The Challenges of Learning Welsh
Challenge#1 Not forgetting what you wanted to say because it takes you so long to say it.
I was walking down the street yesterday talking to the dog in pathetically haulting Welsh when it dawned on me that the air quality was pretty ghastly. “Oh My God!” I exclaimed, “The air quality really sucks today!”
Well, of course, this was English and would never do! A translation was in order. First, translate from American to British:
American: Oh My God! The air quality really sucks today!
British: Oh goodness! The air quality isn’t very good today.
Then, from there into Welsh:
Welsh: O…..
And that’s as far as I got. Because the next phrase would have been “my word” and since “my” is “fy” and therefore causes a nasal mutation on anything following it that starts with b, c, d, g, p or t, *Arwen takes deep breath* and the word for “word” is “gair”, which obviously begins with a “g” and therefore requires nasal mutation. So it goes without saying that by the time I sorted all that out and spit out “fy ngair”, it was spring again, the air was clear and I had entirely forgotten what I had wanted to say!