WelshLearner

Welsh books to be bought start of list

2010-11-30T21:22:00.002Z

Welsh books on my to buy list:

(1) Author: Ifan Morgan Jones

Title: Yr Argraff Gyntaf

Publication date August 2010

Publisher: Y Lolfa, Tal-y-Bont

ISBN 9781847712677

(2) Author: Bethan Gwanas

Title: Yn ol i Gbara

Publication date October 2010

Publisher: Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst

ISBN 9781845272838

Having borrowed most of the books I have read recently, I feel a little guilty after reading a couple of pleas from Welsh writers for us to buy their books. The potential audience is not so large - and apparently Welsh speakers are not big book buyer - so if we want our favourite authors to continue we need to support them. Hence I have identified some books to buy as opposed to borrow

Back to work and weekend course coming up

2010-01-03T21:26:00.002Z

We're at the end of the Christmas holiday period now and although I've had over a week off, I was ill for quite a few days so did less of nearly everything than I had hoped to. I had finished the novel that Jim had found me (Omelet) just beforehand and had T Llew jones's autobiography (Fy Mhobol I) at home with me (on interlibrary loan). I finished T Llew Jones - though some of it was a bit of a struggle, especially the chapters on the eisteddfod that talk about the entries - and give examples of the poems. The poems themselves are not that easy to follow or understand (for me, anyway) but he was a fascinating and very energetic man. I've now read a few of his children's books too - which are very good.

I also started and finished a Welsh classic by Daniel Owen - probably (this might be showing my ignorance) the first modern Welsh novelist. Styled as an autobiography it gave a really interesting account of the restricted life led by many people in small villages and towns in some parts of Wales - also the strength of religion at the time - and the fear around it.

But now I am out of books that I have not already read - except for ones that I have given up on - and may try yet again. I booked into the Pontypool course in the end so we'll see how it goes - I'm looking forward to it though a bit apprehensive as it isn't residential so I have the delights of the holiday inn (or something similar can't remember). And apart from a Welsh boost I should also be able to buy some new books

New Year courses

2009-12-11T19:51:00.002Z

I am hoping to get to at least one short course in the New Year and dithering between a weekend course in Pontypwl (good because don't need to take leave from work - but bad because rather a long journey........) and one in Bangor - mid-week (so would need to take leave); faster journey but more expensive course (with no food provided). Hmmm. Perhaps I should have had the foresight to realise that I would want to get back to my Welsh before I moved to England and so far away from any opportunities to speak Welsh. But this was many many years ago.

But at least I am relearning in a digital age with access to SC4; radio cymru on the web and podcasts to listen to whilst I am cycling. I am struggling to find enough audio in Welsh though and had to resort last week to listen to quite a long programme on Highland cattle whilst I was cycling home. Nothing against highland cattle - I like them - but it would not have been my choice of listening, not for a whole 40 minutes.

And I am going to try harder to keep writing in Welsh. Though I am now in the position where I email a few people in Welsh and talk on the phone sometimes so I am not just reliant on writing in the Welsh blog.

Still here....

2009-08-31T13:59:00.002+01:00

I haven't posted to either this blog or the welsh one for a little while - but this doesn't mean I have been doing no Welsh. I went to the Welsh summer school in Abergavenny at the end of July and had a really good week. And part of the benefit is in being able to buy more Welsh books, so I came away with a small pile, once again.

Gareth has lent me two books, one a novel and one of short stories. The novel is by Dafydd Llewelyn, entitled Tocyn I'r Nefoedd (ticket to heaven) and is both very funny and rather sad - an odd story about a minister in a very small conservative minded village who is pilloried for inadvertently having helped a family win the lottery - which enables them to take their daughter who has leukemia for treatment to the States. Sadly, the treatment does not work - and neither does his relationship (or job) work out - but for once the suggestion on the back cover that the reader will be crying and laughing in turn is not far from the truth.

I also finished Mared Lewis's Y Maison du Soleil - about relationships between a group of friends on their annual French holiday. And I have just finished Y Stryd (The Street) - a detective novel which was really good. And also Chris Cope's book about learning Welsh (Cwrw am Ddim) Perhaps more on that in another post.

I intend to really learn the new words as I go along - but often get caught up in the book itself though I often do go back and make a list of the translations I pencil in on the pages for the unknown words. I hope that by reading the new words in context I will remember them - but acquiring new vocabulary seems to take a long time.

