Recently by Shelley Coyle

I must confess to have been rather slack recently so far as regards updating the blog and, due to various injuries, commitments and sheer reliance on public transport home from work, even keeping up my attendance at classes. Shelley drwg!

However, I wouldn't want you to think I have abandoned my studies completely. As a late Christmas present to myself, I acquired two chickens from Llangefni who have been dubbed Myfanwy and Blodwen in an attempt to inspire me. I wasn't the only one who was inspired however and, after three weeks of asking "Sgynnoch chi wyau i fi?" each day, I finally got a satisfactory response! I am however yet to remember the fine difference between hens (ieir) and liver (iau) and received more than one perplexed response to my ridiculous offer: "Ti isio weld fy iau?"

My little Bangor menagerie gained a further addition in the form of a large tabby who alas doesn't provide eggs on a daily basis, nor has he been given a enw Cymreig. He has been dubbed Stimpy by my boyfriend (an apt name to anyone familiar with the fat, needy puss from the cartoon Ren and Stimpy, for this hungry monster whose idea of heaven is a warm lap) who wasn't too keen on standing on the doorstep calling "Mr Bumble!", as his previous owner had done.

Stimpy too has been subjected to my faltering Cymraeg skills: being asked "Be' syn bod, cariad?" or "Ti isio cwtch?" when he cries, or having "Paid!" shouted at him when discovered atop the dining table. Old Stimpy must have an excellent grasp of the Welsh language - he seems to shift quickly enough when reprimanded!

As I am moving to the Caernarfon Herald to cover Porthmadog and Blaenau Ffestiniog, I thought that I would really have to pull my finger out and get back to class. I got back into the swing of things last week at Coleg Menai, but snow stopped play on Tuesday. As such, I didn't feel too guilty about spending the evening listening to Radio 4 with a a cat on my lap and a frittata, fresh from the garden, in my stomach - bliss!

A preview of one of my stories in this week's paper which will be out on Christmas Eve:

Public opinion is sought on the future of Welsh medium learning in Conwy with a new Welsh education scheme.

The primary objective of the scheme is to ensure that Welsh-medium or bilingual education is available to all of the county's children from nursery tots to college students, regardless of where they live, any disability they might have and whether or not they are a newcomer to Wales.

Development is an integral part of the scheme's focus, with all pupils who have received a Welsh-medium education at primary school level being able to attend a Welsh-medium or bilingual secondary school. A push to increase the numbers of children being assessed in Welsh is under way.

Conwy's primary inspector for language development, Dafydd Thomas said: "We are required by the Welsh Language Board to revise our Welsh education scheme and set targets for Conwy.

"All children here, regardless of their first language, are given a sound base in Welsh that will allow an increasing number of them to become bilingual in the long term.

"One of the things we are very excited about is our language immersion projects at Ysgolau y Creuddyn and Dolgarrog for children who haven't gone down the usual route for learning Welsh. At a foundation level, we are getting pupils under seven to develop their Welsh language skills through play activities.

"We are encouraging schools with pupils whose first language is English to have some classes, up to 25% of the curriculum, taught through the medium of Welsh. We are also working to ensure that Welsh language education is available at Ysgol y Gogarth, when needed. Unlike Conwy, some parts of the country can't meet those demands."

Hosting the Eisteddfod yr Urdd 2008 in Conwy has been hailed a successful way of enthusing teachers and raising awareness of the Welsh language in Conwy's schools.

Dafydd added: "I don't think we are struggling in Conwy with any particular aspect of Welsh language education. Welsh is jewel in the crown of education across the county. It is a living language and learning through Welsh is something that is valuable and useful to everyone, proving especially advantageous in the job market."

The county's vision reflects the Welsh Assembly Government's desire that by 2010, more people are able to speak Welsh, with the greatest increase among young people. Despite the drive for an uptake, there is still great disparity in the numbers of Welsh speakers across Conwy, with only 11% of the Towyn and Kinmel Bay population able to speak Welsh, compared to 74% in Uwchaled.

The document on the Welsh education scheme for Conwy is available online at www.conwy.gov.uk, from county libraries, public buildings and citizens' advice bureaux. Any comments should be sent to geraint.james@conwy.gov.uk or contact 01492 575003 by January 30.

After what had been a lengthy break from classes in Liverpool, I was back for a festive educational session on Tuesday. Despite my best attempts to practise my Cymraeg with the Cofi reporters, conversation typically sunk to a juvenile level with my apparent mispronunciation of bisgedi as an Aussie greeting being gleefully mocked. My charming responses, cau dy geg or dos i grafu, caused the other non-Welsh speaking reporters to look on perturbed at our increasing animated ribbing, needlessly mumbling, "Do you think they're talking about us?"

