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Rang oíche Gaeilge
Feb. 5th, 2026 10:49 pmThaitin an rang Gaeilge liom, ach cheap mé go bhfuil an gramadach ró-éasca agus go bhfuil an cluastuiscint ródheacair :') Is í gramadach an chuid is fearr liom foghlaim teangacha.
TEG B1 exam
Jan. 31st, 2026 02:15 pmHopefully going to take the TEG B1 exam before i go back to Wales :) I'm looking at the example papers and the B2 one looks ok too to be honest...?? Maybe I haven't looked at it properly though. Anyway, I'm signed up for a B1 class so I'll stick with that. I've read CEFR level descriptors and I really don't think I'm B2.
Frustrating point in language learning
Jan. 19th, 2026 09:53 pmI've reached a point with my Irish where i feel like I need to get rid of everything I know in it and start again from scratch. Does anyone else ever feel like this? I remember a couple of years ago i felt like this with Welsh, but I don't remember what I did to get over it. I guess this is just how I feel once I get to the B1 stage in language-learning...? I feel like there's so much I know and I keep forgetting it all. There's so many grammatical things and idioms that I keep learning and keep forgetting, and it all feels hopelessly complicated in my head. Frustrating. I don't think it helps that I've been feeling low in regards to language-learning in general recently.
Disheartening.
Jan. 8th, 2026 11:12 pmSometimes it feels so disheartening, I feel like I will never be fluent in Welsh or anything else I'm trying to learn. It's so frustrating, I feel like I'll never be good at any of this. I should have grown up with this but instead I'm having to learn it and approach it from the outside and it sucks and I suck. I generally try to have a positive attitude when it comes to learning languages on this journal, but I cannot deny that being from a minoritised culture and not growing up speaking the language natively sucks so badly. I will be ok soon I'm just having a bad moment where everything feels hopeless. I've been feeling so irritable today.
Tintin Cymraeg
Jan. 8th, 2026 05:30 pmI'm reading Tintin in welsh so it's not the longest book and I've already read all the comics loads of times in English so I know what's going on, but there's still loads of words I don't know. Which is fine because like I said, I already know what they're saying because I'm so familiar with it in English. But I still feel the need to look up every word I don't know. Which means it's going to take ages to get through a 60-page comic book :')
I read 5 pages last night but I stopped because I ended up with an annoyingly long list of words to look up. My Welsh could be soooo much better if I liked words...
I read 5 pages last night but I stopped because I ended up with an annoyingly long list of words to look up. My Welsh could be soooo much better if I liked words...
2026 goals
Jan. 7th, 2026 11:35 pmI think my language goals this year are going to be focused on means rather than ends. Instead of going "I want to be B2 in Irish by the end of the year" or whatever, I'm going to try and watch one film in a Celtic language each week and read one book in a Celtic language each month. And try to prioritise enjoying the process over worrying about reaching certain levels.
1 film a week and 1 book a month doesn't sound like a lot at all, but I know that I will still struggle with that because of my health.
1 film a week and 1 book a month doesn't sound like a lot at all, but I know that I will still struggle with that because of my health.
When I worry that my Irish is bad someone usually says "don't worry, you can speak it better than most people in Ireland can!!" like that's supposed to make me feel better or something? You've just made me feel miserable about colonialism now. Is this supposed to make me feel good? Do other people feel good when someone says this to them?
Ag déanamh staidéir Gaeilge inniu
Dec. 13th, 2025 11:53 pm
Thosaigh mé aonad 23 i "Basic Irish" faoi dheireadh!
Sean-Ghaeilge
Dec. 12th, 2025 10:56 pmTá m'obair bhaile Sean-Ghaeilge déanta agam agus thug mé é do mo léachtóir yaayyyyy agus tá m'obair ceart den chuid is mó. Ceapaim go bhfuil Sean-Ghaeilge cheart go leor agam :)
Ma' siarad tafodiaith hwntw fel siaradwr ail iaith nad yw'n byw yn y de yn gallu bod yn boen, achos ma' siaradwyr hwntw iaith gynta'n gweud wrtho fi mod i'n siarad Cymraeg yn iawn a bod fy ngramadeg yn iawn fel hwntw, ond wedyn ma' siaradwyr iaith gynta o'r gogledd yn gweud wrtho fi bod fy Nghymraeg yn anghywir er bod siaradwyr ail iaith o'r de yn gweud bod yr un peth yn union yn gywir. Ac wedyn so rhai o'r siaradwyr iaith gynta o'r gogledd hyd yn oed yn trïo siarad 'da fi achos mod i'n siaradwr ail iaith o'r de ?? Fi'n gwbod mod i'n dal i ddysgu ond ma'n rhwystredig.
