In America and Argentina, New Zealand and China, Germany and Finland, Welsh learners are celebrating the award given by the Institute of Welsh Affairs to the world’s largest Welsh class, internet-based SaySomethinginWelsh.com, for promoting Wales to the rest of the world. Over 15,000 people have accessed the free mp3 lessons on the website, and a forum has developed around the lessons which has lead to a remarkable new level of interaction between Welsh learners around the world.

Forum members organise physical meetups to practice Welsh, hold Skype sessions to use their Welsh with people in different countries, write the content for weekly emails to other learners, run their own online Eisteddfodau, develop global maps of where there are Welsh learners, and contribute huge amounts of energy and enthusiasm to the dream they all share: making it easy and fun for anyone, anywhere, to become a Welsh speaker.

And as the learners themselves say, this is just the beginning. Forum volunteers are translating SaySomethinginWelsh into different languages – the first 5 lessons are already available through the medium of Spanish and are being shared in Patagonia – and other languages, from Polish to Chinese, Somalian to Bengali, will be added to the mix in the next few years.

‘We honestly can’t believe what’s happening,’ says course co-founder Aran Jones. ‘We’re enormously grateful to the Institute of Welsh Affairs for giving the course this important and prestigious award, and we’re continually amazed by the new ways in which we’re seeing learners try to promote the language. It seems increasingly likely that the global community of Welsh learners is going to have a genuine and lasting impact on the future of the language itself, both inside and outside of Wales.’

http://www.clickonwales.org/2011/06/life-stories-that-inspire-wales/