It's often interesting though as I have noted before to see what the Welsh word for something is - take Barrister. It's literally "Bar - solicitor" - nice and easy to remember (assuming you know solicitor - bar is the same as in English as it happens).

So now I need to be disciplined to keep going not only on the reading but also on the vocabular and grammar as there will be a gap before the next course. There is a day school in Caernarfon I hope to get to in November and likewise in London - but that is a long way away.....

Not sure this blog is quite dead

2009-02-08T19:27:00.004Z

My intention for my Welsh was to move this year to only blog in Welsh. http://aildysgu.blogspot.com/
I have indeed tried to do this and will keep going. The main problem I think is that the main thing I do in Welsh (apart from watching TV and sometimes listening to the radio) is to read books. I'm finding it very hard to effectively post up mini book reviews in Welsh - and I'm also finding it much harder to write in Welsh than I do to speak.

I haven't given up yet - I will try to see if I can keep going all year. But I may need to broaden what I post about - and just not worry about the level of the Welsh. The practice can only help...........

Last post in this blog? Or is it? What is fluency? and challenges of a new blog for 2009

2009-01-04T18:21:00.007Z

The long long gap between this and my last blog is mainly because I broke my wrist badly in the summer, and ended up needing lots of hand therapy on it, though it is much better now and I can type reasonably comfortably again, though a bit slower than I used to. So, I got out of the blogging habit, but am now back (though maybe just for a while - read on!)

So, what has this meant for my Welsh? Well I have still been doing as much as possible – went to a weekend in Abergavenny in September when my arm was still in plaster, and to a day school in London in October, but unfortunately had an infection and missed the last weekend I was planning to go to.

So, this is probably a good time to reflect on where I have got to over the last few months, and I think on the whole, it's gone well. It's really hard to assess progress. I am doing different activities from those I did near the start: I listened to the Welsh soap downloaded from the website whilst cycling (this has been out, as I am not yet back to cycling..........); I listened to the lunchtime and after lunchtime news programme. I didn't have the welsh TV channel nor was Clic available on the web (the welsh channel 4's equivalent of watch again), so, I do much more tv watching, both live and catching up on the internet. I have kept up the reading, tackling a new novel and autobiography recently. And when I go to my Welsh courses, I sign up for the highest group, which for the course at the Hill, certainly requires you to be fluent. This has got me thinking about what fluency is – not straightforward. It can be different for different categories, as below:

fluency in understanding speech For me, this is pretty good, certainly fine in everyday conversation where there isn't too much unknown vocabulary - i.e. colloquial Welsh, I guess. Much spoken Welsh, like (I guess)many minority langauges living alongside majority languages has lots of borrowings from English – it is only in certain contexts that the correct Welsh term is used or in formal settings. (Indeed some of the Welsh words have only come into existence a little while ago). I am gradually building up my more formal vocabulary but it us slower so much slower than I would like.

Fluency in reading – well this is a bit like the category above, depending again on the vocabulary. But I am really enjoying my forays into Welsh literature.
The grammar doesn't usually get in the way in these categories – except in old literature – then forms are used differently

Fluency in speakiong = unfortunately this doesn't get tried out often enough – but it is not bad – I often can't think of the words I want but in speaking there is always the option of using a different one instead (if you can find one!)

fluency in writing – OK, this is where I don't do as well. I get no practice in writing - and hence, from now on, am going to practice through my blog. I am going to see whether I can set up a Welsh blog which facilitates the accents etc needed - if not, will simply set up a new one which will be mainly in Welsh, but my aim is to also provide an English summary - though this may not always happen - so do check it out

Here is the address for the new blog: http://aildysgu.blogspot.com/ Aildysgu - menas "re-learning"
I am also exploring writing a nature blog: http://newportnature.blogspot.com/

mobile Welsh back again and some history

2008-07-18T17:11:00.006+01:00

For a number of reasons I have been less active on the Welsh front in the last month or so. Visiting Conwy gave me a bit of a boost and, perhaps more importantly, some Welsh books. It is always much better browsing in a shop rather than buying a bit blind through the internet. But what would be best would be a Welsh lending library by post - so if anyone reads this and knows of one, please please let me know. Meanwhile digital media play a large part in my attempts to build up my vocabulary in this rather un-Welsh spot of the UK. I am starting to catch up on Welsh music - there is a wealth of great riches out there. Not surprisingly it has moved on a lot since I left, but I am only just starting to find out about some of the singers and bands. I'm very much looking forward to having time (some time maybe........) to get to some live events but of course these are also thin on the ground in Milton Keynes.

