#and for another. the FACES alexander vlahos is making here.

[proto-language]

Versailles 02x02

"Fashion will be our standard, darling, and the people will walk behind you. And me."

[lehillwrites]

Kick Back, Relax & Learn Welsh

For most of my life, whenever I had free time I would pick up a book to read or a notebook, later a laptop, and write. Both activities I could do for hours, until my back was aching from sitting in one position for too long and my hands hurt from writing. It was wonderful. Lately, I seem to need to be pulled in ten different directions to keep my brain occupied, and when I do relax it’s in front of the television while on my tablet with the laptop and a notebook nearby. There’s usually a book open on the tablet, and a google doc open on the laptop, but I’m switching my attention like a squirrel looking for nuts and feeling guilty about not doing homework. Even when I don’t have homework.

When classes ended a couple of weeks ago I told myself that I would take a few days off before beginning to work on my thesis prospectus for the Capstone Project that I will be starting (along with my last official class!) in January. A few days to catch up on a show that an actor that I follow will be in for the second season, so of course I needed to watch season one, right? 

Right.

The show is called Bang and it takes place in the Welsh town of Port Talbot. It’s a crime drama that focuses on the people over the major crime arc, and I love it. It took the whole first episode to finally place the familiar face of one of the leads, Catrin Stewart - she was Jenny Flint on Doctor Who! Bang is a different take on what could have been just another police procedural, and I highly recommend it. (Google Play has it to buy, and you can watch it on AcornTV via Amazon Prime Video in the US.)

All of that is only half of what makes the show so great.

The other half is that the show is bilingual: Welsh and English.

It’s glorious.

Swinging back around to my wonky brain, there I sat watching Bang and suddenly I thought, “It would be so much cooler to watch this and not have to pay so much attention to the subtitles. I wonder…” And that’s how I found my new way to relax: learning Welsh.

I decided to install Duolingo on my tablet to see how I liked it. I use the free version, which works well for me because you have a limited amount of hearts that are used up when you make a mistake, and to get more....you do practice lessons! Yes, you can pay but why bother when you can practice and get better and also earn hearts to get back on track? (I’m not throwing out a line for the app, I’m just saying when learning is free? USE IT.)

It has been about two weeks and my accent is atrocious but I can get through some lessons without mistakes, and sometimes the mistakes are actually because I accidentally hit the wrong spot on the tablet screen (Seriously, I would have better stats if I paid attention and didn’t hit the Return button when I meant to press “L”...) There are challenges to get a certain amount correct, how many new words learned, etc. and I love watching my stats go up as I meet the challenges.

The Welsh language is very old, and evolved from a Celtic dialect. It nearly died out but for the beautiful stubborness of the Welsh people. I admire that. (Check out this page and podcast to learn more about it! “A Brief History of the Welsh Language”) And I love to hear it spoken, even if I can only catch a word here and there at this point. Still, dw i’n hoffi dysgu Cymraeg! (...I love learning Welsh!)

I know, learning a language doesn’t seem much like relaxing, but the lessons are short enough that I don’t lose focus. Short enough that I end up wanting to do another. And another. Two lessons are enough to hit my daily goal, but I tend to do six over the course of a day. Once class starts up again I will probably cut back to four, but the new season of Bang begins in February and I need to be able to say more than “Gina! Dych chi’n mwynhau gweithio fel heddwas?” (Gina! Do you enjoy working as a police officer?)

Diolch Duolingo for the bite-sized Welsh lessons, Bang for the awesome show, and Alexander Vlahos for getting cast in season 2!