Obviously we talked about Welsh. After all , the shelves are weighed down with Welsh books. And this attic/rubbish tip/study of mine is plastered with maps of Wales . He doesn't rate the Welsh language at all. In fact, his main theme was that it was a sort of debased English, and was very limited in scope.
Now I wasn't happy about that ! But I didn't want to start an argument, so I only mildly expressed my dissent!
Yes, Welsh has a certain amount of "imported" English and distorted English in its vocabulary. But ... but .... anybody who opens a Welsh novel is going to find it almost totally impenetrable .... as did I when I opened that copy of Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd all those years ago ..and thought.. " Shit !This is a proper language !!!"
I was, as they say, proper impressed !
And I still am.
It wasn't like French or Spanish or German .... with those, I could pick out loads of words that I knew already .... I did ( very badly) French and German at school, and the Latin I did is brilliant for Spanish. With those languages, I felt that progress was pretty easy as I had a huge head start. Learning them in later life was no problem .... I was reading grown-up stuff within a few months.
But with Welsh, even with the children's book that I started with, I had to look up every word ! Every word ..... when I pick up those Sam Tân books it reminds me ... just about every word has its meaning pencilled in by me !
Learning Welsh to the stage where I've read loads of Welsh novels in all sorts of genres has been , no kidding, the biggest achievement of my life. Nothing has been harder, or taken so long. But it was very enjoyable as well. And I hope you learners out there feel the same way.
So I say ... if you're setting out to learn Welsh, don't give up.
And with that stirring message, here's a stirring song .... "Y Ffordd Oren" ... GZM