Farewell Duolingo

I have cancelled my subscription to Duolingo. It has been a good run, and I think it has helped quite a bit in my efforts to learn Welsh. However, I reached the end of the Welsh course some time ago and the app isn’t teaching me much new any more. The course I’m doing through Carmarthenshire Council is now much more useful.

I was quite tempted by the music course, but it turned out to be something like a platform video game. If you don’t have the hand-eye coordination to get it right the course is a waste of time.

Here We Go A-Wassailing

Around this time of year I generally post a jolly seasonal ditty from the very wonderful HP Lovecraft Historical Society. However, in recent years I’ve been running out of good ones and didn’t want to repeat myself. So here, instead, is Steeleye Span with a traditional wassail from around here.

The lyrics are great.

It’s me, yn Gymraeg!

As part of my process of getting to know the local cultural landscape, I have made friends with a lovely bunch of people called Inclusive Journalism Cymru. They are a group of media professionals who understand that marginalised people are very badly served by the UK’s media landscape, and are seeking to improve things in Wales.

I have written them a little blog post about why trans people, in particular, need this sort of help. Excitingly, they have published it in English and in Welsh. I am not yet good enough at Welsh to have done the tranlsation myself, but I’m very pleased to have it. As far as I’m aware, this is the first piece of writing with my byline on it that has been translated into Welsh. Here’s hoping for a lot more.