Youâre trying to learn the language - not to be able to âdo a lesson flawlesslyâ.
The lessons are practice sessions - theyâre not meant to be mastered, just worked through.
Youâre not meant to be remembering everything - by a LONG shot!
I would recommend pushing on through to 5 or 10 and then seeing how you feel about Lesson 1 - if itâs just as tough as the first time you did it, you might be in my original â2â - if you notice that itâs easier by then, youâre in â1ââŚ
Thank you everyone for your answers! Iâll certainly be using this advice. Iâm a perfectionist so itâs very frustrating for me. I will just listen though, and see what happens when I get to lesson 5. Thanks all!
No help from me, just Croeso, Welcome and you will find all sorts of help here, some linguistic, some on using the Forum! To quote as I just did, you just highlight and click on the result. Unless you are using the app, in which case you need to ask someone else, as I am hopeless with that!
To be sure of getting someoneâs attention you put @ before their Forum name and as you start to type, youâll get offered a list of possibles and need to click on the one you want, like @henddraig or @f1sh3rman99 which I got as soon as I typed 1 after f!!!
âReally useful how to stuffâŚâ is a useful topic, click here to see and use left arrow above to get back!
And yes you did start a new topic. Use the big Q above to search for topics but start new if nothing seems to fit!
Also, where are you? It would help you a lot to get chats in Welsh.
Perfectionism does make it tougher - unless you can manage to switch the focus of your perfectionism from âgetting every phrase correctâ to âdoing the course in exactly the right wayââŚ
Helo Mr Perfectionist @f1sh3rman99 Welcome to the forum. Hereâs ex Mrs Perfectionist actually one of them who just decided with a huge help of @aran and the rest of the members of this forum, to throw that perfectionism away and live more freely from then on!
OK, this was a bit of a joke but now siriously.
From my own experiences, perfectionism will do you only harm as you wonât be able to fully enjoy the lessons and this for you wonât be able to learn as much as you woul if youâd take the whole matter at least a bit lightly.
Iâm not sure how much this could help you but some of other members say my own journey described in Tatjana - Progress reports helped them to overcome some of their own troubles and difficulties. The story goes from very heavy stubborn perfectionist being determined that the system does not actually work for her to the (kind of) Welsh speaker /(with lots of errors even nowdays) who nowdays is not afraid to speak with anyone and most of all is not afraid of doing any, even the worst grammar or other mistake while speaking.
Apart from that: do what others say, what means donât endlessly repeat the challenges, donât be afraid to make mistakes and donât be afraid to speak loudly if even with yourself or the nature around you for the beginning. You started the journey which would be hard from time to time aswell, but the things will pay off at the end.
Well done on starting your way of becoming a Welsh speaker and welcome to the forum and this brilliant community once again.
Hi and welcome, Fisherman.
Just double check that you are on Level 1, Challenge 2. If so thatâs great. You donât want to inadvertently go to the slightly older âcourses/lessonsâ. I guess that youâve picked the N or S Wales variation to suit your preference.
Back to your Q1 -
Yes, âTopicâ means a thread or folder of original post and replies. So you did well. Alternatively you can browse through the other topics and dive in if you want.
Incidentally, I find the âTiny questions with quick answers - continuing threadâ quite handy for, well, miscellaneous âTiny questions with quick answersâ
Hi, Iâm also new to the boards, and my question is about the perfectionism issue. Iâm not sure I see how to mesh âplowing ahead, making mistakesâ with Aranâs statement at the end of Lesson 1 that Iâm ready to go on when I can get 80% of the sentences before Catrin says them. It takes me 4-5 times through a lesson before I can spit the words out fast enough to beat Catrin most of the time. After 8 days, Iâm ready to start Lesson 3. Am I being too perfectionist?
Thanks, Sheila
P.S. Is it okay to tag a related question onto an existing question, or is it better to start a new topic?
I think @aran would say thatâs old advice now. Certainly you donât need to get 80% ârightâ before moving on. Newer advice mught be to do 1,2,3,4,5 and then, but only then, go back to 1, and be surprised at how much has stuck.
