Strange how when you start to crack the code for another language, your brain begins to search for patterns in other language forms.
Now I know that linguists/ multi language speakers are hard wired to pick up on languages; decode & search for links, but I didn't realise that even at a minimal level this is true. All those French classes, searching conversations and passing chats in French would add up to my brain trying to use this knowledge in a unique way.
So it was in our latest & brief visit to the Welsh coast I found myself searching for links, wondering about patterns & considering word order and all this without a single spoken word of that lyrical language. My mind was alive with questions scanning for letter patterns or potential meaning all reinforced by the dual signage...quite fascinating!
I had a conversation with a highly competent ex French teacher, who having given me an impromptu monologue on a point of French grammar, explained that she had expected to become fluent in Welsh within 6 months. She hadn't, despite lessons and why, because she asserted, "they just don't speak it to me'. But that just left me wondering, as I was hearing it spoken all around me in shops & on the street, if the key to language skills is more about people than any amount of grammar and linguistics.
Simultaneously we struggled with an assortment of our own native language accents, from Birmingham to Essex, uncertain what was said or even meant and finally concluded you have to get the gist of it, the general feel of content and watch that body language.
Well that's Frelsh sorted?
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