Gwersau Arlein • Online Lessons

Developed by the BBC and residing on their astonishing Learn Welsh website for learners of all abilities, the Catchphrase series is truly amazing. The first series revolves around a footballer, Nigel Walker, who evidently volunteered himself as a guinea pig to be taught how to speak Welsh through a year-long radio series by three very adept and gifted instructors.

Thanks to their talent and Walker's dedication, they succeeded to the point where Walker won the Learner of the Year prize at a recent Eisteddfod (check out Wales Today to learn more about that).

Don't be skeptical about these lessons. They are available for free download -- not streaming, but download as RealMedia files or MP3s -- along with RTF documents containing lesson vocabulary, guides, and full scripts. There are 144 of them, and that is not a typo. 144 fifteen-minute Welsh lessons available for free to anyone who cares to listen. I advise you to download them and burn them to an audio CD so that you can listen at home, in the car, or on a portable MP3 player instead of exclusively while you're seated at your computer. And these are not casual lessons on things like "how to hail a cab." They are grammatically based lessons that cover the structure of the language itself. I can't recommend them strongly enough.

[ Catchphrase Series One ]

For those who get the hang of the language and have worked through enough of the basics to feel a bit more confident, there is the next BBC language series, "Cam Ymlaen" or "A Step Further." Another lucky guinea pig was used, this time a woman named Beverly Lennon.

These lessons go a bit further into the language, and assume that you are familiar with the basics of grammar and the pronunciation, and that you have some facility with vocabulary. They are a challenge, but they are not hard to follow and very encouraging.

There are 34 fifteen-minute lessons also available for free download, along with full lesson scripts, guides, and vocabulary lists.

[ Cam Ymlaen ]

This is the grandmother site for the Catchphrase and Cam Ymlaen radio series, as well as other Welsh learners' radio series such as the learners' omnibus "The Lloyds" and the radio soap opera "Ysbyty Brynaber."

There is also a very useful online dictionary at the homepage that can be used on the fly while reading Welsh news online to practice. Many of the entries have sound files so that you can hear how the words are pronounced. There are also lessons for kids as well as adult learners, and information about the history of Wales.

Over the past few months, I've gotten very used to seeing this site on my desktop, and if you decide to embark on a course of home study in Welsh, you will as well.

[ Learn Welsh ]

It's hard not to use up one's capacity for hyperbole when talking about the BBC's online resources for Welsh language learners, but this facility truly takes the cake for the most beautiful language aid ever made available.

Geirfa/Vocab consists of a small button on the left side of all Welsh languages pages on the BBC's various sites. When a reader clicks on "Troi Ymlaen/Turn On," all words on the page that are contained in the online dictionary at Learn Welsh are highlighted. When the reader mouses over any of those words, a short definition appears along with a link to the extended entry in the online dictionary. It's glorious.

[ Geirfa/Vocab ]

While reading news stories, listening to the radio, and practicing lessons is the core of any course of language study, eventually you need to talk to other learners to hear about the problems they may be having, ask them about any sticking points you've run into, and just chat about your studies and the resources you've found.

Dysgu Cymraeg is the best place for that. Created by several LiveJournal users, it's a great catch-all community for learners and anyone curious about the Welsh language.

[ Dysgu Cymraeg ]