I also try to watch the regular evening magazie programme "Wedi Saith". This is a really creative and excellent programme. Imagine you have a TV channel in a language that has a relatively small number of speakers and who are distributed over Wales - what would you put on as a regular half hour slot in the evening? Wedi Saith is a really interesting magazine programme featuring mainly Arts and cultural events in Wales, but quite a diverse range of features. Through the programme I have discovered that there is a Welsh 'lost garden' (think Heligan but with an amazing series of underground passages/grottos which I am now itchingn to visit). I have also learnt about the history of the ferry to Anglesey from my home town of Caernarfon and of the time when all but one of the passengers were drowned after many were drinking heavily at the Christmas fair. The "Arvon" (note the English spelling) was quite a large steamer licensed to carry 300 persons : bought in 1896 and sold in 1923. In addition to passengers the steamer carried animals and goods destined for Caernarfon Market. And excitingly there are plans to perhaps re-introduce a ferry/boat crossing - wh ich would mean crossing in possibly 15 minutes instead of having to go the 9 miles or so to the Menai Bridge.

Conwy and the London Welsh Centre

2008-06-16T14:50:00.004+01:00

Am amazed to find that it is a month since the last blog - and indeed in the absence of new books, courses or anyone to talk - and the need to get my French back in gear a bit for a holiday in France, the lack of motivation continued. And any time on languages was spent on French (not that it seemed to make much difference...........)However, I went to Conwy last week to do a bit of walking with a friend Conwy and Llandudno and to buy a couple of new books -not that I could get many given that they were all being carried in the rucksack. The weather came good and we had a lovely walk on the Great Orme and another on Conwy mountain.

And then the day after returning I did a day's course at the London Welsh Centre. I have done one of these before and it was excellent - as was this one. It really makes me realise the need for practice talking. Reading is great (once I can get the books) as is listening to the radio and watching Welsh television but it is only in spontaneous conversation that I realise I am still struggling to think of the words that I need - though writing might also help.

I am now going to the highest level classes when I book the courses. This means that some of it is quite hard - especially the grammar - for me at least, but it also means that there tends to be quite an emphasis on conversation. On this course, on Saturday, we had a North Wales tutor which was great for me as I have struggled with the South Wales dialect. However, of course the Abergavenny courses have been in South Wales Welsh so I have also learnt some of this and am probably now using some weird mixture of the two and not always sure which is which. Determined to try to keep it going a bit more now - so need to think of some tasks to set myself I think. I will also try to find out about future events at the Welsh Centre and try to get to some.

Motivation and reading

2008-05-15T14:38:00.006+01:00

Motivation for my Welsh is a bit low at the moment, which may be why I haven't managed an entry for a bit (though that might be me making an excuse), though I am always amazed to find it is a week or a couple of weeks between entries as it never feels like that - I am probably not meant to be a frequent blogger, or something

Anyway, in the absence of a device on which to listen to Welsh on the move, I have returned to reading. I have been reading two quite different books: the first a Science fiction about a future Big Brother world apparently run by the US (so perhaps not so fictitous then) in which Welsh is disappearing and has been driven underground (Annwyl Smotyn Bach) and the second is a romantic novel set in Patagonia. Very different books, but both quite challenging to read, because of vocabulary I just don't know. So I find myself wondering what proportion of new (i.e. unknown) words is optimal. With both these, there were passages I had trouble with without a dictionary, though the second Patagonian one was worse as that also has what I presume is South Wales dialect which isnn't even in the dictionary. Hence it gets a bit depressing and demotivating as it seems that however many new words I learn, there are so many I haven't encountered waiting for me in the next book.

I do cheer up though (and regain a bit of motivation) in listening to the audio book I have of Kate Roberts's Te yn y Grug - which I think I have mentioned before. She was born and raised in Rhosgadfan, Caernarfon (which as I commented on excitedly before is where my father was brought up) I love this description of her work from one of the websites: She quarried her own idiom from the local Welsh dialect and from her reading of Welsh literature at the University of Wales, Bangor. Her writing really is wonderful - social history mixed with such a perceptive take on childhood - and writing that is warm and humorous to boot - and, pretty accessible - though I think because it is such good writing and so interesting and of course personally relevant because of where she is writing about maybe I am up for more of an effort in looking up/findning out the words I don't know. So maybe the message is I should read more of her work .

