Rhys O

My story – I’ve been in Wales most of my life (born and raised, for the most part, here), primarily in the North East, where the language isn’t (or wasn’t) a priority as I saw it – I got an ‘E’ at GCSE…

I moved to the North West following University and, once I had children, decided to start learning the language again as the lessons here are 2/3rds Welsh. I thought as long as I could be one ‘reading age’ above the kids, I’d be fine.

Roll forward to September last year, where I was asked to feature in a programme for S4C, to be shown in December. They asked if I could speak Welsh and, knowing I had my SSiW subscription (albeit hadn’t used it), thought it would be a great opportunity (and massive challenge!) to put myself under the cosh and really learn the language.

In the space of a month (from the initial call from S4C to the date of the actual interview) I went through all of Level 1 & 2 on the old SSiW app (I wasn’t aware of the Automagic app at the time), practicing as often as I could.

On the day of filming I was quite nervous, used a fair bit of Wenglish, but proud to say I came through it speaking Welsh for the majority of the interview it went out on 27th December and was well edited

I’ve since completed L3 on the app and I’ve started using the new app to officially gain my Welsh ‘black belt’.

Diolch o galon, SSiW!