Profion CEFR Cymraeg
Dec. 11th, 2025 11:06 pmFi moyn prawf lefelau CEFR ar gyfer Cymraeg, fel y prawf ar gyfer gwyddeleg ar teg.ie. Ma Dysgu Cymraeg yn sôn am brawf ar eu gwefan ond sai'n gallu dod o hyd iddo fe. Ma syniad da am beth yw fy lefel ond fi moyn sefyll prawf :(
I think one thing that I like about learning Chinese is that it doesn't make me feel as insane as learning Welsh or my heritage languages. I don't have the horrible burden and guilt of not being able to speak it, I can just do it for fun. I don't have any sort of family or personal attachment to it, I don't feel inadequate and shameful for not growing up knowing it. I can just learn it and have fun. I'm also having fun with Welsh and my heritage languages, but there is always this sickening feeling in my chest and in the back of my throat that I should know these. The horrible history of erasure and oppression of these languages is evident to me every time I think or write or just open my mouth and English is the language that comes out most naturally. Not Welsh. Not Cornish. Not Irish. Not Scots. I feel like with minoritised heritage languages, there's a certain pressure (at least in my experience) to get really good at them really fast, as if I have to prove in some way that I'm connected to them.
I remember someone I knew online years ago who had grown up knowing 5 languages. He was from the Netherlands, and had a Hungarian parent and a French parent who met through Esperanto conventions, and he also learned English at school. So he grew up speaking Dutch, Hungarian, French, Esperanto, and English. And it always makes me think... Why didn't I get that? I'm from Wales, my father is Cornish, and my mother is Scottish and Irish. So why didn't I get to grow up speaking Welsh, Cornish, Irish, and Scots? Why is English my first language? I mean, I know the answer of course. But it makes me realise how children of immigrants of cultures with non-minoritised languages often have access to their heritage languages in a way I never did. Sure, French and Hungarian are minority languages in the Netherlands, but they're not in France and Hungary (well, Esperanto is a different case since it's not attached to a country in that way). But Welsh is very much a minoritised language in Wales, and Cornish in Cornwall, etc. Maybe not every child of immigrants is brought up speaking their parents' languages, or maybe they lose it as they grow up, but my family largely didn't even have access to their own languages theirselves, beyond a few words, in order to pass them on to me (with the exception being my Scots-speaking grandpa, but he still never passed it on). In the case of people from minoritised cultures, they don't even necessarily have the choice of what language to bring their children up in due to centuries of cultural genocide. Who even was the last person in my family to be raised in Cornish?
And I'm not having children, so I can't even break the cycle and bring up my children in their heritage languages. And I do experience guilt over that. Sometimes I wonder why I'm learning my heritage languages if I'll never pass them on, and never contribute to some sort of intergenerational healing in my family. It feels like what I've learned won't outlast me, and won't benefit any of the cultures I care about. I suppose I could teach others. Maybe encourage them to raise their children in those languages.
Irish dialects
Jul. 19th, 2025 09:00 pmWe're taught the Connacht dialect of Irish at university, but I want to learn a dialect that's more connected to my family. My granny is from County Dublin though and I get the impression there's not enough records of any Leinster Irish to reliably reconstruct the dialect, and that Irish spoken in Leinster today is very Connacht-Irish-based? But my granny's father was from County Cork so maybe I should focus on learning the Munster dialect, and more specifically the Cork dialect 🤔 I am maybe interested in incorporating some features of the records we do have of Dublin Irish, but I feel like my speech would probably be quite old-fashioned then? Like with my Welsh, the Gwenhwyseg dialect can be read as older-fashioned since no-one really in south east Wales really speaks with that dialect anymore, although features of it do remain in the present-day Welsh spoken there. So I try to sound like I'm from the south east (I am) but I usually come across as more general South Walian, and one of my lecturers told me I'd sound like I lived 100 years ago in the Ebbw Vale if I used certain Gwenhwyseg features lol
C1/C2 Welsh course
Jul. 19th, 2025 04:59 pmI've signed up to do the Dysgu Cymraeg proficiency level course, which is a little bit scary because it's C1/C2 but also I really need to push myself to refine my Welsh skills. lt's 30 weeks long and 1 lesson a week so I think it'll be ok. And it's online which is nice for my health. I'm just intimidated because I'd describe my welsh as mostly B2 but only C1 sometimes.
Learning all the modern Celtic languages
Jul. 16th, 2025 05:03 pmTo have even a basic A2 level in all the Celtic languages would be a dream to me. I want to be C1/C2 in Welsh and at least B2 in Irish and Cornish (I'd like to do the Grade 4 Cornish exam eventually which is B2/C1), but I'd really like to be able to have a basic working knowledge in the other three. At least enough to write in them on my website and to have simple conversations in them.
