As one would expect, YouTube has myriad resources for the Welsh learner, ranging from brief clickbait like "An American tries to speak Welsh" to full episodes of educational programmes and everything in between.

The first port of call, really before going any further, is to watch the Welsh Plus series which go into great detail about how to pronounce the letters of the Welsh alphabet, both individually and in common combinations. They also touch on the mutations. Welsh Plus's playlist can be found here.

When I started learning Welsh, and before I'd discovered the Say Something in Welsh website, I discovered a series of videos called "Learn Welsh with Will" in which Will Huw, an Englishman living in Wales, disseminates his own Welsh knowledge as he goes about learning it. I liked Will's videos as he comes across as non-judgemental and very amiable. You can see Will's playlists, which include more than just Learn Welsh With Will, here.

Another series of videos I happened upon are aimed at adult learners from the 1990s, Now You're Talking (conveniently mis-spelled as "Now Your Talking" by whomever uploaded them!). These are presented by the likeable Elin Rhys in a variety of very early 90s outfits! There are 36 full half-hour episodes covering a variety of topics and gradually building vocabulary. I enjoy these videos as they present a chance to hear simple conversations in Welsh and learn everyday vocabulary. My only criticisms are that the programmes are now quite dates, the language is in some places a little too old-fashioned, and the pace of the lessons is a little slow for my liking. There's also not a great focus on grammar, so you'll need other resources to accompany these. You can find all 36 videos here.

Much more recent, are Margaret Hall's wonderful videos. Margaret is a Welsh learner and as part of her learning process she's created a series of videos in which she explores various places in Wales. Margaret speaks very clearly and uses a great vocabulary for the upper-beginner or intermediate Welsh learner. I find I can understand a lot of what she says, but not everything. That's due to limitations in my Welsh, though, not any problems with her speaking. Margaret's channel is here.

Finally, the Easy Languages series have several videos in Welsh. These are largely conversations with Welsh speakers in towns and establishments around Wales, conducted entirely in Welsh. The videos are subtitled in both English and Welsh, which is both a blessing and a curse, as you can find yourself reading the English subtitles rather than understanding the spoken Welsh. The ease of understanding the spoken Welsh depends largely on the speaker. Some interviewees are fluent speakers, some only beginners, but the most encouraging thing I took from these videos is that, actually, Welsh is very fluid, Welsh speakers are very forgiving of mistakes and, in reality, things like mutations are not nearly as stuck-to as online guides may lead you to believe. You can find those videos here.

There are plenty more besides, but these are the video series that I've found most useful and most enjoyable while learning Welsh. Feel free to comment if you feel I've missed anything important!

Da bo am y tro!

Alongside Welsh, I have also been brushing up on my GCSE French and hoping to improve my German (although I've already given up on this).

These languages have highlighted two more things I like about Welsh and that I think make it an easier language for the beginner:

1. The present continuous (I am going; I am doing; We are sailing (across the sea...))

In English, we have this periphrastic construction for the continuous tense that involves using "to be" as an auxilliary verb. This construction is alien to other European languages who simply use the present tense form of whatever verb, for example "to go", to indicate all three of the following ideas:

I go
I am going
I do go

In French, all three are "je vais". On the DuoLingo forum you see beginners in non-Welsh languages ask "Where is "am" in this sentence?" or asking "Why is it not 'Je suis vais'?".

Welsh, similarly to English, also forms the present tense periphrastically with "bod" (to be), almost in the opposite way to French by including the auxilliary where in English it *wouldn't* be needed:

Dw i'n mynd (literally "Am I going")

is

I am going
I go
I do go

and I think that inclusion of "am" (dw, in this case) is a more familiar construct to the English speaker, despite the reverse word order.

2. The same pronouns are used for both the nominative and accusative case.

What I mean by this is that "he" and "him" are both the same word, as are "She" and "her" (although not "her" the possessive pronoun), and "We" and "us".

