MIXED Martial Arts fighter Brett Johns has spoken of regaining his confidence to use Welsh.

The fighter, from Pontarddulais, near Swansea, was interviewed for S4C programme Pa Fath o Bobl – Un Mewn Miliwn (What Kind of People – One in a Million) in which presenter Garmon ab Ion questioned the Welsh Government's approach to boosting the number of Welsh speakers to one million by 2050.

Garmon told viewers he doesn’t think the Welsh Government is doing enough to attract new speakers, and that they need to think outside of the box.

His the three ‘Cs’ approach – and belief that if Cwffio (fighting), Caru (loving) and Canu (singing) can all be achieved in Welsh the language will flourish – led him to interviewing Johns.

Though very proud of his Welsh heritage, the fighter said his relationship with the language had been mixed.

“My mother spoke English but she sent my brother and I to a Welsh school. We were the only Welsh speakers in the family,” said Brett.

“When I was out with our Welsh speaking friends, I still didn’t speak much of it. Looking back now, of course I wish I could speak more of the language, but when I was young I didn’t.”

According to Brett, the key to using the language day to day is having enough confidence to do so.

“In the south, and especially Swansea, people don’t have much confidence to speak Welsh, and I think everyone is the same at school – it’s not very cool to speak it.

"I hadn’t spoken a word of Welsh for two years, and then I couldn’t remember a word of it. It scared me. So now, when I have any chance to speak the language, I just go for it, and have the confidence to use it.”

Garmon said he thought the MMA fighter is the sort of person needed to encourage more people to use Welsh, and not worry about doing so perfectly.

“It’s clear that this guy is fighting for the Welsh language, and fighting to place the language on an international stage. If someone like Brett encouraged me to speak Welsh, I’d be a lot more willing because he’s just a normal person – he’s not a spokesperson on behalf of a Government’s dossier.

“I think it’s a golden opportunity for the government to contact someone like Brett to promote the language.

"The word that’s repeated a lot is ‘confidence’. We are very often our own worst enemy in Wales, and it sounds very cliché but the language police who go about correcting people and not in a positive way need to be more constructive and encouraging, rather than just marking their tweets as a teacher would mark a child’s work.”

The programme also featured Cardiff glamour model Lowri Rose, who has over 525,000 TikTok followers and is popular on the Onlyfans platform.

She received Welsh-medium education in Cardiff, but has lost confidence in speaking the language and represented the presenter's Caru plan while Swansea band Bandicoot did the same for Canu.

The group have started experimenting by writing songs in Welsh and after attending university in England, the band members had a cultural epiphany and missed Wales and the language.

Pa Fath o Bobl – Un Mewn Miliwn can be seen again on S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer.

This article originally appeared on our sister site The National.