At this point I've studied Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and Breton, although my Breton is super rusty. But I can't decide whether I'd like to do Scottish Gaelic or Manx next. Manx is the one that seems more interesting to me, but Scottish Gaelic is the one that my university teaches. Plus I'd quite like to do that Scottish Gaelic class because it covers history and culture too I think 🤔
I'll definitely come back to Breton in the future, probably once I'm more at an intermediate stage with my Cornish. Revisiting Cornish has made me realise how much I'd missed doing Breton, but part of me kind of wishes I hadn't done Breton in my first year at university just because I was in a weird place mentally and I don't think I got as much out of it then as I could now. I can always come back to Breton though, and I definitely will. I'd probably be allowed to sit in on the Breton class anyway, even though I already did it.
At this point I've studied Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and Breton, although my Breton is super rusty. But I can't decide whether I'd like to do Scottish Gaelic or Manx next. Manx is the one that seems more interesting to me, but Scottish Gaelic is the one that my university teaches. Plus I'd quite like to do that Scottish Gaelic class because it covers history and culture too I think 🤔
I'll definitely come back to Breton in the future, probably once I'm more at an intermediate stage with my Cornish. Revisiting Cornish has made me realise how much I'd missed doing Breton, but part of me kind of wishes I hadn't done Breton in my first year at university just because I was in a weird place mentally and I don't think I got as much out of it then as I could now. I can always come back to Breton though, and I definitely will. I'd probably be allowed to sit in on the Breton class anyway, even though I already did it.
Language goals
Jul. 14th, 2025 03:30 pmMy long-term language-learning goals are to:
- refine and polish my Welsh skills so I'm comfortably at a C1 level
- improve my knowledge of my heritage languages (Irish, Cornish, and Scots) to a fairly fluent level (at least B2)
- obtain at least an A2 level in the other three Celtic languages (Breton, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic)
- learn more about the ancient and medieval languages of Britain, Ireland, and the surrounding islands
- be able to read academic Celtic studies texts written in German and French.
- take a Dysgu Cymraeg proficient-level course. I found this table for their level descriptors
- read more books in Welsh
- go to weekly Welsh-language meet-ups in my university town
- read a book in Irish
- finish Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook, and make good progress on the Intermediate Irish book
- go to weekly Irish-language meet ups in my university town
- take a Cornish exam in June (either Grade 1/A2 or Grade 2/B1.... I think I could try and go for Grade 2)
- finish the Scots Open University course
- start on the Luath Scots Learner book
- finish Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook, and start on the intermediate one
- try and go to another Celtic nation for a bit and speak the language there, probably a summer course next year, if I have the money
Next things to learn
Jul. 10th, 2025 10:39 pmI think the next modern Celtic language I want to learn is Manx. And as for older languages, I'd really like to get into Middle Welsh.
CEFR levels
Jul. 9th, 2025 11:43 amI've been reading this CEFR self-assessment grid to try and refamiliarise myself with what each level actually entails. I'm pretty sure that my Welsh is a B2 level, but I think I'm pushing into C1...? Maybe I'm being too generous.
With my Irish, I took an online placement test and got A1 (but I wasn't completely focused on the test to be honest), but looking at the grid I'd say I match A2 better, with possibly some of the B1 boxes too. But I feel like my Irish is not good enough to be completely described as being a B1 level.
And with Scots, my writing and speaking skills are probably A1, but I think my listening and reading skills are B1 or B2? Probably B1 actually. So let's just say that that evens out to A2 overall then, which is basically what I'd been describing my Scots level as anyway.
And I think for Cornish, A1/A2 is probably where my level is at.
I don't think I can really assess Old Irish (or other old languages) using the CEFR levels, since no one speaks it as a native language and I'm not having to use it or understand people in it. Although, saying that, this is making me think that it would be fun to make a website in Old Irish or some other old language that doesn't have modern-day terms, as a sort of linguistic experiment.
With my Irish, I took an online placement test and got A1 (but I wasn't completely focused on the test to be honest), but looking at the grid I'd say I match A2 better, with possibly some of the B1 boxes too. But I feel like my Irish is not good enough to be completely described as being a B1 level.
And with Scots, my writing and speaking skills are probably A1, but I think my listening and reading skills are B1 or B2? Probably B1 actually. So let's just say that that evens out to A2 overall then, which is basically what I'd been describing my Scots level as anyway.
And I think for Cornish, A1/A2 is probably where my level is at.
I don't think I can really assess Old Irish (or other old languages) using the CEFR levels, since no one speaks it as a native language and I'm not having to use it or understand people in it. Although, saying that, this is making me think that it would be fun to make a website in Old Irish or some other old language that doesn't have modern-day terms, as a sort of linguistic experiment.
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