For example:

Maen nhw'n mwynhau'r ddrama (they enjoy the play) - Nominative

Uses the same pronoun as:

Paid ag anghofio nhw! (don't forget them!) - Accusative

In French, "them" can be "ils" or "elles" or even "eux" in the nominative and "les" in the accusative.

The more Welsh I learn, the more I think it's a lot easier than people give it credit for. That said, it's not without its own strange constructs!

Ok, so it's been about seven months since I started learning Welsh in earnest, and he's what I think is hard and what I think is fairly easy about Welsh:

1. Mutations. Letters change at the start of one word depending on what word they follow. However I'm finding that this starts to feel more natural in most circumstances after a while.

2. Versions of "about" and "of/from" for each pronoun. If you're talking about a thing, they're "am" and "o" respectively. But if you're talking about/from me, you, her, him, us or them you're looking at "amdana, amdanat, amdani, amdano, amdanon and amdanyn" and "ohono, ohonot, ohoni, ohono, ohonon and ohonyn"!

3. The letter "Ll". Yes, it counts as one letter. The pronunciation is somewhere between ell and hissing like an angry goose with a headache. For some reason I find it easier to pronounce at the start of a word, like Llawr, than in the middle or end of a word, like Arall or Galla.

4. Conjugations. Well, this is the same for any language, really. Remembering the conjugations of short-form verbs is just one of those things you have to get used to.

5. Yes and no. There are no words for Yes and No in Welsh, you just repeat back (or negate) the appropriate conjugation of the verb in the question. "Do you like cheese?", "I do". "Are you tired?" "I am". "Are you reading?" "I am not". But that's only in the present tense. In the past tense it's usually "Do" for yes and "Naddo" for no. But then for emphatic questions it's "Ie" for yes and "Nage" for no. If the question was asking if there is something with you (see below) you reply with Oes or Nag Oes. Remembering which to use is the hard part.

6. There aren't many words that are similar to other European languages. There are some, mostly more modern words borrowed from English: tacsi, parcio, ffatri, ffôn, beic, etc; and some ecclesiastical words like eglwys (church) and capel (chapel) but not to the extent that you find with Romance or Germanic languages.

Things that are easier than I expected:

1. Mutations. Yes, they're difficult, but actually you get used to them, and in many cases the rules are quite consistent. You just get used to dropping the G in words like gweithio and gweld when they follow a sentence subject. You get used to changing D to Dd in adjectives after "yn", and you get very used to nasal mutations after "fy".

2. Conjugations. Although remembering them is difficult, many of the conjugations are quite consistent and actually fit in quite well with the pronoun they go with.

3. Possession. I've said before about there being no form of "I have a (something)" in Welsh, they instead say something is "with them": Mae ci gyda fi - "There is a dog with me". I got the hang of this much quicker than I thought. I think you just change your way of thinking and everything slots together.

4. The language as a whole. I'm only a beginner. Very much so. But I've been surprised at how much I've covered in such a short space of time. I'm not proficient by any stretch of the imagination, and I can only string together fairly simple sentences, but on the other hand I can make many more types of sentences in Welsh than my partner's daughter can in Spanish; a language she's been learning at school for two years now. I can use the present tense, the past perfect, a sort of imperfect, the future in several forms and some conditional tenses and even a kind of limited subjunctive mood.

On the whole, Welsh has (so far) been easier than I expected. It's not the incomprehensible jumble of letters it always looked like on road signs when we used to visit my Grandma in Rhossili when I was a child. In fact, in many ways it's a lot easier than the languages I'd been taught at school.

This is something I've started feeling quite strongly about lately, although I admit I'm partial to a bit of bias given my current enthusiasm for Cymraeg, but...

...why don't we teach Welsh as a second language in England? I say England because in Scotland and Northern Ireland they already have native languages that should be taught, but England does not.

I know some people will think, "Are you mad?!" but hear me out; my reasoning is sound:

1. Many children are more likely to visit Wales than Germany. German is taught in many British schools, yet British tourists to Germany number around 2 million per year compared to 10 million in Wales (2015 figure). This means more chance to practice a language learnt in school.

