Well, I don’t listen to Radio Cymru much but when I do, I listen to it as I’d listen to another radio. I usually don’t translate anything at all but I’m very easily “disturbed” with English words when I hear them in the middle of Cymraeg speach. To be honest, this helps quite to understand the gist of the discussion or whatever but still … I back @aran’s theory here because I find myself very often, thinking later about what I’ve listened to on Radio Cymru, that I just understand quite a lot and at least I know what they’ve spoken about so, I believe just listening - if even conscious - without too much effort of translation is just good enough. For us who aren’t native English speakers translation means additional work though as we (unconsciously) translate Cymraeg into English and then process everything what we’ve translated into native language (at least this goes for me for some (unknown) reason) 
To follow up what Mike said,
one thing I’ve found useful in listening to Radio Cymru is just to try and immediately repeat everything out loud, i.e. like an echo, whether I understand it or not. I can only manage one or two words or occasionally short phrases before stumbling and losing track but for me it does help word recognition, and certainly helps concentration. Any accuracy of pronunciation at the time does really suffer in the struggle, but it certainly helps to boost speed of pronunciation and I feel I can focus on improving accuracy at other times.
You and me both, chief…
By the time you’ve got to the end of Level 2, if you’ve carried on doing passive listening with Radio Cymru, I would imagine that you’ll be starting to pick up some larger chunks, which will start to give you a stronger sense of what the conversation is about - which is a fairly exciting step in the process… 
Looking forward to that moment!
Similar to radio, but I started moving onto watching things on S4C, and have tried with some Welsh Subtitles.
What are people opinions on watching Welsh programming with Welsh subtitles? Do you think it helps learners, or would you say it is worse in the long run?
The best exposure of all is without subtitles (but it hurts more!) - having said that, comprehensible input is a huge help, so listening either with and then without (or the other way round, I guess) is definitely valuable. But don’t fall into the trap of always listening with subtitles - because that will be a much slower process for you…
Subtitles are very helpful, I think, but it’s better to “work” with them, because otherwise one might start just lazily watching everything with them, and the listening skills will be developing very slowly. I normally use a combination of techniques: watching without the subtitles then with them; watching half of the program with them and the rest - without; watching the program with subtitles in the morning and later in the day or the next day without the subtitles and see how much you can understand. When working with video, it’s also very fun to watch something (for example, 5 minutes of a TV-series you know well) without the sound first, trying to guess what the characters might be saying (in Welsh, of course), maybe pronouncing it for them too, and then watch it again with the sound on - generally, the plot is so cliched that the dialogues we make up are very similar to the ones that are actually in the series.
Subtitles-perhaps its a question of what seems right for you at the time. When your vocab is relatively small, you dont really know what to listen out for so subtitles definitely help then. As your vocab grows you can do without them more and more.
As far as radio goes,I think there is place for more than one type of listening,depending on your circumstances and where you are on your learning journey.
Part of it is having the confidence to listen and not worry if you dont seem to understand a single thing. Gradually over time more and more will make sense and it should eventually become a self-reinforcing virtuous circle.
But it takes time and patience.
Dal ati! 
I’m sure it’s a personal thing, but I found watching with Welsh subtitles really frustrating. I couldn’t read the Welsh fast enough to be able to also listen to what they were saying, and when the subtitles didn’t match exactly either it would really throw me. I switched to using English subtitles so that I could glance at the text, get a quick understanding of what they were about to say, then listen to the Welsh and I had a lot of “ah, that’s how you say xxxx in Welsh!” so I found I learnt quite a lot. But I just used the subtitles as trainer wheels and watched more and more without them, putting them on occasionally if I’d had 2 or 3 attempts at understanding something that seemed vital to the plot but just couldn’t get it. Then I would switch them back off and carry on without them.
Cheers for the replies 
Think will try the watching with subtitles and then without method. At the moment I know a very low percentage of actual vocab (though a lot of the structures.)
Nearly finished course 3, and have just been wondering what will be my next focus in terms of language learning method haha
I think my vocabulary is small enough that all it really does is add a bit more to my understanding, still don’t understand the majority
If you haven’t already tried reading, now may be the time to start. It can be a great way to increase vocabulary.
Podcasts, if not mentioned already, are extraordinarily useful as listening exercises. It’s like listening to the radio with the bonus of being able to rewind if necessary.
The only problem with Welsh podcasts in the States is that they sometimes disappear based on the BBC’s decisions around availability.
Which podcasts do you listen to? I’ve been looking for Welsh podcasts for quite a while, but Pigion is too complicated for me and I haven’t found anything else.
Oh, and the Growth Club conversations are simply wonderful as a listening exercise. Just in case somebody missed the whole thing.
I alternate between Beti a’i Phobol and Caryl Parry Jones. They both are about 30-40 minutes on length and focus on one topic per episode…which helps with comprehension.
Recommend anything to start reading?
“Bywyd Blodwen Jones” in the “Nofelau Nawr” series. There are actually 3 books featuring Blodwen Jones. By Bethan Gwenas. They are fun and not too difficult.
BBC Cymru Fyw articles. And they have the Vocab button which will translate the words for you, so you don’t have to leave the page.
Thanks. I was not aware of the vocab help.
My first book was “e-ffrindiau” by Lois Arnold, and I am enjoying the magazine Lingo Newydd - you can read what I wrote about them in another post here
That looks incredibly useful actually, may give that a go