How a British Canadian who's raising her child in Italian is helping to boost the Welsh language

Heather Broster's son, Elis, isn't quite five years old, yet already he speaks four languages - Italian, French, Welsh and English. 

Although Heather is British Canadian and Elis was born in Wales, his mother tongue is Italian. That's because Heather, who's fluent in the language, was determined her son would be bilingual - something she wishes had been her experience. Because her husband, Mathieu Gasquet, is half-French, half-Italian, it made sense for her to raise Elis in Italian, with Mathieu focusing on French. Since starting school in Tywyn last September, Elis has picked up Welsh quickly and easily. In fact, says Heather, the language in which he's least confident is English!

"Long before I became a parent, I was passionate about raising a bilingual child," she explains. "As a young girl, I remember being fascinated by those in my class who were able to speak more than one language. It seemed to me like a mythical power to which only a select few had access. As an adult, I spent seven years in Italy, teaching English to children, and I knew I wanted the same kind of multilingual future for my children, if and when I had them. If we'd still been in Italy, I'd have brought Elis up in my native language, English, but in Wales we needed a change of plan. I can proudly say that I can count the number of times on one hand that I've addressed Elis in English. Although he tends to speak to his friends in English, he still struggles with it."

Elis isn't the only one in the family becoming immersed in Cymraeg; Heather is also increasingly competent in the language. What's more, she runs a website called We Learn Welsh, one of the most widely followed platforms in the Welsh-language learning community.

Relaunched only a few months ago, We Learn Welsh already boasts an audience of 45,000 - and rising fast - across social media platforms and email subscriptions. The website's main feature is Welsh Word of the Day, which is sent to subscribers' inboxes five days a week and includes help on pronunciation and everyday conversational use. Other articles include grammar tips and essential expression lists, as well as reels posted regularly on social media, many featuring businesses and groups local to the Tywyn area, such as Bryncrug-based nursery Gwenyn Bach, Cor Meibion Bro Dysynni, Morawel LL36 and Cadfans of Tywyn.

Although Gwynedd has the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in the country at 64 per cent of the population, Tywyn is one of the towns in the county where Welsh is spoken the least. "That makes it very challenging to practise one's Welsh on a daily basis," says Heather. "Recently the Welsh government announced plans to raise the number of speakers to one million by 2050. Whether they succeed depends on how effectively they manage to improve the social use of the language in all spheres, from government to education to day-to-day life."

That's why, as an avid linguist, she was determined to do her bit to promote the Welsh language, which despite government initiatives "is still very much under threat". Heather cites a recent trip to Porthmadog, during which she heard English spoken in half the shops she went into, compared to hearing only Welsh when she visited ten years ago.

"If it's not used in the home, it's not going to be passed on to future generations," she points out. "So, for example, schools struggle to find teachers who have the ability to use Welsh in the classroom. A lot of people coming out of the school system say they're not confident in Welsh. Another issue is that the most interesting media is available in English - and I'm not sure how you fight that."

Helping to encourage people to use Cymraeg in their daily lives is probably the driver behind We Speak Welsh. "As a dysgwraig (learner) myself, I want to help others interested in learning this beautiful and ancient language that, after a turbulent history, deserves to flourish."

Learning Welsh has played a big part in making Heather feel completely at home in mid-Wales - despite growing up in Canada and living in Japan and Italy before moving to Tywyn.

Her mother, Christine, was born in Cornwall, but emigrated to Toronto with her family when she was four. On a trip to Aberdyfi to visit her Welsh cousin, she met Peter Broster, who was from Wolverhampton but had a holiday home in the village. They married and settled in Canada, but returned to Wales most summers, and after retiring decided to move back permanently. They now live in Tywyn, while Heather's brother Nic lives in Machynlleth. 

Heather holidayed in Aberdfyi most summers

Heather, meanwhile, spent two years in Japan as a teenager, studying Japanese at university level. Then followed a degree in linguistics at the University of Western Ontario, before she headed to Turin in Italy to became an au pair. "I only planned to be there a year or two, but I met my husband and ended up staying for seven years, during which I became fairly fluent in Italian," she says. 

Both keen photographers, Heather and Mathieu started a blog that reviewed mirrorless cameras. "When it took off, we realised the potential of blogging, and that led us to set up a website called Daily Italian Words, which absolutely exploded."

The website quickly grew into a successful business and now has almost 50,000 subscribers and 340,000 followers on Facebook. When Heather and Mathieu decided to move to Wales, partly because Heather wanted to be close to her parents, they realised the same website format could work for Welsh, "especially as, being a minority language, it needed more support".

Heather started learning Welsh as soon as she arrived in Tywyn. "I took lessons online, ran a conversation class at the Magic Lantern Cinema and joined a Welsh walking group, Clwb Cerddel Llanegryn. And I launched We Learn Welsh."

Then the Covid pandemic hit, "and everything stopped. Soon afterwards I had my son, and for a couple of years I lost my identity."

When Elis started school, Heather decided to relaunch the website. "Originally it was more of a personal blog, where I wrote about my own experiences as a Welsh learner; this time I wanted to do it more seriously. Because I'd been able to make Daily Italian Words so successful, I decided to adopt the same format."

Despite having fewer subscribers than its Italian counterpart, We Learn Welsh - whose subscribers are a mixture of Welsh who didn't learn the language as children and English people interested in picking up a second language - is more popular in terms of engagement and interaction. "There's such a dearth of resources out there for Welsh, so followers are more active and engaged."

Locally, the reaction to the website has been "wholly positive", says Heather. "I've been stopped in the street and in the supermarket by native Welsh speakers who says that what I'm doing has made them feel seen."

She also receives daily emails. "Some people have even written to say that the blog has changed their lives. They really appreciate having an additional resource to use alongside the likes of Duolingo."

So what is it about language that so fascinates Heather?

"I just feel I can be another person when I speak a different language - that I'm not going to be judged in the way I feel I will be when I speak English," she explains. "Given it's my mother tongue, I feel the need to speak English perfectly, and that makes me insecure. I don't feel that way when I speak Italian or Welsh."

She also loves how mastering a new language requires you to think differently. "I was 18 when I went to Japan for the first time and it was my first real experience of another language. I was stunned by how different it was to English - the sentence structure is the complete reverse of English - so to master it I had to change the way I thought. In fact, all the languages I've come into contact with have influenced the way I speak English. It's the psychological aspect that really interests me."

Learning a country's language also helps you to absorb its culture, observes Heather. "That's a big part of it. A simple example is my experience with Clwb Cerddel Llanegryn. The members are more open with me in Welsh than they would be in English - and that makes me feel more connected to the area."

Heather lived in Japan and studied the language

Heather became fluent in Italian during seven years in Turin

Heather has raised son Elis in Italian

Not yet five, Elis can speak four languages