2. Welsh is the language of these islands. English people may not appreciate this, but our ancestors spoke something similar to Welsh. Before the Romans, Saxons and then Normans invaded, the native languages of these islands were the Brythonic languages, of these Welsh is the one currently in the healthiest state. Learning Welsh is a link to our past, even as Englishmen.

3. Learning any language has benefits beyond just that language. Learning one language helps a child understand other languages and their own language much better. There is nothing to be lost by learning Welsh and much to be gained.

4. Welsh is different. Welsh is not like French, German or Spanish; the languages children usually learn in school. The structure is different and it borrows little from Romance or Germanic languages. Learning Welsh gives children a different perspective on language learning yet remains relevant as it's spoken as a living language by 700,000 people and is an official language of the UK, unlike Cantonese, Mandarin or Satsuma ;)

5. Welsh is easy. Well, sort of. As I've covered previously, simple Welsh sentences in the past, present and future tenses can involve very little conjugation beyond the verb "bod" (to be). This makes progress fast and enthuses children to learn. Why spend two years mastering present tense conjugations in French when you can learn the same sentences in Welsh in a fraction of the time?

Not everyone will agree with me. I know the counter argument will be "but more people speak language X than speak Welsh!" or the usual "Welsh is a dead language! What's the point?!". But Welsh is growing. By teaching it as a second language it will grow more and these questions will answer themselves.

My last post was about starting the Say Something In Welsh course. This is just an update on how that's going.

First, the main difference between this and DuoLingo is the sense of community. The DuoLingo forums (if you can call them that) are really only for people asking questions about the lessons themselves, or querying the correct answers to questions within the lessons. The Say Something In Welsh forums have much more spirit about them. People joke with each other, people ask questions, get replies and then go off topic about their experiences of learning Welsh. People share their real world experiences of *using* Welsh and receive encouragement from others for doing so. And, most importantly, the course creators and contributors also join in with all of this. And there's never a hint of condescension, just encouragement. This tone is maintained through the lessons themselves, with one of the later sentences on the very first lesson being "I'm not trying to speak Welsh, I am speaking Welsh" (Dw i ddim yn trio siarad Cymraeg, dw i'n siarad Cymraeg!)

Second, the course takes some getting used to for someone like me who has done a little Welsh before. The pronunciations are a little more colloquial, and words are omitted in the same way that a native speaker might: "Wyt ti'n bwyta" (you are eating) becomes simply "ti'n bwyta", in much the same way as an English speaker might ask simply "You eating?"

Then there's the manner of the course. Everything is very relaxed. You're told "don't worry about this now" when introduced to things like mutations and the long form of the past tense. You're told, "To form the past tense, you only need to know how to say "ness ee". This stumped me, until I realised it was just a colloquial pronunciation of what I know as "Mi wnes i". I'm not sure how well I cope with this casual approach. I **need** to know conjugations, I **need** to know why things are what they are. It's very hard for me to just let go and accept that things are as they are, and it will all become clear later.

But I'm trying. The course clearly works, as plenty of people on the forums are using it, and Iestyn is an excellent teacher. His lessons are well measured, his voice is clear, he's encouraging throughout, and he participates in the forums to answer questions and give advice.

He is clearly passionate about Welsh, and that enthusiasm is infectious.

I originally signed up to the SaySomethingInWelsh forums a few weeks ago when I found it quite by accident while searching for information on the use of "sydd" vs "pwy", and my use of the site didn't go beyond reading some of the forum posts.

Today I decided to start their lessons. Learning with SaySomethingInWelsh is quite unlike DuoLingo. The latter presents you with very short lessons based around short sentences you translate into English, write out in Welsh, or match to pictures. Because of its visual nature, learning the written forms of words is essential to the learning process.

SaySomethingInWelsh is quite different. They actively discourage note taking and base their lessons entirely on listening and repeating the material in a fashion a little similar to a Teach Yourself CD. The idea is that you learn by doing.

