Thanks, @hendrik and @JohnYoung, I think Iāll press on and see what happens!
I couldāt remember #6 but I had a look at the vocabulary list, and I can tell it was a smooth one (also because I happened to know a few of those words already, which seems to give my brain a chance to cool down a bit before next set of sentences).
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13 and 14 were just not very well written - sorry about that 
Push on through them, and youāll be surprised how comparatively-easy 15 will feelā¦ 
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Steady on - those two are my favourite brain busters!
@gisella-albertini - there is so much fabulous stuff in this course - keep on going as far as you dare. Yes, your brain will melt again (and possibly again), but when it glues itself back together, it will have more Welsh in it, youāll see. 
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Yes, I agree that you might be slightly hard on yourself there, Aran. Personally, I quite like the sets of six (or whatever) approach, as it gives a sense of achievement and encouragement part way through the level.
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The joys of course development - aka how dare people be different?! 
Having said that, we will (I hope) start work next year on a new approach which will make it possible for people to personalise to some extentā¦
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Donāt worry Give it a try and continue. If you find it really too confusing, go back to an earlier lesson. When I feel frustrated because all of a sudden all the Welsh seems Greek to me I just go back to an earlier (sometimes much earlier) lesson to find my way back into Welsh. I sometimes just listen to the challenges and all of a sudden find myself responding automatically. Sometimes I find that some things seem to have settled in my brain and memory, whereas others just wonāt stick for some reason. (By the way, is there any such thing as an index of the various aspects / structures / topics being introduced in the individual lessons so that finding the remedy for a particular trouble spot might be easier?) Pob lwc!
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Yes, pressing on seems to be working alright for me.
Well, if thereās one quality of those two challenges, itās certainly thatā¦it increases the level of frustration and brain melting I was able to suffer through. 
And the next few challenges seemed so easy and light, Iāve even become much faster at finishing them.
I also think that having a forum to ask for help and comfort was (is) essential in moments like that! Thanks!
p.s. When I was about to start challenge 14 after the catastrophic 13, I pressed play without looking. Nothing happened. So I checked the iPod and there was a full screen message apparently blocking me. At first I read it as āyou didnāt make enough mistakes in the last challenge, try and get some more into this oneā.
I thought āwhat the h*** , even the app itself is making fun of me!ā
I had clicked on the sentence above the player, instead of play and now I know thatās what happen. I also noticed there was an āifā in the beginning and had a laugh.
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The way I use all these challenges (Iām on level 3 now) is to repeat each one at least once, just to bed it in. Some lessons need to be repeated 5 times. If Iām still stumbling over a particular point after 5 runs through, I will leave it as it will probably crop up again later. It probably isnāt all that pivotal anyway. What I also do is after the first 5 lessons, I will pause and ask myself if I am really ready to move on to number 6. If not, Iāll repeat 5 again. I will ask myself the same question at the end of lesson 10, and so it goes on. At the end of levels 1 and 2, I repeated lessons 20-25 another once or twice just to be sure Iād absorbed them. Only then will I feel ready to move on to the next level. This may not be the recommended method of using the challenges, but with my very methodical mind, to do otherwise would leave me feeling very unsatisfied and therefore lacking in confidence. I have to do it this way. In my defence (if such is needed) I feel that using the challenges in this way has been successful and that the repetitions really help embed the information in my mind.
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I certainly donāt think that all people learn a second (non-mother) language in the same way as each other. What works for you is probably correct.
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Iāve noticed in my Welsh class that people do need to manage the new information in an individual way. Ironically, given that Iām a bit of a nit-picker generally, I will happily shelve some tricky stuff for later when Iāve got more background info to try and make sense of it, whereas another student would be incapable of moving on until she understood everything thoroughly. Though to be fair, that did make her a much slower learner than me!
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Itās very interesting for me to read how each learner finds what works best for them and to notice itās often very different from one another.
For example, I saw that for me not using pause button doesnāt work. There was not enough time for me to grasp what was going on, and I just felt totally confused.
At first, I tried to keep the vocabulary list open and still avoiding pause button and it was even and much worse!
Second, I tried avoiding pause button but then repeating each challenge once after a a break or the next day (that would make about an hour total to complete each challenge).
It was a bit better, but during repetitions my minds tends to wander and itās hard for me to keep it as focused as the first time.
At last, I found the best for me is just using the pause button as much as I need/feel comfortable with and never repeating challenges.