Musings about words in Welsh and English

2008-04-28T17:12:00.002+01:00

I've been musing about how words translate (or not) between Welsh and English - and how different the literal meanings are. One of my interests is wildlife and so I have found myself looking up the Welsh names of animals and birds especially. Sometimes they are close to the English, (Like blackbird) but at other times they are interestingly different. So, like in Ennglish, some of the names are descriptive -but focus on a different kind of description - hence Oystercatcher becomes Pioden y mor; (sea magpie) and thrush is Bronfraith (which I think is speckled breast) and the chough (where does that word come from??) becomes Bran coed goch - nicely straightforward as this means crow with red legs! (which can be seen in the picture and are much more common in Wales than in England).
Then there are words or phrases that are much more concise than in English in two senses. A) in the sense that there is one Welsh word for several in English. Examples here are – betws (grove of birch trees, so one dictionary says); echddoe – day before yesterday; echnos (night before last) . Quite helpful to have one word for this I think. And b) a kind of conciseness where one word is used where there are two in Englishb – e.g. dysgu (teach and learn) or menthyg (lend and borrow) and the precise meaning is worked out from the sentence . (and the marks of these can be seen in Welsh speakers who often use lend or borrow for either – not surprisingly)

Then there are also just interesting and fascinating words or phrases. I was watching a countryside programme and wondered what the reference to ceffyl wedd meant literally - it was clearly what we would call a heavy or work horse, and it turnns out that wedd means yoke - so it means yoke horse. Annd there are so many words for toad that I don't know which if any is the most commonly used. I don't remember the word from our childhood - we probably used llyffant (frog) for both - but apparantely toad can be "llyfant dafad" which initially looks like it is a sheep frog - but further enquiries reveal that dafad also means warty - so that makes sense

Dim llawer o Gymraeg yng Nghymru (not much Welsh in Wales)

2008-04-21T11:43:00.004+01:00

Well I'm having problems synchronising and therefore putting mp3 files onto my PDA - so no Welsh on the move for me at the moment - not on the bike anyway. I have spent a few days walking on the Cambrian way in South Wales though. Lovely walking but quite disappointing in tersm of not bumping into ANY Welsh speakers, really. Now I know that there are not so many in those counties but I thojught we might have found a few - S4C must get its speakers from somewhere (they are not all South Waleians). Even so I was really interested to walk in an area of Wales I had never been to - except one trip to a Rugby match in Cardiff on a coach when around 17..................
We walked from Cardiff to Abergavenny over four days.

I felt that as I was in Wales I did need to do some Welsh hence kept up my walk diary in Welsh - so far it is just in a note book but I think that soon I need to be brave and start bloggin in Welsh. I have been looking at other Welsh blogs and have found some fascinating ones: more on that in a future post. But now I am back from my walk and without mobile resources am back to reading. The book I have completed most recently is William Jones by T Rowland Hughes. As with O Law i Law this is a somewhat abbreviated edition, with some notes for Welsh learners. But I think I am getting to the point where I might try the original (bit scary, though). Anyway, as with O Law i Law this is a fascinating and humorous story about a slate quarrier who decides to move to the "Sowth": that being South Wales - which enables the story to provide a commentary on the hardships, comradery annd humour of the South Wales mines (from the perspective of a North Walian) at a time of depression and unemployment. What I find fascinating about the books I have been reading from around this period - which includes Kate Roberts' work too is the social history, and moreover, a social history that feels as though it has a strong personal connection. Roberts, as I have said before was born in the same village as my father, whilst Hughes lived in Llanberis, a village some 7 miles away.

Learning on the move again

2008-04-04T09:13:00.004+01:00

In my regular emails from the BBC learnwelsh website, I received one about the recent Welsh podcasts. So far, there aren’t too many: one which seems to be the equivalent of Radio 4’s Pick of the week (pretty good); another which is a nature programme (fine - another interest) and a third which is a very light magazine program with a bit too much focus on celebrities I have never heard of. Nevertheless, this looks like giving me, once again, a resource I can use whilst cycling, thus making good use of the 80 mins or so a day when I cycle in and out of work.

