Soon after King Charles’s 2023 coronation, there were stories about Charles wanting to schedule an investiture for Prince William as “the Prince of Wales.” Charles had his PoW investiture when he was 21 years old, and it was held at Caernarfon Castle, after Charles had gone to Wales for months to learn Welsh. William inherited the PoW title as a 40-year-old man, and he acted as if it never even occurred to him that he would eventually be PoW. William spent two years telling everyone that he had no plans to learn Welsh or have an investiture or buy or rent a Welsh home. We were also told that Will and Kate didn’t want to “rush things” when it came to doing anything around their Wales titles. Then, last year, William finally said that he was using Duolingo to learn Welsh. Well, on St. David’s Day, William showed off his progress:
Happy St David’s Day from The Prince of Wales
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus gan Dywysog Cymru
pic.twitter.com/0PryZlImBl — The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) March 1, 2025
This reminds me of the controversy with The Brutalist, where the Brutalist team used AI to improve the Hungarian spoken within the film, and they apparently used it in some places for Adrien Brody’s Hungarian accent. All I’ll say is that I wouldn’t put it past Kensington Palace to use AI on some of their official videos and photos, because I genuinely believe they’ve done it before. Here’s the Times of London piece about Peggy’s Duolingo use:
When Prince William accepted the title Prince of Wales as heir to the throne in 2022, he admitted he needed to “branch out a bit” with his limited Welsh.
True to his word, William, 42, has been learning the language with the help of the Duolingo language app, and delivered his first message in Welsh to mark St David’s Day on Saturday. Wearing a daffodil buttonhole and sounding confident in his delivery, William’s video message was broadcast on Kensington Palace’s social media platforms and featured Welsh landscapes and communities.
William is often heard greeting members of the Welsh community with the words “Bore da” (Good morning), but this is the first time he has spoken more than a few phrases of the language.
A royal source said William “felt it was important” to improve his Welsh. While he has not been taking formal lessons as his father did in his youth, he and the Princess of Wales, 43, are said to have been learning some conversational Welsh, as well as helping their children, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six, learn some too.
In the message, William said: “Helo. Heddiw, ar Ddydd Gŵyl Dewi, rydym yn dod at ein gilydd i ddathlu Cymru — ei hanes, ei diwylliant a’i phobl anhygoel (Hello. Today, on St David’s Day, we come together to celebrate Wales — its history, its culture and its incredible people).
“O’i golygfeydd anhygoel i’w hiaith, mae Cymru yn parhau i ysbrydoli. Heddiw, rydym yn dathlu popeth sy’n hudol am Gymru (From its incredible landscapes to its language, Wales continues to inspire. Today, we celebrate everything that is magical about Wales).
“I holl bobl Cymru ac i bawb ledled y byd, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus (To all the people of Wales and to everybody around the world, Happy St David’s Day).”
A friend of the King said Charles “will be deeply touched that his son is making this effort with the role of Prince of Wales, that was so important to His Majesty for so many years”. Charles spent nine weeks at Aberystwyth University learning Welsh language and history before his investiture as Prince of Wales in a televised pageant at Caernarfon Castle in 1969. William chose not to have a ceremony when his father passed the title to him in September 2022, after acceding to the throne following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Royal sources said William and Kate were instead keen to focus on “deepening the trust and respect of the people of Wales over time”.
Charles “will be deeply touched that his son is making this effort with the role of Prince of Wales.” So infantilizing – William is a 42-year-old man who, for decades, was too lazy to do a modicum of work to learn a language which would be vitally important for his inherited job. Yeah, I have every reason to doubt that this video is the result of diligent Duolingo usage. (Incidentally, one year ago, the Waleses released that janky Mother’s Day photo and the scandal over it unfolded throughout Oscar night. Will this Willy-speaking-Welsh video have the same effect?).
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Kensington Palace.
