Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ
Well who’da thunk it.... 
Seriously, no English or non-Welsh person can expect to be taken seriously when making any comment that implies the Welsh language has little/no value and should not furthered or spoken as much in Wales.
Would you go in to someone’s house and tell them to not speak their own language? I doubt any of you would be as rude.
Apparently it seems like the vast majority of English people (or apparently someone they know) have walked in to a pub in Wales where English is being spoken but as soon as the punters or staff twig where they’re from, conversation immediately turns to Welsh - amazingly nobody seems able to name this inhospitable pub - if that indeed does happen then those changing from English to Welsh are displaying massive ignorance, arrogance and deserve any drop in trade their behaviour creates. |
It was a light hearted comment about the volume of their radios. It doesn't bother me as it's not done late at night.
---------- Post added at 17:21 ---------- Previous post was at 17:15 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I have no problem with people talking Welsh, even if i'm in a pub whilst they do it. I don't understand really having much of an issue there. In major cities you'll hear many different languages being spoken and so long as they're polite enough to speak English when specifically conversing with you then who cares how they talk to each other?
I don't understand schools teaching in Welsh though, the vast majority of the country speaks English so surely it's better to concentrate on that whilst having Welsh as an additional language you can learn in a specific class? I can understand schools teaching in another language if they're some sort of ex-pat school, i.e a French school in London whose pupils are largely intending to go back in France, but not for normal UK schooling....
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Welsh is a UK language, but I do have a problem with the amount of foreign languages now being spoken in the UK overall, for which I blame unfettered immigration.
It causes practical problems and costs eg the police money on translation services that would be better spent elsewhere.
As well as the practical problems posed, it's a question of good manners too. When I was a young man I intended to move to Holland. The first thing that I did to prepare was to take lessons in Dutch. A friend who was already there worked in a hotel and (quite rightly) was told to learn Dutch as a condition of keeping his job. They gave him a maximum of 6 months, which he complied with.
---------- Post added at 17:24 ---------- Previous post was at 17:21 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by alestescarrow
I am from North Wales, I speak Welsh (self-taught) and I have lived in Cardiff and I now live in Merseyside. I also have a degree in Linguistics and I am a secondary English teacher in a Welsh school. The perception of Welsh in South East Wales is vastly different to the approach we have in the North - nonsensical discussions on the 'purpose' of the language don't really happen up here. Our languages merely co-exist and flow together, whether you're from a bilingual family or English-only.
However I'd like to clear a few things up on the Welsh education system:
- All Welsh kids (in English medium AND Welsh medium schools) study English first language and most achieve GCSE English Language and GCSE English Literature.
- Those in English-medium schools receive Welsh second language and all must study at least the half-GCSE in Welsh Short Course. Many schools opt to do the GCSE Welsh Second Language full course also.
- Those in Welsh-medium schools receive Welsh first language taught as an equivalent to English. Most kids are then entered for GCSE Welsh Language and GCSE Welsh Literature.
By law, all pupils in Wales must study Welsh until age 16 through one of the channels mentioned above. Disapplying a pupil from GCSE Welsh is the same procedure as disapplication from GCSE English and is rarely done.
Subsequently, those pupils who go to Welsh-medium schools have more GCSEs upon leaving secondary education. There have been many, many studies on the effects of bilinguialism, and the majority indicate (this is not specific to Welsh) bilingualism benefits language skills in both languages. Moreover, most of the world's population is multilingual, and much of the Anglophone world is in minority being monolingual. You will find that the majority of classes in Welsh-medium schools take a bilingual approach, especially with subject-specific jargon as we understand that the vast majority of higher education takes place in English ("sandwiching" is the educational term we use for bilingualism term introductions).
I always teach my pupils that English has an absolutely shocking spelling system (pidgin Anglo-Saxon-Latin-French-British) but incredibly easy grammar; Welsh on the other hand has exceptionally easy spelling (like Spanish), but more difficult grammar. Incidentally, I have come across pupils who are dyslexic in one language but not in the other. Languages, their social histories, their evolution and their psychological bases absolutely fascinates me. If we were purely going on language 'usefulness', why are we not all learning Mandarin Chinese, Arabic or Hindi, which indeed have far greater number of speakers than German or French? English is a lingua-franca; it is an essential skill in a globalised world, but we must not be complacent and accept that English is not the only (nor the largest) lingua-franca. People who have absolutely no understanding of the Welsh (or any other minority) language, its history and culture provide little credibility in language-bashing rants I'm afraid. |
Good to know that Welsh children learn English as a matter of course. If this is attained, I don't suppose it's any different to learning French at school like I and many others did.