Hi @Baruch and everyone else using the advanced content, I am also listening and working hard on the advanced content.
I do feel that I am making progress on them but I find my understanding of them varies considerably from week to week…
There are quite a few variables aren’t there such as whether you happen to know the vocab on the topic(s) being discussed, ditto the dialect of the person, the strength of accent mixed with the speed and natural clarity with which the person speaks. Plus of course your starting point!
Interestingly if I ‘simply’ don’t know some words and I go through them, this can transform a Sgwrs and I can get a step up in understanding… there have been a couple recently where I’ve thought I had a big translation job on my hands but when I’ve looked at the transcript - I understand the words!
On these ones…the challenge is picking out what is said as it flies by at pace with an accent which is the challenge…and on these I’ve had to listen over, until my brain tunes into the accent and clipped pronunciation of the words…strangely harder.
However, I absolutely do detect progress.
I am really pleased that you have posted @Baruch because I had been thinking separately - and it has prompted me to do something - put simply, we’ve all been working hard - perhaps we should share!!?
Perhaps a topic whereby we posted how we have got on /are getting on?..a little bit like the ongoing ‘small questions in need of answer type thread’ although possibly more about the experience than having questions?
Apart from anything else it could be moral support! What do you think?
I’ve always felt that my brain has only so much capacity for new words, I love the word tosturiaethau but not sure how useful it is on a day to day basis. I did wonder if there was ever any chance of finding the first few thousand words that get used so that I could concentrate on them and reuse them in sentences to help them sink in. So, for one, I wait for this eagerly.
Hi Baruch, I think I could have written your post, as I have been feeling pretty much just the same as you. I finished level 3 and have been listening to some of the advanced content. I feel as though I’ve reached a plateau and was struggling to really understand as much of the conversations as I would have liked. If you are like me, you should have a go at listening to Nicky’s ‘mynd am beint’ podcast. I just listened to his 3rd one (in which he just talks about himself!), and found that I followed most of it, and because it’s nice and long, after a while, I found I was was just listening and understanding more than translating in my head all the time and getting lost. It probably helps that he has only recently learnt Welsh and that he sprays in a good few English words/expressions. Don’t give up on the rest of the stuff but if you want a boost, and realise that you probably CAN understand conversational spoken Welsh, try that.
Thanks very much for the feedback @rich! I’m also pleased to see that other people are in my situation.
As to your suggestion, perhaps the best thing would be simply to carry on this thread. The idea of moral support certainly appeals to me.
And on that note, after my original posting yesterday I listened again, for the first time in a week, to that first 10-minute podcast in the Advanced series by Beca - and I noticed an improvement in my understanding. Slight improvement, but significant. … Maybe @Aran is right and the system actually works?
I would love to hear other learners’ feedbacks and experience on this.
As a first impression, I suspect one thread for each Sgwrs could end up a bit lost in this huge forum (and many people might not even notice them).
But at the same time it would allow to search for each thread and being able to read only the posts about one specific Sgwrs - that has other advantages, I believe.
I agree. I have tried making personalised word lists when reading books. I have even tried putting them into Memrise. I never got round to going back and learning them though because, as you say, it was a drag. I am hoping that repeated exposure to words will do the trick in time. I do find that words pop into my mind unexpectedly, and I think “What on earth does that word mean?”
Currently I am re-reading books that I attempted about a year ago. They were difficult first time round, but now I can manage without a dictionary, guessing the unknown words from the context. That feels like progress. With luck the same thing will happen with Beca’s programmes.
Yes I feel exactly the same - upside and downside.
I think if there is one thread with everything jumbled and not much use to someone coming later…but that might not be an issue.
Probably ‘the thing’which is going to work will naturally rise to the surface…so I’m hoping if we start with something and just roll with it… it will work itself out…
I have had a very, very similar experience - how interesting.
I have tried using Quizlet to remember words and it sort of works but I find I end up ‘off on a slight tangent’ spending time learning words rather than talking, reading or listening. So I have stopped doing this and am letting words stick whenever they stick…radical!
I too have found reading very beneficial and in contrast to listening - which has so many more factors involved doesn’t it - I have found I have improved very quickly. ( Hooray!)
I started off with Louise Arnold books which were just perfect for getting started - and by accident (because I was loaned a book by Pat Clayton ) i moved on to books which were ‘uwch’ / more advanced level. I found this tough for the first few chapters (only) but then my brain seemed to kick in to gear - it is very surprising how the old brain works. I think this has been very beneficial in the translations - more patterns, more words (which seem to stick eventually).
( I should say I have only read about 10 books !)
It’s really interesting how these different aspects of the language work together, isn’t it?
I only started this recently, less than a month ago. Currently I am trying to make sense of the first two podcasts, and I’m going to move on to the third one in a day or two I hope. I’m still learning how to use this potentially powerful tool (i.e. the Advanced Content course).
