be honest. One of the reasons that I enjoy writing so much is that I can relax and think things through in English, my first language. While my life is now lived 90% through the medium of Welsh, there is still an extra layer of concentration needed to speak with my new tongue. I now converse fluently enough that people presume I’m just a bit dull and not very bright Welsh-speaker rather than somebody who has recently converted from English, but it‘s still a bit of a struggle.

I still remember the first time I heard the Welsh language. The teacher was a young blonde haired west-Walian and she gave me my first lesson as a nine year old in Fairwater Primary School in Cardiff. I don’t even think I knew there was a different language, and I certainly had no idea that people spoke it to each other naturally in other parts of the country. Miss Jones had a boyfriend and she trained us all to call him a “Gog” when he arrived to pick her up after school in his green mini metro.

Read the rest of the post on the blog 2 clots & the Alpe d’Huez.