Hi Sheila, welcome to the forum
Could I ask first, are you doing the old course or the new levels?
Since Aran made the recordings with the â80%â statement, the course has developed somewhat and @Aran himself has said that â80%â is no longer the âruleâ. Iâve tagged him here because he can explain better than I can, but basically donât worry about reaching the âperfect 80% of the timeâ - itâs not necessary. The amount of repetitions people do vary - some do go over the lessons more than others, and thatâs fine, but the main thing is not to dwell too long on them. The new material is designed with spaced repetition, so you will find that even things you struggle with come back later. Also, you donât have to get the sentence out perfectly before Catrin comes back in - as long as you say something, even if itâs a different ending to the sentence, thatâs progress.
A lot of people have said theyâve had the same feelings about this, but the advice is always to plough on. It seems counter-intuitive because itâs not the way any of us are used to being taught but plough on - the system really does work!
Helo Sheila, Croeso, Welcome to the Forum! I just had a thought. We are taught in school about right answers getting ticks and wrong ones getting nasty red crosses, or at least we were in the mists of the past when I was in school, but when we learn our first language we are very keen to get whatever we are wanting, at least I was! We (I) donât wait to get things perfect! We yell âme! me!â and learn âIâ later. We get praised for saying anything at all that makes sense at first! So maybe the intuitive thing to do is press on and just say something after all!
Yeah, sorry, we need to re-record all the intros and outros that say stuff like that. It seemed like the right advice at the time, but weâve learnt a LOT more about the different ways brains work since then!..
I originally started doing the old lessons on the phone app three years ago and never made it beyond lesson 3âbecause I was trying to get it perfect. A week or so ago, I found the website and started with the Level 1 Challenge 1, which is what I now refer to as Lesson 1. Because I had listened to the introduction with the old lessons, I skipped the introduction until just before I posted my comment, but the 80% comment was at the end of the new lesson 1 and possibly 2 as well.
Well, I can see that Iâve been working at this harder than I needed to, particularly since itâs trying to imitate how Catrin pronounces each word that has been taking longer than anything. Iâll try going through these next few lessons faster. Since I donât have anyone to speak Cymraeg with, I go around all day making up sentences from beth dw iân gwybod a trio dweud o yn y Gymraeg. Okay, thatâs my attempt to try to put things together even if that isnât the way you say, âwhat I know and trying to say it in Welsh.â
That is the way you say it! Working hard is working!
Not having anyone on hand to speak to is always going to make it a bit harder, but even talking to yourself/your pet/inanimate objects is definitely worth it. There are lots of forum members who use Skype or Google Hangout to chat with others who have no near-by Welsh speakers, so that may be an option for you at some point.
Henndraig, I live in the United States in Fruita, Colorado, which is on I-70 just before it crosses into Utah. I finally found the map, and it looks like there is a champagne glass in a town about 75 miles away.
@Sionned looks after the Map, if you want to go on. If you click on that glass you should find a name and can find out if the person is still on the Forum. Suppose the name was john.jones. Start typing @john.j well, all options vanished when i typed the full stop, so no such person. @sheila. gave me you and only you when I typed your full stop! The Please add me to the SSiW Map thread will be the place to give details to get yoirself on that!
Hello, Sheila! Iâve taken the liberty of adding you to the map (since you gave the information I needed here). If you would like the markerâs location adjusted any, just let me know.
Hi Sheila, Iâm just starting as well. Level 1 Challenge 8 for me this week. I live in Huntsville, Alabama. Iâm one of those people that need higher repetitions for listening than for what I see. Iâm settling for getting 3 out of 4 before going on to the next challenge unless the ones I donât get are all on the same structure. I figure that my brain may need more time to integrate certain things. Iâm finding this is true as on the following lessons I am surprised that I remember it.
Since I need more repetition for verbal material, I wait until I can pronounce a word correctly before seeing it in written form. Thatâs really helping me with reading some Welsh correctly.
but plough on - the system really does work! 