Interesting to reflect on how what I use to resource and support my Welsh activities is serendipitous – depending on what resources I have managed to procure recently or what new resources have come to my attention. What I am using changes my pattern of learning quite a lot. The podcasta are quite timely as I have just finished Hari Potter. Yes, it is spelt correctly - it is a Welsh version of Harry Potter, bought when in Abergavenny in March – and have found it, as with the BFG I read previously, to be a really motivating resource. Sad, you might think, but the fact is that the story is quite a page turner – and I can keep reading it in Welsh with only occasionally recourse to either the dictionary , or, better, the English version. So children’s books seem to be good (if well written) for extending vocabulary whilst maintaining a good narrative that pulls you along. (Though of course some of the language in Harry Potter is quite specialist – not sure how useful all the words involved in Quidditch will be, if I ever remember them)

Back from Welsh weekend

2008-03-19T13:24:00.003Z

Had another great weekend at Abergavenny learning Welsh – I nearly said speaking Welsh – and that is certainly one of the big motivators for me. I haven’t yet found a local(ish) person or group. Obviously working on learning a language without opportunity to speak it (except to the dog) is a bit problematic, and although my background as a Welsh second language speaker helps enormously, it was great to be able to focus on this for a weekend.

I opted for a higher level class which had a tutor I have had before who puts a fair emphasis on grammar. This is undoubtedly a good thing for me: I know I have big holes in my grammar – and I find working on these hard on my own, and much less tempting than reading, listening to the radio, watching Welsh TV or even occasionally writing in Welsh. Karen got us to do a test (from some examination paper, or course, I think) at the beginning of the weekend; took it in; worked on the things that most people in the class were getting wrong – and re-tested us at the end. Classic pre-post test stuff. I had to leave early to catch the train and so took the marked test and promised (1) to redo the test on the train and (2) not to look at the marked version until I had. I kept both promises and found the result really interesting. I had indeed improved on some things that we had been taught – but had introduced new mistakes! I cheered myself up my reminding myself that this is exactly what happens in skill development in children – and indeed in language development; new things are often over-generalised leading to a dip – which is of course followed by an increase in performance. Looking forward to seeing that – and promising myself I will do some grammar exercises before the next course as well as looking out for and noticing grammatical structure in my reading

Talking Welsh in Wales

2008-03-13T20:43:00.003Z

I'm really looking forward to getting the opportunity to talk Welsh over the weekend. The course, like the others I have been on is in Abergavenny, which of course is right on the edge of Wales and has spent part of its life in England. Apparently, around according nto the 2001 census just 10% of those living in the Abergavenny area are able to speak Welsh. This seems pretty low to me who comes from Caernarfon in North Wales where the percentage of Welsh speakers is is quoted as 90 or 80% (depending on the source) but is a substantial increase since the last Census back in 1991, when only 2% of local people spoke Welsh. However, even though there might not be a lot of Welsh spoken outside the course, there will be plenty of opportunity over the weekend - and I have to say I am getting quite excited about it now. It will also be good to have some of the responsibility for my learning handed over to a teacher, as it were.

Weekend course ahead and the gift of on-demand TV

2008-03-11T15:47:00.007Z

Bit of a gap since the last posting! I am not managing to make the number of entries here that I had expected to. I guess the practice of blogging has not become sufficiently embedded into my life - and of course I have kept the subject matter of my blog fairly narrowly confined to my Welsh learning - and sometimes wonder just how much there is to say - though my husband would say I can go on about it quite a bit. The main focus for me right now is that I have another weekend course coming up. The timing of this feels very good in that work is very busy and I have a difficult day ahead in my personal life so I think I am going to be really ready for this course by Friday. I have now suggested that I go into the level 5 class - one up from where I was last time. It would be good to think I was doing this with more grammar sorted and under my belt, but hey, I must be picking some up along the way and I will have a good go on the train. I do think my vocabulary is increasing though. One of the resources that has really helped is the Welsh channel (S4C) making many of its programmes available on the web - the equivalent of BBCi. So I am trying to replace some of the TV watching that I would do anyway with watching Welsh TV. I tend to move between pretty low demand soaps (there is one from near where I come from so the accent and dialect is right- but the vocabulary is not very stretching, nor the storylines.....) and news type programmes. It is really helpful being able to pause etc. I have watched a programme on bullying in the workplace 2-3 times now, and have written down a lot of the vocabulary.

There is also a new nature series by Iolo Williams - see
http://www.s4c.co.uk/c_watch_level2.shtml?title=Natur%20Cymru
I already have Iolo's book - mentioned in a previous post - and so am looking forward to watching this. So what I am finding is that I am using different resources at different times as and when they become available. I have moved from being a regular Welsh news listener to watching more Welsh TV. I have run out of books for the moment and will restock at the weekend. I am also trying to produce more Welsh, but of course don't have anyone to check it. Here is a recent poem. If you can read Welsh - feedback welcome, (there may be all kinds of mistakes) but be kind!(and I don't know how to do the accent we put on mor - must find out - till then it looks more French!)

