(no subject)

[choco_frosh]

I swear, Duolingo is picking sentences and new vocabulary to try to shame me into getting up and taking a shower.

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I studied Russian in the 1970s. When I used Mango a couple of years ago to prepare for a trip, it was clear that they wanted me to eat meet, drink vodka, and buy fur. (and find the bus stop, and other things that were actually relevant to my life).

[choco_frosh]

I sort of feel like that's more like Duo's more persistent habit of (deliberately or not) reinforcing national stereotypes. Like the fact that I can already say "The bear is eating the fish" in Norwegian, and (theoretically, at least) "I am an unemployed Welsh-language actor" in Welsh.

Welsh

[lauradi7dw]

When Prince Charles was installed as Prince of Wales, there was a great deal of press, even in the local papers in North Carolina. One thing that was noted with approval was that he spent a year studying Welsh, and then used it to speak with the locals. I wouldn't have remembered the timing exactly, although I know I was pubescent at the time, but it was 50 years ago this summer. Not long afterward, the singer Tom Jones (originally from Wales) hosted a US variety TV show with lots of popular singers. At the end of each episode, he recited something in Welsh, supposedly a blessing (could have been a curse or a grocery list, for all most of us knew). The combination of the two things made me resolve to learn Welsh as an adult. I never did. When we visited Wales as tourists maybe twenty years ago, I bought a booklet called "Teach Yourself Welsh." I got as far as learning to sound out the words on the road sounds, but no grammar or vocabulary. I did have the lightbulb go off over my head in one regard, though - I realized that Shakespeare named the character in "Henry V" Fluellen as a transcription of the Welsh pronunciation of Llewellyn, or at least some popular impression of what the ll sounded like.

At least some Welsh-language actors move to the US. Matthew Rhys and Ioan Gruffudd both spoke Welsh as a first language, learned English in school, and have lived and worked here for many years.