Welsh Classes at the Cambrian Hall

The Vancouver Welsh Society offers free Welsh language classes to the public. Classes are designed for all levels of Welsh learners, and beginners are always welcome to join at any point in the term. We will be starting from the very beginning in September.

The classes are held at the Red Dragon on Thursday evenings but in March 2020 these classes were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is envisaged that the classes will restart when restrictions have been removed.

Regular-term classes for beginners meet from 7:00 to 7:50 pm, with emphasis on listening and speaking. This will be in conjunction with the basic grammar, following the lessons. Summer classes are review and cementing the previous year’s grammar. The focus is on conversational South Welsh. (Those interested in North Welsh are more than welcome: the decision is practical rather than political.)

The class for intermediate and advanced learners follows from 8:10 to 9:00 pm, focusing on reading with more emphasis on building vocabulary in context and more advanced grammar. Beginners are more than welcome to attend this class: the point is to become more familiar with the living language, practice the sounds and accent by reading aloud, and to build vocabulary by recognizing words in context.

The Vancouver Welsh Society is also considering some conversational events where people can practice their Welsh, no matter how limited, in the Red Dragon over a pint without the more formal discussions of grammar. Some of the Thursday lessons may take this form.

This series of Welsh classes is led by Dr. Antone Minard, our prif ddysgwr (“main learner”), who began learning Welsh in university in California in the 1990s and improved markedly while living in Aberystwyth. The Society’s community of native Welsh speakers has offered considerable support, including attending the classes to help us with pronunciation and usage.

Online Links for Learning Welsh

This short list is only a stepping stone to the many excellent Welsh resources available online.

Writing system:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/welsh.htm

This is a good overview of the Welsh writing system, with links to further resources.

Lessons:

https://www.saysomethingin.com/welsh

This course focuses on speaking and listening, and comes very highly recommended. It will improve your skills quickly and dramatically. The only drawback is that it is exclusively spoken Welsh, and so written Welsh still requires some extra effort.

http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/fun/welsh

Although this is rather old by internet standards, the author, Mark Nodine, is very good at presenting Welsh to a North American audience.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learning/learnwelsh

The BBC has a number of Welsh learning resources, from the Big Welsh Challenge to news stories in Welsh.