Croeso i fy un blog dwsgwyr Cymraeg i - Welcome to my Welsh learner's blog

When I first joined the North Wales Weekly News in March, holding down a full-time job whilst finishing my degree at Bangor University and still trying to feed a self-confessed climbing addiction, keeping up with the four hours a week of Welsh classes was quite a struggle.

Now with the degree happily over, I have a bit more time to concentrate on my Cymraeg. It took me two years of living in Bangor and Menai Bridge to realise quite how important it is to learn Welsh if you are living in these parts. My efforts to speak Cymraeg, however badly, have got me out of many a pickle: I've scored beta off local lads when climbing routes in Dinorwig's quarries; saved pounds off entrance prices at attractions by simply speaking in Welsh; and fought off the best attempts of Jehovah's Witnesses in Caernarfon to convert me - Dim diolch, anffyddwyr hapus dw i, should you ever need such a phrase yourself!

However, after some four months of forgoing lessons as classes stopped for the summer I have become somewhat rusty. I have baffled (though I prefer to use the term "charmed") my colleagues on the Daily Post as I have complimented their tasty looking kitchen (cegin) rather than their lunch (cinio), and time and time again requested sex (rhyw) instead of ice (rhew) with my G&T to the amusement of bar staff.

And so it is with some relief, not least for the general public, that I have enrolled to begin my second year of Welsh classes, now with Coleg Menai in Bangor. The four hours I had been doing a week last year with the university seemed too much to fit into my working week. Now that I no longer have the free time that comes with being a soap-dodging student, the two-hour weekly class I have joined is ideal.

The start of classes has been delayed, giving me some time to try and remember all those pesky mutations.

Right, must crack on....
Fy ung nghi ydy un fy un nhi - aaarrgghh!!