Ger y mór, y mae y tywod
Yn disgleirio ar ol y cawod
Ar haul yn gweny ar u traeth -
ac ar fy hiraeth

Presents in the post and heritage language learning

2008-02-05T21:41:00.000Z

Learning a language in a place where it is not spoken (like learning - or brushing up on) Welsh in Milton Keynes is extremely frustrating at times. I often muse on the irony that were I working on my French or Italian (and oh yes, I hope to get back to these once I feel the Welsh is settled enough) it would be easier to find resources - and spaces in which to practice. I could get French radio - and possibly Italian; and I could certainly find classes in both. But I have not bumped into people who speak Welsh in Milton Keynes - though I have to admit to not having done a thorough search, and must do that as I am sorely feeling the need to talk to someone other than the mp3 track (yes, in my darkest moments I comment out aloud - in Welsh of course - on the latest happenings in the soap opera). However, there are silver linings and all that. As there are no Welsh bookshops to hand, I buy resources from a website called Gwales that sells both Welsh and English titles (of books by Welsh authors, about Wales, etc etc). It's a bit hit and miss because sometimes the descriptions are a bit short - and of course, sometimes there are bits of the synopsis I don't understand. (This is usually a huge CLUE that I will find the book hard). However, it does mean that every now and then a parcel arrives in the post - and it is like Christmas all over again! My recent parcel (today!!) included my first Welsh DVD (of a programme from the Welsh TV channel); a magazine; one of the Welsh learner books and then I pushed the boat out and bought a book of short stories by well known Welsh authors. I tried one by a woman who came from the same village as my father, and who is pretty well known in Wales (in fact the village - whose population must be pretty small - boasts two famous Welsh authors) and this particular story proved to be fairly hard going, but I shall keep trying. I failed to keep up my however many new words to learn a day - but I have been let us say engaging with Welsh on a regular, probably daily basis since Christmas. I have been using two main resources: the Welsh soap opera that I mentioned before and Welsh books (and now of course I have some new unread ones - I was having to re-read ones I had previously read!) I have run into trouble on the soap though - I download it from the BBC - and the episodes just run out when you get to number 110 - so now I will never know whether Arwen dies having been stabbed by Chris - how could the BBC do this?

I have got to the end and not mentioned heritage language learning - so that will now have to wait for the next post............watch this space

Vocabulary, reading, writing and children's books

2008-01-07T15:04:00.000Z

I am still on the hunt for the best - and easiest way - to increase my vocabulary. Over the Christmas period I have been reading fairly assiduously, drawing both on books for learners - which I've mentioned before, and are great - and have also been reading an autobiography which is not intended for learners but is by someone who had learn Welsh as a second language. The mix seems quite helpful but I do wonder what the optimum vocabulary 'difficulty' is. I have found reading the autobiography fairly frustrating and hard work at times because the proportion of unknown words has been just a bit too high and then I find myself wondering whether to just continue, using the context to guess the probably meaning or whether to stop and look up the words. This brings in another problem - there are words used in the language which are not in the dictionary (perhaps I need a slang dictionary?) and conversely, words in the dictionary which tend not to be in everyday use in the language.

I have also been reading more of the books for learners. There is a nice series which is a bit like the English Bridget Jones diary about a Welsh learner (may have mentioned this before..) about Blodwyn Jones - which is amusing, well written and does have unknown vocabulary - but not too much, so allows me to read through at a reasonable pace.

So I do a mixture of highlighting the words or circling in pencil and adding them to my vocabulary book or just repeating them to myself. But I am not sure how much that really helps me to remember them - often I will recognise the words after a few encounters, but not know them enough to use them. This is the classic recognition/comprehension versus production gap.

I am trying a different system now though which is to set myself three new words to learn a day which I decide on in the morning and then come back to at a later point in the day and check that I have indeed learnt them. So far so good - but only on day two of this particular project!

I have also started reading children's books that have been translated into Welsh - in particular Roald Dahl's BFG - which I read years ago when our children were young and enjoyed again in the Welsh version (CMM - if you want to know! Cawr Mawr Mwyn!) Interestingly there is enough new vocabulary to make this a bit of a stretch and it turns out that a few of Dahl's books have been translated - and I so love Quentin Blake's illustrations (couldn't find one from BFG) so will look forward to that.........

