Help me speak Welsh!

July 16, 2006 1:02 PM

Who knows how to pronounce Welsh near Chapel Hill, NC? I think I'd like to throw a small party at which we all learn the basics of pronouncing Welsh, and I'd love to find an expert, preferably one with experience teaching, to help us.

I tried looking for Welsh-language teachers on the UNC web site, but no luck. I found an older AskMetafilter thread about free online resources for learning Welsh, and that's going to be helpful, but I'm really looking for a person whom I can somehow persuade to come to my gathering.

Any ideas on how to throw a "learn-to-pronounce-Welsh" party would be welcome. I also hope to find some nice things to read out loud. I'm a singer, so songs might be nice, too.

posted by amtho to society & culture (7 comments total)

Linguistics? I took a summer program at Duke and my instructor would be perfect for this, but I don't know if it would be appropriate to give you his email, sorry. If you don't get any help, email me privately.
posted by MadamM at 2:05 PM on July 16, 2006

You could try the Welsh American Society of North America or a general query in the All Welsh Ex-Pats society forum.
posted by ceri richard at 2:10 PM on July 16, 2006

This won't bring a person to your party, but BBC Wales might be worth listening to. Having on in the background as your surfing perhaps, to get you into the swing of the language before your party?

Disclaimer: I don't know if it'll let a USA person listen in.
posted by selton at 3:24 PM on July 16, 2006

One can not learn to speak Welsh, as someone who goes there an a regular basis, and who has a good friend (English) married for 20 years to woman from Wales who grew up speaking Welsh (and teaches English at a Welsh speaking school) he still can not speak Welsh. You might try some instructional CDs if you can find them. There also are a few web sites that offer basic translation and pronounciation--unfortunately my link is broken. Best of Luck
PS There may be an international Institute in your area that keeps a file on persons who translate and speak other languages. You might also check with some of the larger hospital complexes to see if the have an interpreter on call for Welsh--probably not in high demand.
posted by rmhsinc at 5:57 PM on July 16, 2006

My title is somewhat misleading -- I don't actually want to be able to hold a conversation in Welsh; I just want to be able to read printed text on a page and pronounce it correctly. This is exceptionally challenging with Welsh! I'm particularly interested in being able to sing in Welsh.
posted by amtho at 6:37 PM on July 16, 2006

These suggestions are actually quite helpful, by the way. MadamM, I may contact you after all. Were you in the TIP summer program at Duke? I hope your instructor was local. Sounds perfect.
posted by amtho at 6:39 PM on July 16, 2006

I was at TIP! My instructor lives in Chapel Hill and (I think) is working on some kind of graduate thing at UNC. As well as Welsh, he could probably give you a crash course in Anglo- Saxon, Old Norse, German, Icelandic, etc. He was a really cool guy who really knew his stuff. Email me and we can work something out.
posted by MadamM at 7:12 PM on July 16, 2006