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I attended my first session of AmeriCymraeg as a student today. In the past I have hovered in the background, ready to field requests for technical or administrative support but did not take part in the classes. That being the case, this is an excellent opportunity to thank John Good for being the excellent instructor that he is and to thank our students old and new for taking the trouble to learn Welsh in 2014....Diolch yn fawr pawb.

Tonight we concentrated on basic pronunciation and vocabulary and straight off the bat I learned something very useful. Mutations are the bane of many a Welsh learners existence and I am no exception. I have attended a few classes in the past and at some point tutors always asked students where they lived as part of a class exercise. Now at the time I lived in Cardiff, but 'in Cardiff' in Welsh is not straightforwardly, 'yn Caerdydd' but the rather viciously unpronounceable 'yng nghaerdydd'. No one ever told me that I did not need to pronounce the second 'ng' which is a nearly impossible feat! That second 'ng' is silent so that the correct pronunciation is, more or less phonetically - ung-hire-dydd - which is perfectly manageable.

Never again will I have to resort to Wenglish and answer "Caerdydd inni?" when asked in Welsh, where I was born or where I lived before migrating to the US.

Now of course, since I live in Portland I will have to master the pronunciation of 'ym Mhortland', or move somewhere that starts with a safer letter

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