Is welsh hard to learn?

**Is Learning the Welsh Language Difficult?**

Learning Welsh can be challenging, especially if your only language is English. Some of the sounds in Welsh don't exist in English, which can make pronunciation tricky. However, many languages share similar sounds with Welsh, so speakers of those languages might find Welsh less difficult than an English monoglot would.

Take, for instance, the Welsh "CH"—it has a harsh, throaty quality, unlike the softer "ch" sound in English. Languages like Lithuanian use similar guttural sounds, which makes it easier for their speakers to read Welsh phonetically. I discovered this recently when I asked a Lithuanian man to read some Welsh aloud. He managed it remarkably well, while a monolingual English speaker might have struggled without prior exposure.

The takeaway? The more languages you know, the easier it is to learn new ones. But motivation can be hard to find if you already speak English—it's so dominant globally that many don’t feel the need to learn another. Ironically, here I am, a first-language Welsh speaker, writing in English. I wasn’t as lucky as children in Wales today who are now educated through the medium of Welsh. I was taught in English, even though my peers and teachers were also Welsh-speaking. It was a strange and contradictory situation

That contradiction was, in many ways, a remnant of colonisation. Decisions made long ago still echo in our classrooms today. For instance, a copy of the first Welsh-language Bible is held in England—a symbol, perhaps, of how things were taken or misplaced. One day, maybe, we’ll make sense of it all.

If English monoglots can look past the dominance of their language and embrace learning another, they’ll be richly rewarded. New languages bring new cultures, perspectives, and creative avenues. In my own life, I’ve found that music and cooking—two forms of creative expression—complement each other beautifully. Language learning, too, is an art.

Sadly, there’s still a lot of bigotry directed at the Welsh language and culture. But that prejudice only impoverishes those who spread it. Social media has brought some of this intolerance to light—perhaps people feel emboldened to say things they'd never say in person. Of course, the negativity isn’t one-sided; unkindness can flow in both directions. It’s a human trait, albeit not our most admirable one.

On a blank sheet I would say English could be harder to learn than Welsh as there are a lot slient letters in English a strange characteristic but thats how it goes