Learn Welsh!

If you feel the urge to learn Welsh - the oldest language in Britain - then there are plenty of resources available online.

DuoLingo

DuoLingo is the first and most obvious port of call for new language learners. It can be accessed either through an Android or iOS app, or through the DuoLingo website and offers a multitude of languages to learn. The Welsh course is particularly well put together as it's based on the recommended Welsh for Adults courses taught across Wales. If DuoLingo has a down side though, it's that the community isn't particularly vibrant and there's a certain amount of "gamification" in the learning method. You sometimes encounter people who are somehow at quite a high level and yet seem to know very little about the language they're learning! There's also not much in the way of community, with most forum posts being questions about the sentences that form part of the lessons. If you start Welsh, be sure to use a browser in order to read the lesson notes (they're not available from the apps).

Say Something In Welsh

Initially you might think this is just a "listen and repeat" type programme that you might have seen on cassette tape in the 80s, but it's not. It's based around the idea of being asked to translate a series of sentences into Welsh, having been taught any new words as needed. The emphasis is on "doing your best" and moving on, rather than learning any tedious grammar rules, with the assumption being that you'll simply start understanding things as you get used to them (when to mutate letters, for example).

The whole course is not free, but there are a variety of ways to learn, from structured 6 minute per day courses, to 6 month courses, to unstructured do-it-yourself access where the lessons are made available to you and you simply work through at your own pace. The course is divided into three "levels" and each of those into about 24 "challenges". The first 15 challenges of level 1 are free. After that it's subscription based, but well worth paying for if you're serious about learning. You'll develop a more natural Welsh with this method than with DuoLingo. There's also the choice between learning North Welsh or South Welsh variants.

Welsh Plus

Not so much a course, but a series of videos explaining how to pronounce the letters of the Welsh alphabet, but extremely useful for the beginner, with all examples given in both North and South variants.

They also have a variety of videos on subjects like idioms, dialectal differences and common words.