Madam,

Liz Saville-Roberts MP rightly champions the Welsh language.

She points out that, to many, it is the language of the home, work and their community. It is their mother tongue. Liz rightly describes it as a ‘tool of communication’.

Yes indeed. However, I suspect that things are not as simple as that.

I attended a hustings during last year’s General Election campaign, where I, as a non-fluent Welsh learner, was using the earphones to hear the English translation of the Welsh spoken from the platform.

During a contribution by Mrs Saville Roberts, rightly in Welsh as she was responding to a question in Welsh, the excellent simultaneous translation petered out.

It was at the end of the hustings and in the general hubbub I heard the translator say: “Well, sorry about that. I don’t know what that was about. I couldn’t understand what she said. It wasn’t in any Welsh I know”.

I wonder whether Welsh learnt as a second language at the prestigious and expensive aberystwyth University isn’t quite suited to the bilingual communities here in Gogledd Cymru.

Yours etc,

Deborah Dakin, St John’s Hill, Barmouth.

Have your say on the local issues affecting you - email [email protected] or join in the conversation on our Facebook page