SaySomethinginWelsh.com

MikeEllwood wrote:I'm still a bit worried about the reaction I will get as a fairly obvious Englishman trying to learn Welsh. Will they question my motives? It seems 100% natural for a Welsh person to reconnect with the language of their ancestors, but a little less obvious for someone of the country whose language has helped to drive out Welsh.

I genuinely wouldn't worry about that at all. I've never had anything but positivity and gratitude from the Cymry Cymraeg whenever it emerges that I'm a Welsh-speaking Englishman living in England

(If only the same were true of the English I've had plenty of negative responses on this side of the border, even from people in language-learning circles who should know better. All the usual nonsense, presuming to tell me what is and is not a "waste of my time"... )

Ahem. Yeah, you'll be fine!

Tahl wrote:Hey, Rob, I just looked back into this thread . . . and found this post that you wrote four years ago today! Nice to see how far you (and the rest of us) have come since then, eh?

I was thinking about that very post as I was driving back from the Eisteddfod. We stopped in Dolgellau to buy some lunch and I was thinking that I still occasionally have to pinch myself that I can do mundane stuff like buying pies and cakes in a second language without really having to think about it.

WOW, good for you!! That's really amazing! I'm impressed at how brave you were to just shrug off your anxiety and jump right in. I'm really glad that you were encouraged so much, as well! Keep it up!

kinetic wrote:

MikeEllwood wrote:I'm still a bit worried about the reaction I will get as a fairly obvious Englishman trying to learn Welsh. Will they question my motives? It seems 100% natural for a Welsh person to reconnect with the language of their ancestors, but a little less obvious for someone of the country whose language has helped to drive out Welsh.

I genuinely wouldn't worry about that at all. I've never had anything but positivity and gratitude from the Cymry Cymraeg whenever it emerges that I'm a Welsh-speaking Englishman living in England

(If only the same were true of the English I've had plenty of negative responses on this side of the border, even from people in language-learning circles who should know better. All the usual nonsense, presuming to tell me what is and is not a "waste of my time"... )

Ahem. Yeah, you'll be fine!