Despite having worked up to Level 16 on DuoLingo, I decided to start right at the beginning with the SaySomething course, just in case it offered vocabulary I had not come across on DuoLingo, and so that I got the most out of the course.

So far I'm liking it. It's ideal for having in the car while driving, as one might an audio CD. The only disconcerting thing at the moment is the pronunciation of the speaker, who is a native speaker from the South East. I'm familiar with pronouncing words with "ae" to sound as "eye", whereas he pronounces them more like "ah". Thus "cymraeg" to me sounds like "cum-rye-g" but to him is more "cum-raag". I'm not going to argue with him; he's a native speaker, after all, but it takes some getting used to. I can only assume my pronunciation is either more "standard" or more northern.

Even lesson one brought about some new-ish vocabulary for me, so it's looking like a promising new route for learning, with the added bonus of some forums in which to speak to some like-minded learners.

Sometimes I see people on the DuoLingo forums say that they ultimately want to become fluent in the language they're studying. That strikes me as a lofty ambition.

For someone living in the country of the language they're learning, fluency as a goal makes sense, and in my opinion is probably achievable. Most language learners and teachers agree that the best way to become fluent is to immerse oneself in the language, and the best way to do that is by living in a country where it's spoken.

For someone not living in a country where their language is spoken, fluency must surely be much harder to achieve. Independent study, including reading and watching television programmes in the target language, can increase proficiency (I can't imagine there's such a thing as bad exposure to a language) but ultimately the way to fluency is to hear native speakers. Language, after all, is defined by its use as much as its rules. Language learning with no exposure to its actual use can, however, lead to the sort of hilarity found in the classic English As She Is Spoke.

I think goals need to be achievable and realistic in order to avoid discouragement. It's better to set a low bar, reach it, and then move on to the next target with a sense of acheivement than to reach too high and become discouraged at an apparent lack of success.

My goal with Welsh is definitely not to become fluent. Not at the moment, anyway. I don't think I'd stand a chance without being surrounded by Welsh speakers and using it every day. My aim is simply to be good enough to understand all the Welsh signs when I'm visiting Wales, to be able to conduct a simple transaction in a shop (actually I'm not that far off, if all I want is a coffee!) and to be able to read novels aimed at learners.

If you're learning a language, one of the best ways to gain exposure to that language and increase fluency is to visit a country where that language is spoken.

Herein lies the problem with Welsh: not all Welsh people speak it. They all speak English, but only around 20% of the population speaks Welsh. This means that if I'm in Wales, I can't initiate a conversation in Welsh because I can't guarantee that the other person will be a Welsh speaker.

Such a situation, where a native does not speak the native language, would be inconceivable in most other countries.

The fact that there are no monoglot Welsh speakers remaining also doesn't help. Because everyone speaks English fluently there's less incentive to make the effort to learn and speak Welsh.

Then there's the problem with signage. In France, other than at some touristy areas, all signs are in French. Signs alerting me to the "dèrniere sortie avant péage" will do so only in French. Translating and understanding the signs becomes part of the learning experience. Unfortunately, in Wales most signs are bilingual. The order of the languages is left to the discretion of the local authority, but an English translation will be on the sign somewhere. On the one hand, this allows you to quickly confirm that your translation of the Welsh was correct. On the other, it takes a lot of the fun and the necessity out of translating in the first place. It's very hard not to notice the English accidentally before you've had chance to attempt the Welsh.

What I have discovered, to my surprise and delight, is that several of my colleagues speak varying levels of Welsh. Remember, this is Somerset, England, not the north of Wales, so it's not entirely expected. One even speaks fluent Welsh, having attended a Welsh medium school. And he's said he's always happy to help with my Welsh learning.

So things are looking up.

One of the more daunting things about Welsh which is common to all the Celtic languages is the concept of mutations: consonants that change to a different letter, or even group of letters, depending on context.

