Things To Know About Speaking Welsh & Irish

[@celebritydentist9975]

I’m fluent welsh and I just loved this!!!! Welsh was also my first language

[@LittleMongoosie]

I'm learning Welsh with Jason Shepherd on the Learn Welsh Podcast and loving it! I'll be working on Irish and Scottish Gaelic as well, and I look forward to it immensely 😊

[@pamelarangel7104]

Me too! He's great 👍

[@kennyinliverpool]

I'm learning Welsh on Duolingo at the moment. I'm really into it !

[@NekoBoyOfficial]

Shw'mae, me too!

[@ilovegreen0150]

Me too and listening to say something in welsh👍

[@krisstrehlow-cooper8364]

So am I!

[@didolavox9647]

Keep the good job up man! :)

[@lloydtandy3929]

I am Welsh

[@SpeakEasyIrish]

Slightly disappointed the phrases weren't written as well but still great hearing Irish and Welsh. I've learning Irish for years now I'm learning Welsh.

[@gavincurtis9758]

I think the best way to really revive irish is to have at least all primary schools be gaelscoils. Then when in secondary school everyone will have a decent level of irish and they can actually teach it properly, cuz they try and teach irish in secondary as if we do know the language, but no one has a clue wtf is goin on half the time except the people who went to gaelscoils. The current way they teach irish makes most people resent the language and dread the classes, and it stems from how its taught when we go into school. If they're not goin to make every primary school a gaelscoil, then they at least need to revise how they teach it. All I remember learning for the first like 4 or 5 years of school in Irish, was how to say individual words, which didn't help me at all. Compare that to me now being in my fourth year of learning German, and we learnt basic grammar, actual sentences etc. My irish is better than my German currently but probably by the time I leave school it won't be. I don't know what they're doin in Wales but it seems to be doing a better job because even tho they have half the population they have between 4 and 8 times the amount of daily speakers of Welsh then Ireland does Irish (Irish is around 70,000-75,000 , Welsh is around 250,000-500,000(I don't know exact figures for Welsh but I've seen them between these numbers)). Im definitely gonna try and improve my irish over the next few months and hopefully be able to speak it proficiently. And anyone who says its no use being able to speak these languages is just ignorant, cuz how could being able to speak more than one language be anything but beneficial

[@cigh7445]

We tried that under DeValera. It ended up being dropped because teachers and would be teachers complained that native Irish speakers from the Gaeltachts were being favoured over everyone else for the training colleges (the Gaeltacht areas were very poor back then, even compared to the rest of the country and they were given opportunities by teaching scholarships). The situation as of 2017 is that - only 20/25% of bunscoil/primary teachers would have the ability to teach through Irish. - The principles of Gaelscoils and Gaelcholáistí we have are struggling to find teachers with a high enough standard to teach subjects through Irish - The Gaeltachts have seriously weakened since Devs time and can no longer be relied on as a primary source of teachers as they were in the past - the standard of Irish among even the average Gaelcholáiste graduate is poor. The standard of people graduating from the universities has dropped. Few of them have even the basic phonetics of the language. In my opinion, it's high time that the government started seriously acting on the advice of sociolinguists who have been telling them the same things since the eighties and been ignored. But going into all that would make this post way too long!

[@gavincurtis9758]

@@cigh7445 thank you for those facts because it really shows that the government and the people ourselves are letting Irish die and we're not doing anything about it. It really upsets me. However, just because the current situation is weak doesn't mean its dead. Languages can be revived and begin to thrive very quickly. Hebrew is the perfect example. Until the creation of Israel, not many people on the planet spoke Hebrew fluently. But when Israel was created its leaders did exactly what needs to be done with Irish. Within about 20 to 30 years, Hebrew was the sole official language of the country. The truth is if they really care about and want to make Irish more prominent and hopefully the language of Ireland, money has to be spent and spent wisely. Let's be honest. If being a teacher who worked in a bunscoil was payed as one of the highest paying jobs, more primary teachers wouldve worked harder to better their own Irish to get a job teaching there. And if giving the people from the Gaeltacht scholarships to training colleges is how's its done then sorry to people who aren't from the Gaeltacht, but if you want to be a teacher then you're gonna have to work your ass of for it. So yeh, it about time the government started acting on the facts instead of just brushing it aside and doing nothing.

