Young Wrexham Lives

Young Wrexham has teamed up with students from Coleg Cambria in Wrexham to give an insight into the lives of young people in Wrexham.  Over the next few weeks we will be showcasing their articles that include ‘The life of a football reviewer, ‘Thoughts on Brexit’ for young people, ‘A trip to the moon’, ‘How to build a computer, ‘My favourite album’, ‘My favourite gig’, ‘Things I would change in Wrexham’, ‘Things I love about Wrexham.

In the project you can talk about most things (nothing rude, lude or crude) and it can be carried out by writing/video or animation.  If you would like to take part in the ‘Young Wrexham Lives’ project then please contact us.

‘No idea if this is helpful at all but there’s a little story of my Welsh education’

Lewis Armstrong

I started to learn the Welsh language since primary school I continued my welsh education by going to a Welsh high school. Unfortunately my primary school was a small one and not a very advance one compared to other welsh primary schools so my strengths in the welsh language revolved around reading and writing my speaking on the other hand was not so great. Due to only a few of my friends going to the same school as me I had the benefit of speaking in a language they did not understand this was valuable as I could communicate with my Welsh friends while my other friends who did not understand Welsh would have no idea what we were saying.

This is beneficial in several ways especially when playing games with people who don’t speak welsh as we can give call outs in Welsh and the opposing team would have no idea how to counter attack. Although slowly my Welsh skills increased learning the different techniques which are required when writing many rules apply to the welsh language depending on how something is written, sometimes the first letter is changed to something else in Welsh we call this “treiglo”. Although there were a few rules to remember and some spellings of words were sometimes hard to remember, in the end good progress was made and I had decent Welsh skills.

Skills such as the ones mentioned were only developed in high school as my primary school was not so great and during high school I was always a step behind everyone with my Welsh skills until later on and after a year I feel like my Welsh skills were greater than ever. My Welsh vocabulary is a little shorter than I’d like it to be but hopefully I can increase it as I do not want to lose the Welsh language as it’s our country’s language and its something I’ve had with me since a kid. Although I feel like my Welsh skills improved I struggle from personal problems nothing bad it’s just hard for me to write stuff grammatically correct such as spelling and structure of a sentence through this story you might be able to see some mistakes as I have written in English and due to my education being welsh I do feel like my English took a hit as throughout primary there were no English classes I remember of and my only true English classes started in high school which is year 7 which means I’m at the age of 12 at this stage which is not very good I feel like it is partially just the fact I went to a poor school my English skills are not that great however it did affect my Welsh learning capabilities as well only a little though.

I’ve recently started college and going from Welsh education to English is weird, I do miss Welsh education as it was fun and interesting as we learned more words and improved our skills through Welsh education I wish our education system was better while I was in school so my Welsh skills would be better on the speaking side(my speaking is mainly a problem due to a personal issue of generally finding it hard to talk and pronounce words English or Welsh) but the educational system problems are a story for another time. Throughout my life I’ve been told countless times how beneficial it is to know more than one language I understand the points and agree strongly the only negative thing about the welsh language is that its dying out and hardly anyone knows it these days which is sad in a way this makes me more special knowing the welsh language as not many people know it but it’s also bad because the language gets a lot of hate and everyone avoids to learn it if they have the option. Honestly I recommend anyone if you have the chance learn it learn the Welsh language as we need more welsh speakers it’s one of the easiest language to learn in my opinion and one of the best through school the amount of welsh songs I’ve learnt and heard are amazing especially the ones from choir. The Welsh language is so beneficial these days as it opens doors to potential jobs and gives you a advantage over other people in interviews and the history of wales and the language is amazing I always love to hear people speak in welsh and I believe everyone should attempt to learn about it and learn the Welsh language.