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[WillowFae]

Today I spoke my first bit of Welsh in public!!!

I had a free period today and had to do cover for a Year 8 German lesson - a language which I did one year of school and can't really remember much of at all. I warned them that I couldn't help them at all and they asked me what languages did I speak. For some reason I said Welsh! Of course they wanted to hear some and started to get distracted. So I turned to one pupil in particular and told him 'Mae eisiau fi ti gwethio yn galed'.

Possibly not right but the whole class went silent

[Aran]

Superb! That has to rank as one of the most courageous first public uses of Welsh...

[WillowFae]

Yes - there aren't many things scarier than a class of Year 8s!!!

Was it correct, by the way?

[Aran]

Yes - there aren't many things scarier than a class of Year 8s!!!

Year 9s, maybe?...

If you were trying to say 'I need you to work hard', you'd be fine with 'mae eisiau i ti weithio'n galed' - we wouldn't tie the 'eisiau' to 'me', so it would be more 'there is a need for you to...'

You could also have gone for 'dw i angen i ti weithio'n galed' or something like that. But one thing's for sure - a Welsh speaking Year 8 student would have known exactly what point you were making...

[WillowFae]

Thanks Aran. How about if you wanted to emphasise the fact that I need you to work hard?

You never know, I may one day achieve my dream of persuading hubby to move to Wales and I would need to be able to teach over there!

[Aran]

You'd be fine just emphasising the 'dw i' bit...

[WillowFae]

AH, I see now! I haven't come across angen before and didn't know there was another way to say I need than Mae eisiau i fi

[Aran]

Ah, you're doing the southern version - yup, that way won't quite work in that particular situation - sorry! But now you've got an extra weapon in your armoury...