[@thomashavard-morgan8181]

@@gavincurtis9758 This to an extent is happening in Wales. There has always been a level of integrating the Welsh language in to every day, even when I was in primary in the late 90's and early 2000's. But now more so than every it is being pushed further and a bilingual approach in English medium schools is taking place, so more and more children have even the most basic grasp of the language. Overall the policies and just general pride in the language is definitely helping not just to save Welsh, but to grow it.

[@adamender9092]

Irish and Welsh have the same/very similar grammar rules to Arabic and Hebrew.

[@theeyeiswatching8036]

I didnt know that, I have always wanted to learn Arabic but seeing as it's considered one of the hardest to learn for a native English speaker to pick up, I was always dissuaded. However this makes me feel slightly more confident as a native Welsh speaker.

[@TomBartram-b1c]

In Welsh you say "I went home, have a bath and go to bed." You don't conjugate the second and third verb because the person and tense has already been established. Arabic is the same.

[@clintbrewer6157]

@@TomBartram-b1c I was just commenting the other day that either Scots or Irish Gaelic sounded like Arabic

[@clintbrewer6157]

@@TomBartram-b1c In some places Welsh has been compared to Hebrew.

[@edwardthomas6956]

Yes, Irish will give you peace in your soul, even if you painstakingly follow the free Irish Duolingo offering from abroad

[@georgia3718]

“Ga i fynd i’r ty Bach is gwelwch in dda” or “Dwi’n hoffi coffi” 😂😂

[@EverlastingHobnocker]

Can I go to the bathroom or I like coffee 😁 Well I drink way too much coffee so...

[@TerencePetersenAjbro]

the little house is a cute way of saying the loo!

[@saoirseo9051]

Okay why is it that in Irish 90% of a word is vowels (as you can see by my name) and in Welsh 90% of a word is consonants

[@andresilvadias9100]

To be fair, Welsh has a few consonant sounds that are digraphs (represented by two letters), and a lot of Irish vowels are not even pronounced as written because they act to code what the consonants should sound like (broad or slender)

[@TomBartram-b1c]

If more people in Ireland were like you Ireland could be like one of these smug smartarse Scandinavian countries where they all speak perfect English as well as their own language But Ireland has largely chosen the English-only option. How sad.😔😔

[@harryugwu7304]

The english people forced the irish to abandon there language

[@tombartram7384]

@@harryugwu7304 the worst decline in Irish has occurred SINCE 1922.

[@pamelarangel7104]

It's sad since Gaelic is so beautiful just like Welsh

[@irishelk3]

Míle Buíochas, Gaelic for thanks a million ;)

[@deaganachomarunacathasaigh4344]

Fear an phit 🤣 literally means Man of the Vulva. There's some great Irish mallachtaí to be used. Irish and Welsh and all the others like Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish and Breton, all cousins who speak teangacha álainn

[@mkphilly]

Sorry, but why do so many YTers use music in the background, particularly when they want us to listen to what they have to say!?!

[@dazpatreg]

"Fear an phit" níor airigh mé sin cheana

[@jamiezepeda4479]

A country with out a language is a country with out a soul...cant help to think that country would be America lol (I'm american) our native tongue would be native american but so many different tribes and tongues, especially the lost nations from genocide, we dont really have one. English us the universal language of the world, but it's not our native tongue.

[@cigh7445]

Very few modern Americans have any links to the native Americans. English and German would be the heritage languages of the vast majority of European Americans, though there are many others too of course.

[@AlphaMaverick1111]

@@cigh7445 Not true. Surname is Zepeda, probably Mexican-American. Most Mexicans provably have native American ancestry.

[@scottsterling7659]

Machynlleth isn't that bad on the other hand Llanfairpg is basically tounge twister

[@arawn10]

Search for "Golf Halt railway station" in it's Welsh form.. It makes "Llanfair PG" seem like a nursery rhyme..

