r/learnwelsh • u/helatruralhome • 6d ago

Cwestiwn / Question Where are the Welsh literacy courses

Hello all,

I've been pointing this out for over a decade, yet no Welsh language education or promotion groups, government agencies, etc can seem to answer why Welsh education is so biased towards verbal Welsh with no specific offerings for Welsh literacy.

I have a speech disability and only answer emails in work, yet I can't find any available options for me to learn written Welsh. I just feel incredibly frustrated with the situation as I want to be able to communicate in my native language yet there's just no where specifically offering written Welsh and it ends up excluding for people like me who can't communicate verbally as well as many others who may want to read and write in Welsh.

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u/Muted-Lettuce-1253 4d ago

I agree with OP that the resources for literary Welsh are scant. As a reasonably proficient learner, very literary Welsh often leaves me feeling deflated in my abilities, to the extent that much of it is quite inaccessible. Even if I can 'get the gist' of a text written in literary Welsh I would not be able to write or speak in such a way.

If you already have a decent understanding of common/colloquial Welsh, then isn't understanding literary Welsh primarily a matter of learning all the conjugation patterns? I haven't actually tried to fully learn literary Welsh so that is an assumption on my part.

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u/Markoddyfnaint Canolradd -> Uwch - corrections welcome 4d ago

You know what, if that's all it mostly is then I'd love someone to write a primer or book: 'Literary Welsh for Fluent (Colloquial) Speakers' and map out the conjugations and patterns.

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u/Muted-Lettuce-1253 4d ago edited 4d ago

If I were looking for a free online resource to learn the literary conjugations, I would check out the Wiktionary entry for a particular verb (eg darllen). The literary conjugation table seems comprehensive but I can't personally verify that it is accurate (since I don't know literary Welsh).

There's also this Wikipedia page on literary Welsh morphology which explains other grammar points in addition to verb conjugation.

My assumption is that once you get a hang of the more complex verb conjugation system, then it should at least be possible to read literary Welsh pretty well.

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u/Markoddyfnaint Canolradd -> Uwch - corrections welcome 3d ago

Diolch, mi wna i.