As an English speaker and someone who has learnt German and French in the past, this is a truly alien concept. German may have given us some pretty monstrous words, but at least they're always spelt the same way whenever you encounter them. The French may be sloppy when pronouncing the ends of their words, but at least the beginnings don't go changing.

In Welsh, however, certain initial consonants of words change to other consonants. This is a mutation, and exists in all the Celtic languages of the British Isles in various forms. Welsh has three types of mutation: soft, nasal and aspirate (which I won't go into here). The most common of these is the soft mutation. What this means, in practical terms, is that in certain circumstances the following letter changes occur at the start of a word:

c becomes g

p becomes b

t becomes d

d becomes dd

b and m become f

ll becomes l

rh becomes r

and g vanishes entirely!

One of the occasions these mutations occur is when a singular feminine noun follows the definite article "Y". So "cath" (a cat) becomes "y gath" (the cat). "Mam" (Mother) becomes "y fam" (the Mother). And so on. This change also occurs when we are going "from" or "to" somewhere. If we go "to Wales", for example, it's "i Gymru" with the usual C replaced by a G. I'm still getting accustomed to the various reasons for the soft mutation, and there are lots of them.

Then we have the nasal mutation. This is much less common, and comprises the following consonant changes, which I had to look up because they're not all yet very natural to me:

p -> mh

t -> nh

c -> ngh

b -> m

d -> n

g -> ng

I've principally encountered this mutation when saying I am "in" somewhere. As with the Cymru -> Gymru change above when we go to Wales, we change C to Ngh when we are in Wales. So one can like Cymru, go to Gymru, but be in Nghymru... argh! Still, all languages have their quirks, and the world would be a very boring place without these differences.

The purpose of mutations, so I've been led to believe, is to improve the flow of the language. I kind of buy that. Kind of. I can see that the words trip off the tongue a little better in the case of the nasal mutation ("my car" would be "fy car" ("vuh car") without the change but becomes "fy nghar" ("vunghar") with it), but I can't really see how abitrary changes to feminine singular nouns help the flow.

Still, it is what it is, and it's all part of language's rich tapestry!

Five months or so ago, I embarked on a language learning adventure. I decided to learn Welsh. I'm not Welsh, I don't live in Wales, and I'm not planning on moving to Wales any time soon. Not that Wales isn't a lovely place, but it's not currently part of my plans.

It started as a bit of a joke. My partner's daughter, Lulu, started at Cardiff University last autumn and has the option of taking free Welsh lessons as part of her course. She scoffed at the idea, "Everyone speaks English! Why would I need to learn Welsh?". I explained that it might not be necessary, but why not take advantage of a free route to learning another language, but to no avail.

I can't say I blame her; I'd always been dismissive of the minority languages of the United Kingdom: Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish. They're dying out, aren't they?

Well, yes and no. Cornish is down to just a few scores of speakers and Gaelic has only around 50,000. But Welsh is a bit different. Welsh is still used. And it's still used by young people, for some of whom it's both a native and a first language. In fact, following a decline in the first half of the 20th century, Welsh is actually thriving somewhat, with the aim set by the Welsh Assembly to get one million speakers by 2050.

So back to Lulu. Every time we spoke following her enrollment at university I would ask her "Learning Welsh yet?" and every time she'd say "no", getting increasingly fed up with me asking, until one day she snapped, "If you love Welsh so much, why don't you bloody learn it?!". I saw that as a challenge and tentatively started looking for resources online.

My first port of call was Babbel, which I'd used in an aborted attempt to learn Spanish before, but alas they offer no Welsh course. I then found some excellent YouTube videos from WelshPlus, but they focussed entirely on familiarisation with the Welsh alphabet and pronunciation. Then someone suggested DuoLingo. DuoLingo courses are run by volunteers, who use the DuoLingo platform tools to create content to teach others. And DuoLingo has a Welsh course. And it's free. I signed up and dived into Cymraeg!

So, I'm now a Welsh learner, or Dysgwr Cymraeg, and I intend to chart my Welsh odyssey here.