As such, a return to classes was welcome, if only to build up my reportoire of insults. This week we learned to describe physical attributes such as "mae o'n ddew" and "mae hi'n hyll". Next on the agenda was learning some Christmas carols, which were pretty painful in both terms of pronunciation and pitch (Gohebydd dw i, dim canwr!) and discovering the character of Sion Coin!

Nadolig llawen a blwydden newydd dda i chi.

Despite fears that I am falling behind in my studies without my lessons these last few weeks, I did manage to have a little practice with Llanfairfechan farmer, Gareth Wyn Jones whilst out collecting the Carneddau mountain ponies. Ga i merlod rwan!

Dewch i Cymraeg: http://www.dailypostcymraeg.co.uk/fideo-a-lluniau
Or for English, go to http://www.northwalesweeklynews.co.uk/videos-pictures/

Mwynhau!

Due to training in Liverpool, I had to forgo fy un nosbarth Cymraeg i this week - and the same will sadly happen next week and the week after that too. Despite fears that I'd be back to square one at this rate, I was staying with the Caernarfon reporters; Dion Jones and the fantastically named Gwenno Gwilym, whose ears I have been abusing.

Before we had even met, I was being teased by Dion for e-mailing "mae o'n gwrando da" (listens good) instead of "mae o'n swnio da" (sounds good), with regards to travel arrangements. Be' sy'n bod? It's all the same sense anyway! However in the end, a 7am train from Bangor didn't sound, nor indeed listen, good at all!

I was also mercilessly mocked for apparently speaking Cymraeg with a German accent whilst subjecting Dion to my pained attempts at conversation. Danke schon has never been an acceptable response to offers in any Cymraeg class I've been to before! I gave as good as I got, however, ribbing him that his Cofi vernacular consisting mainly of "yeh" and "cont" hardly consisted fluency either!

I'll bring my textbook for the train next week and hopefully get some more constructive criticism!

What a difference a week makes! After sitting down with my textbook over the weekend, I'm feeling a lot happier with my mutations. After Tuesday night's class, I was struggling to speak English to my boyfriend as I kept thinking in Cymraeg, and even managed to dream that night in Cymraeg!

I spent Tuesday's class talking about my working day and got my head around the two different "in" forms. So while dw i'n gweithio mewn swyddfa (I work in an office), if I want to be specific, I have to use yn , as in dw i'n gweithio yn swyddfa Weekly News. Working out that mi fydda i'n ymddeol mewn tri ar daugain mlynedd (I will retire in forty-three years), almost twice my age, was rather depressing.

All this talk of bywyd yn swyddfa (life in the office) enabled me to reproach my climbing partner Joe last night who, despite having Cymraeg as his first language, used the word "meetings" instead of cyfarfodydd whilst we were chatting in Cymraeg about our week. He didn't take too kindly to my teasing that I was more Welsh than he was!

I did learn a vital new word though - breichiau (arms) - which came in handy when complaining, mae gen i freichiau poen! (I have sore arms!)

Don't ever say that learning Welsh is a wasted endeavour - you can win a crate of champagne just by filling out a quick survey on www.learncymraeg.org if you are a newly registered learner. The survey is part of a bid by the Welsh for Adults Centre in Bangor, which is there to support learners and providers alike.

Thanks to the increasingly useless bus service in North Wales (bring back KMP!), I arrived at my class at Coleg Menai last night late and cold. My frustrations were compounded by a lesson on the finer points of the treiglad trwynol, or nasal mutation, which is used to change the way you talk about things that belong to you.

Despite having mastered the treiglad meddal (soft mutation) to the point of using it instinctively now, the treiglad trwynol is one which, I confess, I normally avoid, or use a general "ung" sound before each noun, hoping the resultant sound bears some resemblance to what it should be. Fy athrawes i (no nasal mutation needed there, woo!) Non, however, wasn't going to let me get away with that.

Apparently remembering that TCP is a Bloody Good Disinfectant is useful, but only if you remember what the letters T, C, P, B, G and D mutate to. I struggled on this point. It appears I will have to delay applying for that job as a much needed translator for Swansea Council for a while yet!

Having eventually just about managed to grasp that cath (cat) becomes nghath if belongs to me, my tad (dad) is fy nhad i and my brawd (brother) is fy mrawd i, I discovered that this all goes out the window when talking about the possessions of other people. If the cat is his, you say ei gath o and if it's hers, this becomes ei chath hi!. It's exhausting just thinking about it all.