Thinking about this as I type now… it may be that for me the best thing is to do, say, the first ten minutes of each lesson instead of the whole 30 minutes, which is too much for me. I have tried reading the Welsh transcript and, again, the vocab gets me - there are simply too many unknown words. It’s no longer structure of the language - thanks to SSiW! - but for me it is mainly the vocab.
I have also tried reading the Welsh transcript, one paragraph at a time, alongside the English translation, and that seems promising for me. It makes subsequent listening and understanding much easier, so I may well try this more. But I can’t handle more than about 10 minutes at a go.
I suspect that this advanced course, with transcript and translation, is a real goldmine. But every one of us is a different learner. We have differing starting-points, learning abilities, time available, etc. It could just be that everyone should try to learn as much as he or she can in one week, and not necessarily go for the whole half hour. - Again, I’m still working this out and I’d love to hear other suggestions.
Concerning Memrise, I use it to learn words. I do a few minutes a day, more than once a day if I can, which is too little for me to be boring, and yes, I learn a lot that way. Also, revisiting the vocab lessons in the SSiW Courses 1 and 2, and the last lessons of each level and course, are extremely useful refreshers.
Pob lwc a diolch yn fawr to all, and please keep up the feedback!
Yes, I have exactly the same problem - vocabulary. And because the conversations are real I have found that the first six people said the same thing six different ways! ( of course I accept this is the real world and I it just means I need to do more! )
I found understanding the transcript a little bit of a challenge to start with - I appreciate now how much of a challenge they must be to create - things like: is ‘ma’, a shortened ‘mae’ or a shortened ‘yma’ - there are many and various examples but this has fallen into place somewhat and the number of new abbreviations week on week has tailed off.
I think shortening it is totally appropriate to be honest. I listen to it once just to get a feel for it if I can and then I do a slight variant which Aran was ok with - of going through the transcript and trying to understand it (looking up words myself) before listening again.
This seems to make things stick in my head a lot more but there is a downside which is it takes longer - but I do it in chunks eg a page at a time or whatever I have time for…and chip away until it’s done.
This has a dramatic effect on my understanding when re-listening. If the accent is strong personally it still takes me several goes to tune in. If I haven’t been through all of a transcript I notice how marked the difference is in my understanding at the point where I finished - if I keep in listening …and often I turn it off at this point, if I’ve listened previously.
I too find doing old lessons and listening exercises useful as it gives something different - no doubt about it. Speaking too, also. I am torn on the Quizlet/ Memrise thing - I’m trying ‘just reading’ at the moment but I do change my mind regularly - I do think variety is a good thing!
When checking the trasncripts i find it handy to have the English and welsh on two tabs on the computer and also a dictionary for background. Beca has been very kind to clarify any tricky colloquial words wich may not be in a dictionary. Also Beca shows some of these within and at the bottom of some of the pdfs.
Saying that, as we proceed, there tend to be less of these special words. Also some are just to convey the e/a accent word endings.
I also find that handy, as 1st language speakers tend to do the same on social media. Stuff like on for o’n, nath for naeth, etc
There are two things you’re trying to solve at this stage - one is recognising a larger number of words, the other is recognising at speed.
If you try to do both of them at the same time, it’s tougher for your brain, so in most cases probably a slower process.
The ideal, I believe, is to train for speed with almost entirely familiar material, and then to train for width of vocabulary with non-accelerated material.
So I would strongly encourage you to do the final listening exercise from Level 2 once a day in the same sort of ‘just do it’ way that you brush your teeth, and then focus on Beca’s content for the vocab extension…
But it’s also really, really important for EVERYONE to realise that this last stage of acquiring a new language feels like the slowest growth of all - because your % improvement from week to week is tiny compared to earlier in the process - so that’s why it’s a good idea to check for progress once a month at the MOST, and less often if you can bear it…
p.s. But at least, I’ll start by following @Baruch’s idea of using North (instead of/besides) South. Just tried, by the way. It works, I understand almost nothing again, feels like new!
I have a slightly different issue with the AC. I mainly use a tablet as it makes it easier to practice whenever I get a bit of spare time.
I was just wondering if there was any way anyoine knows, to (hopefully easily) embed the narration into the pdf file? IE so the conversation can be played from within the document at the same time as one is reading it.
I’m hoping that the easier it is to access, the more attention I’ll be inclined to attempt and commit, to an already challenging climb [to keep with the mountaneering metaphor permeating this thread].
I’m not sure about a tech solution for that - but I’d strongly discourage you from it anyway! You’ll get much better results by breaking up the steps - so listening and only listening, then reading the transcript, then listening again, then checking the translation, then listening for the last time. At each step your brain will have more context for the listening, but keeping the focus on the listening while it’s playing is hugely important…
I put the pdfs on Google drive/ iCloud on the computer, meaning I can see them on my phone if I need to. So you could look at it whilst listening to file.
I did have a little try of this in the early days to see if it would work - I found it really hard to keep track as it flies by so quickly - and then I couldn’t listen either…multi-tasking not my strong point maybe!..it got really complicated! ( I abandoned it quite quickly) …but you know.,…
Rich
