Hi Gareth, I learn in the car like you! Not being able to use the pause button is a definite plus.
Aran has already answered you questions, but just wanted to say Hi.
Also wanted to say that on Bootcamp last year my Welsh was a total mix out of necessity and people seemed to understand me.
Bendigedig! Thank you very much for your responses aran and a_jay, I really appreciate it and ‘Helo’ to you both. That is a big relief, I’m glad I asked the question before I started to worry about it too much! I’m sure that in time I’ll become familiar with many ways of saying the same thing, particularly once I pluck up the courage to start speaking to people hehe. This has been a helpful confidence booster though. I failed to mention in my post that I am now living very far away from Pembrokeshire - I now live in York, and am about to move house so my target is to learn as much as I possibly can by then, then sign up for the ‘ffrinDiaith’ service 
Wel, I learn “gog”, but on Bootcamp last week in Tresaith, by about half-way, with plenty of southern Welsh around me, I realised I was sometimes thinking in, and occasionally speaking in “de” (or a mixture). It’s exactly as Aran and Iestyn say quite often: given time, we’ll be speaking more and more like the people around us, which is entirely natural.
[And coming to the realisation that: now it’s me who’s “speaking funny” - is just the price we pay I suppose 
]
Join the club Gar!!! I strongly suspect there was some sort of plan among ‘educators’ to produce a ‘standard language’, like ‘BBC English’ but for Cymraeg!! Maybe I’m just too cynical and it was to help people understand & be understood if they moved, or was just because teachers moved!!!
Shwmae Gareth, a chroeso i’r fforwm!
I also learned through not using the pause button, although I did mine walking to work mainly. I found that if I was able to produce the Welsh before Cat (I was on the Southern course too), then I was making progress. The general idea was that if you could produce 80% of the Welsh before Cat or Catrin, you were ready for the next lesson. I raised that standard to 90% for myself!
As for mixing Northern and Southern dialects, I do that all the time! In some areas of Wales this is common anyway (Aberystwyth being one area). Just use what comes to mind for you. You’ll still be understood, and as Aran suggested, use what the person you speak most to uses - you can’t go far wrong!
If you need the course guide for the new level 1, I am currently compiling one as the new challenges become available (there’s only 2 more to go for this level). I am happy to forward a link to this for you if you would like a copy.
Best of luck with the rest of the course, and I’m sure I’ll see you about on the forum soon!
Gav
If you haven’t already, have a look at the introduction to Gareth King’s Modern Welsh - A Comprehensive Grammar, in which he talks about “Cymraeg Byw”, which was a well-intentioned experiment, but (probably) doomed to failure. To my surprise, I found on our shelves an old (60s? 70s?) “Cymraeg Byw” textbook (might have inherited it from my in-laws). It wasn’t too scary actually, and still useful for a lot of vocabulary. I mostly ignored the grammar.
@faithless78 - I’m glad to hear more people say they mix and match, it is starting to seem a little more natural just as I start to mix Course 1 and Level 1! I would be very interested in a Southern course guide for level 1 if you have it, please? I completely agree with you, I don’t like making any mistakes at all if I can help it, but (hopefully) everyone has that moment of blankness where you can’t remember a particular word from a few lessons ago until it has been said once, then you’re good for the rest of the lesson
I’ve got to say I’m finding it much less obvious what exactly is being said in the Level 1 course than the old Course 1 - I can’t deal with not being able to imagine how the words are spelled in my head as I say them (as bonkers as that sounds). A lot of the time I’m falling back to the ways used in old Course 1 just because they make more sense, and I don’t fully grasp what is being said - e.g. I’m still saying “Beth wnest ti dweud” instead of (something like) “D’wed est ti”? It’s good to hear how people might say things in every day Welsh but I do find it hard to follow if the full word isn’t told to us first (which of course it sometimes is).
@mikeellwood - thanks for that! Unfortunately it costs a bomb on Amazon but I’ll definitely keep my eyes open!
Does anybody have any PDFs for the vocab sessions? I’m happy to post a fresh topic to ask for that if need be!
Must admit, I found hearing those short forms challenging … trying to work out exactly what was being said. Subsequent repeated listening did help somewhat. And this seems to be an area where southern and northern dialects do differ, at least for some of the forms. I did find I was using at least some of them on the recent bootcamp, and (if you can think of them in time ) they do (or can) actually make things simpler. Whether I was using them accurately or not is another story. 
Haha, I guess as long as people get the gist it’s okay! It is slowly becoming clearer, and I have found myself using some of the shorter versions for that very reason - e.g. “Galla i” (not 100% on spelling) instead of “Dw i’n gallu”, must quicker to say! Though I’m glad to know both ways of saying it…
I’d love to, but I suppose it isn’t on line?
I don’t think I need to read it, though, do I? You are telling me that ‘living Welsh’, which I now remember hearing, was actually a real theory and was taught. Not quite like the ghastly experimental teaching alphabet used in England or ‘look and say’, teaching English as if it was Chinese!! What was wrong with the ‘old fashioned’ way that worked for my generation and my father’s and his…???
I think there is an edition in Google Books, actually. Not sure if all of it is available though.
No, not at all. I find it interesting to dip into from time to time, but I try not to get too bogged down in grammar.
I only know what GK says in the first part of his “A Comprehensive Grammar”, where he is describing the main types of Welsh (which he lists as “Colloquial Welsh”, “Literary Welsh”, and “Cymraeg Byw”). What we learn here, and what 99% of his “A Comprehensive Grammar” is about is “Colloquial Welsh”. I think he is just mentioning “Cymraeg Byw” for completeness, and he says it was an attempt (with the best of intentions) of producing a standardised colloquial form of the language, which is (probably universally) now recognised to have failed, although it does seem like that’s what was being taught for a time.
I found this in Wikipedia:
In the 1970s, there was an attempt to standardise the language by teaching ‘Cymraeg Byw’ - a colloquially-based generic form of Welsh.[67] But the attempt largely failed because it did not encompass the regional differences used by native speakers of Welsh.
Oh, diolch yn fawr, Mike for doing my research for me!! I’m a lazy old biddy so I really am grateful!! I do see the difference between Cymraeg byw and teaching reading by the methods I quoted, It was more like “standard English” which was taught when I was at school. Any dialect words were pounced on and corrected. Any local grammatical variations were treated in the same way!! The English taught to plant Cymru cymraeg was ‘utra’ standard… ever so correct, such that ordinary English people often misunderstood completely!!
These pdf guides seem to be for Course 1 southern.
Where are the guides for the new Level 1? (Southern)Does anyone know please?
I did have them once but cant find them after dealing with a computer problem.
I cant find the listening practices either. I will probably have to download those again. Not sure where I got the pdfs for Level 1 though 
any help will be greatly apprieciated!
Many thanks
Hello again,
I’m sorry but an email did not arrive and…when I click on link in your post it just keeps bringing me back to this page.
please can you try agaim.
many thanks
Sorry Ann, the email was sent to just Aran as he wanted to publish the guide publicly on this site from the Level 1 page. It just makes it easier than sending the link out again individually to everyone who had it before, and makes it accessible to everyone who needs it.
However, If the guide isn’t made available on here by tomorrow, I will send you the link through PM.
Excellent nudge! It’ll be ready by this afternoon… 
Ok thank you