Faith

Both my paternal grandparents were born in North Wales and came to the US before my dad was born. Dad had no interest in learning the language, and by the time I had any interest, my grandmother had passed away (my grandfather died right around when my dad was born). I found some BBC classes online a decade or more ago, but never got anywhere with them. Found out last year that Duolingo handled Welsh, so I’ve been doing that, but I can’t say it’s really been sticking. Friends came to visit us in New Hampshire who have a place in Caernarfon, and I asked them about learning the language. He doesn’t speak it, but she’s been learning through SSiW. He mentioned that she was able to have a discussion in Welsh with the roofing contractor working on their Caernarfon cottage, just based on what she was able to learn through SSiW, and that caught my attention!

I’m about 2/3 of the way through the 2nd challenge in level 1, so I have a long way to go! But I’m finding myself running through the phrases in the shower, which never happened with Duolingo, so I’m hopeful this will help me make progress.

My ultimate hope is that we’ll be able to travel to North Wales one of these years, and I’d like to be able to speak enough of the language to get by. I have visited family there twice, and the cousin we stayed with in Criccieth mentioned that, if you speak Welsh, the prices in the shops are often a bit cheaper. Now if I could only track down the family members from my generation… (the cousin we stayed with was my father’s generation, and she has long since passed.)