Blogging, vocabulary and eclectic reading

2007-12-21T15:38:00.000Z

I have found it hard to find the time to post any entries this last little while. Probably mainly a function of getting close to Christmas so lots of work to finish off and the usual preChristmas jobs too. But I suspect that's not all of it. I think I have yet to work out a pattern for making the entries that works for me . We are not a household where the computer is always on - indeed I often take the role of environmental nag - turning off the comptuer at the mains when it has been on for a little while and not used - so perhaps that doesn't help. But I also think that maybe it needs a regular time slot from me. I'm not sure how others find it........blogging 'feels' like it is a bit more spontaneous than would be suggested by the regular slot - and this would not fit with the going for it when you have something to say approach. So still finding my way on this one.........

I have recently found myself reading the transcripts of the Welsh soap opera I listen to on my PDA. I don't do this very often - the whole point of the Brynaber (name of the hospital where it all happens...) episodes for me is that I can listen to them on my bike and they are accompanied by grammar points and vocabulary. But I have had a short bad run with the bike and hence was on the bus and reading. For some reason I read one of the episodes that I had already heard and I was really surprised to find that there were words in the transcript that I didn't know and sections I didn't quite understand. I really hadn't been aware of this when listening. I had clearly filled in the gaps myself, making-meaning and constructing the narrative quite successfully from the context - to the point where I had not realised that there were bits I had not understood. So it seems to me that having both the audio and written versions is really interesting and complimentary. For me, the South Wales accent in the audio is sometimes problematic, as I am used to a North Wales voice, and also of course, the text allows for looking and relooking at words and pondering about them in a way that just doesn't happen with audio.

I am still wanting to build my vocabulary up - and am impatient and wanting to do it fast of course. One device I have tried with some success is to listen to the news in Welsh on the web and write down all the words I don't know as I hear them - however I often then fail to follow it up by looking them up as there are too many. But it does focus the mind on trying to isolate the word. And for those who don't know Welsh it is not straightforward as there are numerous mutations - so often it is the mutated word that is being heard.

Over Christmas I thought I would concentrate on reading though. One thing with reading for language learning as opposed to just for pleasure is I find I need to be very eclectic in my reading given that there is a limit to what is available that is accessible to me. I now have a small pile on my table including two Blodwyn Jones 'diaries' (think Welsh Bridget Jones); Heather Jones's autobiography (singer who learnt Welsh) and two others from the contemporary novels for Welsh learners series. As a nature and wildlife lover I also have "Blwyddyn Iolo" - "Iolo's year". Iolo is a Welsh naturalist. This latter is really interesting - and a bit of a challenge. Apart from not being geared to learners, which most of the others are, not unsuprisingly it has a lot of specialist language for species not found in the Welsh dictionary. Nearly time for Christmas and Sion Corn (Father Christmas) so, Nadolig Llawen!

Resources and mobile learning

2007-12-10T14:22:00.000Z

I am currently making quite a lot of use of my PDA,. Using it for learning Welsh started when my cheap MP3 player broke. I used that a lot when cycling; especially in the winter as it can get pretty boring cycling for 40 minutes in the dark. I decided to try to use the MP3 player on the PDA (handheld device) which is a bit of a circuitous route. I download MP3 files from one of the excellent BBC langauge learning sites http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/catchphrase/ysbyty_brynaber
This one features a soap about a hospital and the audio files you can download are the weekly omnibus. I think this has a number of good features as a resource: firstly, it is in fairly small chunks (20 minutes or so) hence very do-able "bites" (takes me two to cycle home) and secondly because it has a strong (if improbable!) story line, the narrative does provide some motivation to keep going with it to find out what happens next. Thirdly as it is created for learners it introduces vocabulary in a paced way and repeats it - and each episode also comes with a transcript, so if anyone finds it difficult to hear or can't work out the accent, it is there in print. Finally it also introduces some grammatical and other points each week and discusses them (in English) - and these are illustrated in the episode.
So it's a great resource for learning on the move - though I have some issues with the usability of the PDA........but that can wait for another post

Weekend School

2007-12-04T12:01:00.000Z

I have just been away at a weekend school (Cwrs Penwythnos) in Abergavenny (Y Fenny) and once again (I have been once nearly two years ago) found it great to have some intensive periods of concentrating on my Welsh though given that I am re-learning it is difficult to know what level to go to (there are classes of various different levels). I went to the 4th class and that seemed about right and helpful for my grammar though I think (unsurprisingly) my speaking is more fluent and confident than some of the others in the class. They pack a lot in in a weekend (13 hours tuition) and everyone is encouraged to speak Welsh at coffee breaks and lunchtimes too. So I was very encouraged by others who suggested I might go to class 6 next time (the highest) though I think I would struggle with some of that, so I am resolved to try to learn some grammar and will have a go at class 5 next time which I hope will be March.

