janet st, porter

[2nd row]

  janet brags about ' learning to speak WELSH, fluently in just one week '. i know her mother was Welsh, but surely not in one week only ? has anyone else ? and what, how long, is any language you can now speak fluently ? [Edited for legal reasons - AB Editor]

[archbishop]

Her mother and the parrot were the only Welsh speakers in her household.

[jenstar]

S4C have been running a show teaching people to speak Welsh in a week. Is JSP alluding to that, by any chance?

[2nd row]

 janet has said " she learnt to speak welsh in one week , fluently ",,,,, long before s4c came on screen ! but now cant say one word ( in WELSH ) and if now ,as you state jenstar, that our channel can acheive such a thing too , why not in our schools ? all schools, if welsh, why not other languages too ? we are way behind many countries, regarding this, one week i still find hard to agree with , how many languages does your 14/15/16 year olds speak now ? janets auntie also visited quite often their home in london.. her mother would not speak anything but Welsh ! which could explain a lot of things !

[bernardo]

Of course it's not possible.  Learning a second language takes months or years of practice.  If JSP said that then she's obviously mad.  Mae e'n dim bosibl, wrth gwrs.

[2nd row]

  your words and feelings, exactly same as mine Bernardo ,,,, JSP. only mentioned it quite recently on tv, tis also written in her book... but to say also, she cannot remember one word seemed ' odder ' to me also !,, as for Jenstars reply about S4C, perhaps its 'week by week '? ( hope so ! cos they could throw down the challenge to us two !!! ).. as you say, it takes months,even years to learn a second language fluently.

[jennymac]

Total rubbish I am welsh (non Welsh speaking) and went to classes for a year and was not much further on than when I started and I had a head start with the few words and phrases I already knew

[bernardo]

Sorry - I should (wrth gwrs) have said "Dydy e ddim yn bosibl" (or perhaps "ym mhosibl"?) My mutational knowledge is very rusty these days - I learnt Welsh 15 years ago so I've forgotten most of it anyway).

[Peter Pedant]

I wouldnt have thought a week is long enough.

Bernardo mentions the mutations

you contruct a sentence and then the vowels ALL change to make it sound better (to the welsh)

Off putting. considering there are only a few thousand welsh men and a million sheep interested in all this, I would go for mandarin or arabic.

[bernardo]

No, it's the bonsonants which jange, dot the bowels.