04 May 2012

  Roll out the red carpet, cariad@iaith:love4language is back! The 2011 hit reality series which saw eight stars brought together with one purpose - to learn as much Welsh as possible in one week – returns at the end of May.

But, to find out who this year’s celebrities are, tune in to Hwb – S4C’s weekly learners’ programme - on Sunday 13 May at 5.00pm (S4C, English subtitles).

Hwb presenters Nia Parry and Matt Johnson will introduce the stars and give us the first chance to get to know a little more about them.

“It’s going to be an eventful week. They’re a lively bunch and I think we’re going to have a job keeping them under control!” says Nia Parry, “They’re so enthusiastic and also completely sincere in their motivations and they obviously want to learn Welsh. That’s a good start.”

cariad@iaith:love4language, produced by Fflic, kicks off on 23 and 24 May, with two preview programmes to whet our appetite as we look forward to the main event which starts on Saturday 26 May.

Then from 26 to 31 May, join Nia Parry and Gareth Roberts each night as they present live from fforest camp near Cilgerran.

Each day the stars will attend an intense Welsh lesson with Nia Parry and fellow tutor Ioan Talfryn. They will then put the pupils’ new skills to the test in a series of linguistic challenges.

Each night’s show will catch up on the day’s events and all the gossip. Who is the teacher’s pet? And is the stress of language mutations getting too much for some of our stars?

There will also be special interviews and extra live challenges to put the stars through their paces live in front of the nation.

And just because they’re famous, there’s no intention of going easy on them!

“Their Welsh skills are at different levels. Some know quite a lot whilst others hardly know anything at all. That’s going to be a challenge. But from the short time they’ve spent together they seem to get along very well, but we’ll see how things are after the first lesson!”

One of the 2011 cariad@iaith graduates, Matt Johnson, will also be there to film exclusive behind the scene footage for a special edition of Hwb.

He has a few words of wisdom for this year’s gang including: “Be ready to sing at any time - day, or night” and “always listen” - or they might find themselves agreeing to something they might regret!

Be part of it all by following @s4cariad on Twitter and ‘like’ the Facebook page. Also, the website s4c.co.uk/love4lang.

Ends