Speaking of (or writing about) grammar, I notived that some other learners are really fascinated by the structure and how the grammar works - and also concerned to get it right. Leaving aside for now that this is completely over simplicstic, I wonder whether there are two kinds of langauge learners: those who want to master the structure and grammar and get it right - and get frustrated by classes encouraging them to speak when they are unsure - and those more like myself who find the grammar a pain to tell the truth and just want to be able to talk and to read. Of course I would like to be reasonably grammatically correct - and especially for writing - but find learning the grammar tedious. I got thinking about this talking to a couple of learners from class 6: who were very engaged in thinking about some of the structures formal Welsh - which apparently has to be used in instructions and guidance in exam papers etc etc, and, I suppose in the legal system and so on - but is rarely used every day. Though (I think) we (i.e. the Welsh) do still use the subjunctive.

I was really amazed at my last weekend school and at this one at the variety of learners and the reasons for learning. Last time I met a woman in her nineties who had lived in the valleys all her life and had been a teacher but had never learnt or spoken Welsh which I think was frowned on as an everyday language at the time. But having contributed to various local history projects about life in the past in her village was determined to write a final book in Welsh. She was pretty good too. Another student came from the Welsh speaking area of Patagonia and spoke with a delightful Spanish accent - she was in Cardiff doing Welsh and English and her Welsh was much better than her English. Many learners are from Welsh families who are not Welsh speaking - but can often trace the last Welsh speaking members to their grandparents, and so are somehow recapturing and reclaiming the language. I'm also struck by how many people are learning Welsh - 120 on this course: mainly a mixture of people now living in Wales; Welsh people or people from Welsh families (like those described above).

Novels for learners

2007-11-29T11:09:00.000Z

One resource I am currently using quite a lot is novels in Welsh written for learners. The advantages of these seem to me to be that the narrative pulls me along and engages me in continuing with the book and at the same time it is much more accessible than Welsh books 'in the wild' as it were. Also, they come with some notes and vocabulary - so cann often be read without a dictionary to hand. Of course the downside is that as with most 'teaching' material - which in some sense the teacher/designer has to decide/guess what level the learner is at. In this case, this means deciding which words are likely to be unfamiliar and therefore need translating. For me, it is often the case that I know some of these words but don't know others in the text. However, there is of course another advantage of the novel as a way of building up vocabulary and generally being immersed in the language and that is that it is often quite possible to guess words from the context.

I don't know how it works in other languages but in Welsh there are commissioned series of such books and many are written by acclaimed authors - so there is the benefit of having a book written by a good author. The other thing that works really well is that you have a light, handy resource - in this case low tech (more on technology based resources in future posts!) which is idea for taking on a bus, as I did this morning. (Not good for cycling which is my main mode of transport) And great for a train which I will be on this afternoon. Currently my way of working with these is mainly to read and highlight new words and sometimes also write in the translation in pencil. I do find acquiring new vocabulary hard but another advantage of these is that they repeat new words - so in my current book one of the characters is having driving lessons so I may just remember the words for instructor, driving test etc by the end.

I guess the main disadvantage is that unless as a learner I look for ways to actively use the language from the boom - e.g. write something or talk about it, I am not getting experience and practising in using but in reading (but this is true for any reading). It also means being open to reading all kinds of stories that one might not ideally choose as the choice is much more limited - so I have found myself reading about highwaymen ((NOT my usual choice of reading); pirates; the trials of small businesses (that brought in some useful vocabulary) and so on.

Getting started

2007-11-28T16:48:00.000Z

I have finally decided to have a go at blogging about my language learning. I am brushing up my Welsh which I first learn when I was 4 - so it is my second language but I have forgotten so much of it over the years having been away from Wales for 35 years or so. I think I have two challenges: the first is grammar: that I was never taught grammar (because I was treated as a 'native' speaker at school as apparently my Welsh was too good to be allowed in the learner classes when we did our compulsory Welsh O levels); and the second is BIG gaps in vocabulary. When I was in Wales there was no Welsh TV, or parliament and I never learnt the terminology commonly used in the news etc - but I can talk about farm animals quite happily! Despite not being in the learner class in school, my grammar was not very good and hence I never passed my Welsh language O level - so maybe a challenge for the future.
So I want to reflect on my (re-) learning, perhaps be in contact with other Welsh learners and re-learners - and take some tentative steps into blogging.......................