I'm advocating here and now a communist state in Cymru, where nobody owns anything. Not for any real political reason now, this is purely borne from the fear of looking stupid. I don't want to start talking about a woman's parrot as if she's a man, or my bike as if it doesn't belong to me at all! Alternately, I could just be a lazy Bangor-ite and omit the mutations altogether, letting a cat be a cath, whether it's yours, mine, his, hers or even theirs.

Or maybe I could actually abandon tonight's plans for climbing and fireworks yng Nghaernarfon(!), sit down with my textbook and remember it all... an unlikely prospect! Learning from locals in the real world is better by far. That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking with it.

I'm back from my travels in Cornwall (or Cernyw - I was reprimanded in my class last Tuesday for daring to say "mi es i i Gornwall wythnos diwetha", despite emphasisng the "Gornwall" with my very best Bangor-yeh accent) feeling nice and refreshed after some epic surfio. All that tranquility was somewhat diminished after being plunged into one of the most horrible stories we have covered this year: the tragic death of a young Llandudno family. Whilst carrying out the grim task of doing death-knocks - literally knocking on people's doors to gather information on the Statham family - I met a nice chap from BBC Cymru who had the even more difficult task of trying to find Welsh speakers in Llandudno to talk about the events. "Lwc da," I told him, managing to find a glimmer of humour in the darkest of situations.

I had another revision lesson last week, so I have no excuses now for not getting the basics right. We filled out forms for Coleg Menai, stating our long term aims for learning Cymraeg. I thought that writing that I wished to become fluent (yn rhugl) would be a little ambitious, but simply being able to have a conversation without resorting to a desperate, "Arafwch! Sori, dw i'n dysgu Cymraeg" would be nice!

There's no class this week due to half-term (holidays? I'm sure I've hardly been going for a month!) but I have been doing my best to keep up my efforts by talking to all the ripped, young Welsh men at the Beacon climbing centre. "Disgyn! Symudwch!" (Falling! Move!) came in handy before falling off a rather difficult black boulering problem. I even managed to make up my own Wenglish word, "faffio", when remonstrating some friends more interested in tea drinking than climbing!

After feeling somewhat overwhelmed in my first week of classes at Coleg Menai, I transferred last night to a class last night that I think is closer to my ability.

We had a revision lesson which was very useful as I discovered how meagre my grasp of the past tenses actually was. I have previously just used mi wnes i (I did) for everything:
Mi wnes i fynd (I did go)
Mi wnes i fod (I did come)
Mi wnes i gael (I did have) etc
- all the time thinking what an awkward, clumsy way this was of speaking. Only for my new athrawes (teacher), Non, to make me realise that it was actually I, and not the Welsh language, that was stupid.

I can now say these phrases in much fewer words to a much more natural effect:
Mi es i (I went)
Mi ddes i (I came)
Mi ges i (I had)
and, my old favourite, all by itself, mi wnes i (I did).
Of course, there is just one problem with learning all these new phrases: I'll have to try to remember them all!

I felt rather smug then that, as I arrived at my boyfriend's, I was able to say: mi es i i'r dosbarth Cymraeg heno a mi ges i lifft yn ol efo fy athrawes i (I went to Welsh class tonight and I had a lift back with my teacher) - in my head at any rate, because, bechod, he wouldn't have had the foggiest as to what I was on about.

I won't be able to do an update next week as I shall joyfully be miles away from my desk on a surf trip. I shall do my best to glance over my textbook in between fulfilling my duties as chief map reader and might
even run a few phrases past his nibs. He could certainly do with knowing how to say more than just paned? and wyt ti isio mynd i'r gwely? (I'll let you translate that one for yourself.)

Due to a mix-up, I ended up taking my first class at Coleg Menai with a group about six months ahead of me.

After such a long time away from structured classes, anything much more than wyt ti isio paned? or o le wyt ti'n dwad? was always going to be a challenge. Despite being somewhat thrown into the deep end, I think I just about managed to muddle through learning about talking about the future using a new term: fydda (I will). Fortunately, everyone else seemed pretty rusty too on the first day of term so I didn't feel too stupid.

Of course, with this new phrase comes yet another way of saying yes (bydda) and no (na fydda), as if one were needed! I never fail to be amazed by the seemingly endless ways one can say 'yes' in Welsh: oes, do, ydw, oedd, ydy, ia... and saying the wrong one always invokes a smile. In times of uncertainty, I just go with the wise guidance of Alys, aged 3, who I used to babysit and use the simplest ia and na!