Speech overheard in the streets, in trains or in shops is seldom an exchange of ideas but more often a tuneful duet of the emotions.
" Well I never! Do you think so ? Really! You don't say! The intelligence conveyed has little etymological connection with the words uttered.
As a student in Wales I delighted in such exchanges, and for my own pleasure, would hold long meaningless conversations with myself, stringing together fragments of overheard speech.
This delightful contact with the living language is often denied the student, who, when learning from the silent printed page, is rather like the deaf, and like them, he too is often mute.
A curious stultification takes place inside the classroom or language laboratory, no matter how rational the teaching method. Language loses its quality of a musical emotional exchange and becomes a series of sounds, clear in meaning but drained of emotional overtones."
You have been reading the first part of the "Preface" to a little book of short French plays for relative beginners by Harry Levy, in which he has a go at capturing all these fleeting, ephemeral exchanges you get in real life.It doesn't matter that it's about his experiences in France ..it's the same wherever you are, and when you read it the fact that I had changed the country to Wales didn't affect the good sense behind what he was writing there. I found this tiny book ( "Faisons Du Théâtre") as I was starting to try to learn French and found it really useful and interesting ... it's a pity there doesn't seem to be any Welsh equivalent.
But for the moment, just think about the truth of what he wrote up there... and why "reading" just isn't enough ..... it's why I put lots of interviews on here, it's why you really should be talking to yourself, using your mobile phone to hold imaginary conversations as you walk along the street ( it stops people from thinking you are mad) ( it really does) , it's why you should be learning and singing songs, it's why you should read out loud some of the time, it's why you should save up and memorize loads of those little semi-meaningless interjections that are the glue of all exchanges. ... it's all of those things.
Now here's a turn-up for the book .... what a strange and untranslateable expression that is ! ... it's Charlotte Church . I find most of her Welsh stuff pretty unlistenable as she strangles all the life out of the songs by singing them in far too ethereal a manner ... but in this one, Suo Gan, I can almost hear the bloody words ! Nowadays, you may wish to know, she's mainly doing songs like " Death and Mathematics" and cover versions of Love Will Tear Us Apart.
Clyd a chynnes ydyw hon
Breichiau mam sy'n dyn amdanat
Cariad mam sy dan fy mron
Ni chaiff dim amharu'th gyntun
Ni wna undyn a thi gam
Huna'n dawel, annwyl bientyn
Huna'n fwyn ar fron dy fam
Huna'n dawel hana huna
Huna'n fwyn y del ei lun
Pam yr wyt yn awr yn gwenum
Gwenu'n dirion yn dy hun
Ai angylion fry sy'n gwenu
Arnat yno'n gwenu'n lion
Titha'u'n gwenu'n ol a huno
Huno'n dawel ar fy mron
Paid ag ofni, dim ond deilen
Gura, gura ar y ddor
Paid aga ofni ton fach unig
Sua, sua ar lan y mor
Huna blentyn nid oes yma
Ddim I roddi iti fraw
Gwena'n dawel ar fy mynwes
Ar yr engyl gwynion draw