An English lawyer who learned to speak Welsh during a break from his legal career has found work as a translator for a leading driver retraining company which provides courses throughout Wales.
Linguist Richard Elliott (34) has been snapped up by the TTC Group to handle calls from Welsh speakers booking speed awareness courses at their head office in Telford, Shropshire.
Richard started to learn the language as “a challenge” and took less than three years to become fluent.
With a Welsh grandmother and mother from Conwy in north Wales, Richard said he always had a “yearning” to learn the language after spending holidays in the region as a boy.
“I found it very difficult at first. The pronunciation was very challenging,” said Richard, a languages graduate from Oxford University, who lives in Shrewsbury.
A career break from a Shrewsbury solicitor’s office allowed him time to study and he attended a number of Welsh language courses along with a month long Welsh for Adults course at Aberystwyth University. He also attended a week’s course on the Welsh coast organised by the website “Say Something In Welsh” which involved speaking Welsh throughout.
“My mother grew up in Wales and speaks a little bit of Welsh which sparked my curiosity as I have always been interested in languages. I used to see signs in Welsh as a boy and wonder what they meant so as a teenager I bought a phrase book and it just grew from there,” said Richard.
He urged others not be “put off” learning the language.
“At first sight Welsh looks difficult to pronounce but you find there is a consistency between spelling and pronunciation, unlike in English.”
Richard added: “It has been quite remarkable how everything has turned out. I never dreamt I would get a job speaking Welsh and working in Telford in Shropshire. That is the last place I thought I would be speaking the language.
“But I didn’t want to leave Shrewsbury. I wanted a complete career change from the law and I now feel that with Welsh I have found my niche. At last I have found what I want to do and it is working with Welsh.”
The TTC Group, which run speed awareness courses across mid and south Wales has been praised for providing Welsh speaking trainers for attenders who prefer the course in their first language.
TTC Group General Manager Des Morrison said: “We are really pleased to have found Richard to allow us to offer a valuable extra service to our course attenders from Wales, some who wish to book a course in their first language.”
The courses, backed by the Wales Road Casualty Reduction Partnership, started in the Dyfed Powys, Gwent and South Wales police force areas last year and have been praised by motorists who learn to stick to speed limits.
TTC 2000, part of the award winning TTC Group, are driver training specialists educating hundreds of thousands of UK motorists each year.
