American home to get back to roots.

AN American has visited a North Wales college to thank staff for their on-lineWelsh course helping him get back to his roots.

Dean Humphreys,an American of Welsh descent from Pennsylvania,has been learning Welsh on line in America for the past eight months.

And during his brief visit to Bangor and Caernarfon he told Coleg Menai staff: ``It is a task that I am determined to master.

``At the moment. I am building my vocabulary. The website is very user friendly,especially with the audio section that helps you to pronounce the word and put the emphasis in the correct place.''

He began planning a visit to Wales with his father last year to track down family history.

Dean's great-grandparents emigrated to America in the early 1900s. In Bangor, Pennsylvania, the reare many institutions with Welsh connections.

Slaters, the town's local school, is named after the group of people from Bangor who emigrated to slate mines in America.

Dean and his father were keen to visit their Welsh relatives and see where their ancestors were raised. Dean felt it an important issue to learn some Welsh.

The site is primarily an introduction to spoken Welsh. The course followed by Dean, which assumes no previous knowledge of Welsh,consists of 12 units, each unit introducing students to elementary language phrases.