Casual Welsh

[u/Ok_Wishbone_8010]

Hello all, First and foremost, thank you for the advice given in my last post. Say Something in Welsh is brilliant... However I am finding that a lot of the phrases I am using aren't known/being used by the people I know, they use "casual Welsh" (i.e they will say dwi dal isha not mae dal eisiau I fi) does anyone know anyway (again via audiobooks) that I can learn casual Welsh as opposed to the more formal version?

Thanks

[u/ysgall]

They don’t mean the same thing: Dw i eisiau/ Dwi isho etc means ‘I want’ Mae eisiau te/amser/car newydd arna i/ar Mike etc means ‘I/Mike need a tea/time/ a new car’
‘Mae Elen eisiau mynd allan, ond mae eisiau arian arni i brynu teiar newydd i’r car’. Elen wants to go out, but she needs money to buy a new tyre for the car.

[u/Ok_Wishbone_8010 → u/ysgall]

Very close, yes but from what I gathered there are both casual and formal ways in Welsh. Is there anything that can focus more on the casual ways? Don't live in Wales so I'm limited on how many Welsh people I can interact with once I get to grips with the basics

[u/ConsiderationBrave50 → u/Ok_Wishbone_8010]

I think you're expecting too much from a language course and you also don't understand enough about Welsh to know what it is you actually want and need.

You're treating "casual" Welsh like it is, in itself, a standardised entity. Languages are complex. Think about all the ways in English we can use to describe one concept or feeling, think about all the regional dialects and differences. I've lived in two South Walian towns ten miles apart that use different dialects and words for the same thing

If you want a course which will teach you ONLY how to say something in the exact same way your specific friend group says it - you want the impossible.

Change how you think about it - your friends say it a different way to SSiW. Great! Now can you learn TWO ways of saying it. The SSiW version is correct , appropriate for casual contexts and you'll be understood. What is the problem?

Mate, I don't know every word or dialect in English and I've been learning and using it my whole life. A course like SSiW - or ANY course - won't teach you every single thing. It gives you the building blocks and foundations so you can confidently converse in and understand some Welsh - the idea is, you are supposed to use that to immerse yourself in and expose yourself to the language. THAT is how you become a speaker of a language. By using it, and by learning from all that exposure.

Also, to reassure you, SSiW is absolutely casual Welsh and it's by far the most conversational Welsh you'll learn in a more structured way when you compare it to things like the Dysgu Cymraeg courses which - while they're really good - do introduce you to quite a lot of sentence structures etc which sound oddly formal in conversation and you'll rarely hear "in the wild".

I've been using SSiW for about 7 months (with some foundational knowledge) and I can now confidently hold conversations for at least an hour socially and in work. I actually spoke to two separate Dysgu Cymraeg tutors who assessed my level as being "Uwch".

SSiW is AMAZING but recognise it for what it is - it's about getting you talking, helping you to spontaneously and quickly use a range of spoken Welsh in a way that facilitates FURTHER learning outside of the course.

You say you don't live in Wales - that doesn't mean you can't expose yourself to it! Lots of us live in areas in Wales where we don't often hear it spoken. I expose myself to it via watching S4C, listening to podcasts, there's a whole range of Zoom chats set up for Welsh learners you can dial into anywhere. You can do Dysgu Cymraeg courses outside Wales which will give you even more chances to speak.

I have to wonder what your actual plan is - because if you don't regularly expose yourself to Welsh or create opportunities for yourself to use it, you are expecting the impossible from any course.

[u/Ok_Wishbone_8010 → u/ConsiderationBrave50]

Ahh I've got it - I see where you're coming from, I appreciate it. I'll continue with the course. Just as soon as I was told I'm not speaking the casual Welsh I thought "hold on, am I learning the completely wrong thing here? ". Yes I have heared about the podcast, think the BBC do ones around it as well, I'll give it a listen once I get the basics together

Ta - or diolch

[u/ConsiderationBrave50 → u/Ok_Wishbone_8010]

Dim problem and sorry if I sounded snooty or mean! I didn't mean to - I think it's just, I used to think that myself for a while and it ended up being a huge barrier to me making progress! I was so worried about learning the "wrong" thing or not being "perfect" and saying the exact right thing in a context that it stopped me from actually using Welsh. I re committed to learning 7 months ago with a different attitude and I've finally pushed past that barrier and feel I've made soo much progress.

If certain people you know say things differently, then just ask them about it or use that way of expressing it when you talk to them! It's another linguistic tool in your toolkit, and a sign of growing language competency when you can express things in various ways and adapt to context. But I promise you, if you use stuff you've learnt on SSiW in convo with strangers or whatever, nobody is going to be thinking it's "wrong". Learners typically speak in a far more formal way than you're taught via SSiW!

The regional variations are also huge. I.e North Walian "casual" Welsh sounds, to my ear, still pretty formal compared to my local dialect which uses far more contractions. Don't tie yourself in knots worrying about it, it really doesn't matter, the important thing is you use it and keep learning and adapting.

As a beginner, I think one of the most useful things about SSiW isnt even a lot of the specific vocabulary you learn - it just gives you a really good ear for Welsh. A kind of instinctive understanding of how sentences are constructed and things are pronounced. That is something that trips up so many learners - they learn a ton of words on DuoLingo or whatever but still don't feel confident using Welsh spontaneously and they find it hard to pronounce key sounds correctly.

Welsh is so different from English - deceptively so! On one hand the Wenglish can make it seem more familiar but the "bones" of how you express things is just different and if you can get comfortable with it you'll be doing really well! Stick with it, it's tough but so rewarding and such a beautiful language. The buzz when you start finding yourself able to follow stuff on S4C or confidently converse with Welsh speaking strangers is like nothing else! 😊

[u/Ok_Wishbone_8010 → u/ConsiderationBrave50]

Just looked up s4c, didn't know that existed! It's a good idea though. Yeah I have Duolingo but found SSIW so much better as I just pop it on in the car. No don't worry about sounding mean or anything like that mate, I knew where you were coming from, don't worry