[@scottsterling7659]

@@arawn10 it certainly doesn't roll off your tounge but isnt impossible to say😂

[@arawn10]

@@scottsterling7659 It was just a general comment I made so others would know about it too.. Actually, if there's a video of someone saying it (Golf Halt in Welsh), I'd be interested in knowing about it!-- I've NEVER heard anyone say the entire word.. Yes, I know how to say Llanfair PG though. 😉😊

[@scottsterling7659]

@@arawn10 yeah true I've never seen anyone say the whole name on KZbin. You can hear it on I translate it does a pretty good job pronouncing welsh words

[@أفلاكالأفكار]

How many languages and countries does your "country" (UK) have??

[@gtivr6racer]

You have several forms of Gaelic. Welsh is going to be the closet thing what the British would have spoken. Cornish and Briton do have very few speakers left but it is almost a dead language. You have Irish, Scottish, Mannish, and Norse that are all considered Gaelic based also. The comparison would be similar to Spanish, French, Italian and portuguese. They share a base but just because you speak one doesn't.mean you will understand the other.

[@أفلاكالأفكار]

@@gtivr6racer wow thanks for that

[@DublinDan]

Republic of Ireland is not part of the UK just to let you

[@cigh7445]

@@gtivr6racer Norse is Germanic, like English. Welsh, Cornish, Breton are 'Brythonic'. Irish, Scottish, Manx are 'Gaelic'

[@gtivr6racer]

@@cigh7445 You are speaking toward modern language breakdowns. Gaelic and it's precursors were spread from the mainland and what would be widely considered Scandinavian territory or North germanic as Indo-Euro charts would breakdown. It is widely considered to be P Gaelic as well as North Germanic. Leading to eventually was formed to I believe Danish, and Norwegian languages.

[@isaacleillhikar4566]

I wish they would stop calling it Wales and Welsh. It's Cambria. They could call it the Untouched Briton land. Cymrig why don't people in this language say Cymrish?

[@llwyde1104]

Cymru will do....why complicate it?

[@isaacleillhikar4566]

@@llwyde1104 Yes. But 'ish id what languages are named as, so why not? ... Cymrish brithonic.

[@llwyde1104]

@@isaacleillhikar4566 thanks but we have our own names for our nation and our language. Cymru and Cymraeg. Wales/Welsh ? It's ludicrous that we use them in English or Welsh. When I hear a crowd chanting, 'Wales Wales' I chuckle to myself at the idiots doing it. Why would you shout at your own team ' foreigners, foreigners' people are so thick!!

[@JustinCardiff]

@@llwyde1104 people don’t speak old English any more do they, so while that may be the origin of the word, it doesn’t mean that any more. A predominantly English speaking country using the English word for that country, whatever next!

[@llwyde1104]

@@JustinCardiff fine, but how stupid. it's hilarious.. if I was an English only Welshman i couldn't live with myself... rhaid dysgu'r heniaith

[@TomBartram-b1c]

I guarantee you at LEAST 95% of kids come out Welsh medium schools and they can't speak Welsh. Apparently Ireland is even worse. Face it we're just crap at languages.

[@markwhelanspain9135]

Well I know in the case of Ireland anyway the way in which Irish is thought in school is really terrible, doesn't help that they are hard languages to learn either.

[@TomBartram-b1c]

@@markwhelanspain9135Yeah but I bet if it was the other way round and kids only spoke Welsh/Irish and therefore English was a 2nd language they'd all learn it in a flash no problem just like in Scandinavia.

[@markwhelanspain9135]

@@TomBartram-b1c I'd say you're right, in that case there woyld be an incentive to learn English as it is the modern lingua franca, there isn't really any incentive to learn the celtic languages though.

[@TomBartram-b1c]

@@markwhelanspain9135 I'm a Welsh speaker naturally thank God but I'd def learn it if I wasn't. 100% passion and proud to be Welsh. Most people aren't me worst luck.

[@markwhelanspain9135]

@@TomBartram-b1c You're a lucky man, I'm learning Irish at the moment myself and i'm finding it quite difficult even after 13 years of it in school.. doesn't help that the nearest Gaeltacht is 2+ hours away and everyone around here only has a limited amount. Defo think more people be it Irish, Welsh, Scottish should be learning our languages though.