It felt very cosy and relaxing ! But when it got to bed-time I relapsed and read a couple of chapters of " Y Twits" ...always an uplifting experience, especially for Mrs Twit in the early chapters.
Today I planned to write a list of reasons FOR learning Welsh, but I couldn't come up with enough to cancel out all those reasons not to... I just couldn't.
The truth is, when I read Welsh, I get the (false) impression that I'm clever and smart and hardworking and industrious and special. It's hogwash, but it lulls me into a false sense of remarkablenessness.
But when I read French or Spanish or German, I just feel that I'm doing something rather badly that millions of people do easily.
The Significant Otter, of course, thinks I'm mad. She used to admire me, back in the days when I was young, but now... MAD.
Anyhow, enough of the truth. Now for some Pie in the Sky !
Yes ... in today's paper I read all about those proposals to get loads more Welsh speakers .. in fact ( or rather fiction) a MILLION by 2050. The headline was ..
A MILLION WELSH SPEAKERS BY 2050 TARGETED IN PLAN TO REVERSE DECLINE
Here's what will happen ...
Numbers of Welsh speakers will decline steadily.
There aren't enough Welsh-speaking parents to create Welsh-speaking offspring.
There won't be anything like enough extra Welsh teachers.
Increasing non-Welsh infiltrators will further dilute the Welsh Language Zeitgeist.
Increasing post-Brexit economic decline will further act against learning Welsh.
The target will not be met, quite the reverse !
But the Government will say that it has .... all they've got to do is ...
Lower the definition of " Welsh Speaker" to knowing how to say "iechyd Da"
Or anything at all. Clandudno. Rill. Llareggub. Byrmyngum.
Wedi Trefnu !
To be honest, as I was being at the start of this little diatribe, I give up Welsh about every 4 hours or so. Sometimes I wake up at 3 am and decide to pack it in.But I soon get over it. I bet most of you do too. It just goes with the territory.
Maybe some of you remember my brilliant " How to find a Welsh word in the dictionary" thing. It should be printed on the front page of every Welsh textbook ...so that potential purchasers can be given a chance not to proceed any further .... here it is, just in case you've missed it.
I was put on here in August 2014, right at the beginning of this whopping great carbuncle of a blog, it's been added to a bit as I've found more things that can go wrong.....
LOOKING UP WELSH WORDS IN THE DICTIONARY
What could possibly go wrong ?
In a previous life, or rather a previous blog, I did a wonderful thing. I wrote ... or rather, had a go at writing ..... a complete guide to looking up Welsh words in a dictionary. It took weeks for me to get back some semblance of my sanity, and several bottles of gin.
All you beginners out there will be thinking ... " What could possibly go wrong?"
Ha! You poor deluded numpties are in for a shock...... the Welsh language is especially designed to make it almost impenetrable to all outsiders, and trying to look words up in what they laughingly refer to as a dictionary can be, to say the least, trying.
For your delectation, I am going to try to recreate that terrific article, but with the added experience I have gained since .... negotiating that eponymous Rocky Road to Welsh! Here we go ....
Here's the scenario ..... you've got a Welsh word and you want to find out what it means.
The clever-arses always advise you to try to work out what it means from the context. Yeah, right! And I'm a spurgulent rimpletinker. So .....
You turn to your trusted dictionary ,and the bloody thing isn't in it. Here's a simple guide to what might have gone wrong......
[a] Maybe it's an obscure word .....try a succession of larger and larger dictionaries.
[b] If it starts with ch- you might be looking for it under c- which would be the wrong place.
[c] This also applies to rh- , ll- , ff- .
[d] Don't forget that a word with -ng- in it could have you looking in the wrong place.
[e] The word might have to have any possible mutation undone first.
[f] This is doubly tricky for some words beginning with f- which might begin with m- or b-
[g] This is easy to miss also when an invisible g- has to be restored to its rightful place.
[h] An "h" at the start might have been put there for a laugh ... especially after a vowel.
[h2] Sometimes adding -ach and -a in comparatives can change the spelling of the word.
[i] Maybe it's a bit of obscure Wenglish.
[j] Sometimes they like to miss the ys- off a word to keep you thinking.
[k] Maybe you're looking at some wild and wonderful part of a verb.
[l] Or perhaps you've forgotten that verbs-with-endings will tend to SM.
[m] It could be you are looking at one of those peculiar plurals they are so fond of. [n] In colloquial Welsh in books, deliberate mis- spelling is another source of amusement.
[o] Could be you have a conjugated preposition .... lovely!
[p] One of the best tricks in the "frontal apostrophe." [ or 'tal 'phe ]
[q] Of course, it might be a rude word, or too slangy. Yes, there are rude words in Welsh.
[r] You can pull some words apart and find out what the bits mean..... oh yes!
[s] If it has a prefix, you can remove it and try to find what's left ( remove SM first)
[t] Could it be a proper name or a place-name?
[u] If it's a group of words you don't get, maybe it's a an idiomatic usage.
[t] Some words have different male and female versions ....
[u] Sometimes a tricky word might combine several of these difficulties.
[v] There can be unfamiliar literary Welsh endings.
[w] Sometimes you think a word is obviously Wenglish but it isn't !
[x ] You can always try ...
[a] Putting it into Google Translate
[b] Having a guess and looking it up in the English to Welsh section. ... it can work.
[c] Asking an actual Welsh speaker !
[d] Taking up a nice logical language like Spanish.