I also realized that I started and quit and restarted Duolingo Welsh a few times I probably wrote/heard/translated the sentences in the greetings chapter about 150 times and all I remember is āBore daā (mostly for its similarity with the way I felt - bored!) and āNos da, draigā (mostly because it was quite funny to say good night to a dragon).
I think itās great that everybody here on SSiW can find their own pace!
p.s. and maybe our experiments and comparisons can be useful to @aran as wellā¦
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As someone whoās just finished challenge 14, I feel your pain! Obviously everyoneās different, but a few things really helped me outā¦
I spent a fair bit of time with a pen and paper writing out a few of the sentences in awful pigeon phonetic Welsh to have a proper look at them and find a few patterns. The odd 5 minutes making myself say āshe wanted to learnāā¦ āhe wanted to learnāā¦ āthe old man wanted to learnāā¦ āyour sister wanted to learnā (for example) really helped me get used to how those fragments were put together, and when I went back to the challenges those bits tended to fall into place more comfortably which freed up my brain to worry about the rest of the sentence. I wasnāt doing it as a grammar drill, just a way of playing with the vocab from the challenges in my own time and way. Once through the challenge just listening and feeling depressed, then once through with a pen and paper in detective mode has really helped me.
The other thing it might be worth considering is joining one of the courses on hereā¦ Iām on the two year version and the weekly video chats with the group and a welsh speaker are really, really useful. I usually come with a small list of questions I couldnāt figure out myself, and get good advice and encouragement. I have to admit that to me, the pacing of the weekly emails/tasks isnāt great, Iām well ahead of whatās being asked, BUT the structure and support you get as part of it is MORE than worth the money.
If you join any of the slack groups, perhaps we could have a video chat sometime and fail to say that āyour sister met someone who knows my brother very wellā¦ he wanted you to tell me what to doā over a cup of tea if that would help?
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Ha, yes!!!
After following lessons, where these come up again a few times, and very helpful answers from @Hendrik
and @Novem
itās going better, but itās still quite confusing. So thanks for the tip, Iāll try that out (also for other complicated challenges in the future)
I just joined Slack, Iāll just figure it out a bit I guess weāll have the chance to fail at talking about brothers and sistersā¦although if thereās nobody else who can tell us when we get them right having tea with us we might keep on failing! 
Itās interesting what you say about the courses. I think for now Iām going to finish the free (or almost free) Levels - itās quite a lot of stuff anyway - and then Iāll decide what do, and certainly consider joining a course then!
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[If anyone in the future should ever find and read this thread, hereās an update]
Challenge 13 and 14 were complete brain-melting failures.
I followed the tip of just moving on to next challenges, never tried to do those challenges again.
Until yesterday (two months later).
Aaaaandā¦Surprise! Or miracle?..I did it all, no pause button and at least 80 often 90% right! 
The first 15-20 minutes were easier; the last part has longer sentences and maybe my mind got a little tired and slower to recall things, so I missed a few more words. But definitely very happy of the results.
āNo repeatā works!
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Youāve got me curious nowā¦ I also struggled with Challenges 13 and 14 and had to pause a lot and got quite a lot wrong. Itās been about two months since I did them, so Iām wondering if itās time to go back and see if I still find them as hard as I did.
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Hey it would be interesting! If you decide to try, donāt forget to let us know how it goes!
p.s. I added 14 right before posting my previous comment even though detailed description referred to 13. Challenge 14 has longer sentences from the beginning so I needed to use pause a bit more and the first half was pretty much like the second half in this case - but 80-90% correct without ever working on them again apply to both!
I agree with Gisella-albertini. Second time around was much easier. Give it a go and see what happens.
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Pushing on through Challenges 13-14 is the best thing I did. The phrases are repeated and embedded multiple times in the following challenges so I certainly think that helps if you were to repeat challenges 13-14.
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Itās sometimes worth dividing a challenge in half, leaving the second part until tomorrow. Each challenge is very intense. Think about it: you have to respond about 5 or so times per minute, so within one challenge thatās roughly 150 responses in a new language in half an hour. Thatās very intense.
Also I found that taking a complete break from it for a couple of days often helps.
And yes, pushing on and then coming back to it is also a good approach.
And any combination of the above.
Whatever works is right for you.
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Thanks for sharing your woes last year this has helped me with wondering whether to go on or go over the challenges first. 
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