Born in a rural area of south east Austria, Sasha Wanasky didn't know anything about the Welsh language until they came across the Welsh pop group Gorky's Zygotic Mynci on the music streaming app 'Spotify'.
Sasha, then 17 years old, were fascinated by the music and words, and decided to learn more. They 'googled' where Gorky's came from, and what language they spoke, and decided to visit this wonderful country that had made such an impression.
They got a voluntary job with a family looking after 10 cats and 10 dogs in Garndolbenmaen when they were 18 years old and spent two months in Wales.
Then, after returning to Austria, they started learning Welsh through Duolingo. They went to Lancaster for a year as part of their English degree, and met people from Bangor, and made friends. They moved to Bangor in 2021 to do a postgraduate in Language Technologies with Bangor University.
Although Duolingo helped them learn vocabulary, SaySomethingInWelsh and online Welsh lessons with Learn Welsh North East helped Sasha to speak Welsh and understand the language patterns.
They built confidence to start speaking Welsh in public while working in a cafe in Bangor. They started by saying a few sentences in Welsh and found it easy as they had a ‘script’ they would use with customers. This was a great help for them to start speaking Welsh in public, and one of the reasons why Sasha learned Welsh so quickly.
They feel that having a reason to learn made a huge difference - they wanted to be part of the community and wanted to be able to understand Welsh music lyrics.
They have now settled as part of the queer community of north west Wales, after starting by joining the 'Llyfrau Lliwgar' reading club in Bangor. They also help organise events with the LGBTQ+ association in Bangor.
Sasha now works for a translation company, Cymen, in Caernarfon on the ‘Arfor’ Project collecting speech data. The aim is to record voices, speaking natural Welsh, to improve AI systems in Welsh.
They still enjoy Welsh music and their favourite band at the moment is Kim Hon. Listening and reading song lyrics is still important, something that was such a help to them when learning Welsh.
