Hi, New to SSIW having just found it. I don’t come from a Welsh speaking background but when I retired I decided to learn Welsh. I have been learning through Welsh for Adults’ with Swansea University, for a few years now. I can hold a basic conversation and attends a weekly conversation class. But! and I think it is a big but! I coasted through without putting required effort in. I find that for most of the conversation class I really don’t understand much of what is going on.
So I think the 6 month course with a disciplined approach may be the answer to get me up to speed.
Perhaps his will enable me to watch Pobl o Cwm wihout subtitles !!!
One question: are conversations done using skype? How does it work?
Hang on a little longer, then, until we can start adding extra timezones - shouldn’t be too long…
@chris2041 - great to hear that this approach is really helping you - thank you so much for letting us know, and for your very kind words - it’s really exciting to see that we can help more people to achieve more than we had realised at first…
Hi @garnetcalder - and a very warm welcome to the forum! Most of the conversation hookups on the forum are done via Skype - the conversations on the 6 month course can also be through our custom support forum on Slack, which has person-to-person video/audio right there…
As with ant and Garry, my previous attempts at learning Cymraig since 2010 have for various reasons*** not produced the desired end product, ie being able to hold a simple conversation in Welsh with someone. (*** working long shifts and as most people a generally busy lifestyle).
I think the discipline of having to “report in” each Thursday is going to help me focus much better. I have started my first 6m course week and doing Challenge 1 and 2 for the first time since listening to them on their original “release”, I have been listening with intent, trying to get the responses in before Catrin, with a view to moving on next Monday.
It is at present a form of enlightening revision
I am on lesson 9 of the second course, but feel I am struggling a little. I like the idea of a course that offers more than just the listen-and-repeat format. I seem to need some visual input as well as auditory. Thinking of signing up for this 6 month intensive. What do you think? It sounds like it would be good revision and sort out some of my confusions, such as when to use ‘s’on i’ or ‘d’on i’.
That doesn’t sound as though it would be a good idea for you - the learning core of the 6 month course is Level 1 and Level 2 (none of which is listen-and-repeat, by the way - listen-and-produce is a very different process - if you’re not speaking in the gap, and just repeating the Welsh when you’ve heard the model answers, that’s definitely not going to work very well).
The surrounding stuff in the 6 month course is, I think, hugely valuable - focused on getting you into situations where you will produce your Welsh - but if you feel as though you’re getting tired of the methodological approach, I don’t think the surrounding stuff (which is all based on that methodology as the core learning) would be likely to make up for that…
So I have now done the first two challenges in Week one and I am taking to heart the advice to not worry about making mistakes and to just plough on. I found trying to keep the whole English sentence in my head and then translate was very hard for me…my memory is not what it was ( I am 63!!) and my ‘old school’ brain says go over it and go over it until you get it perfect. The concept of just keeping going and have faith it will get better is a strange one but I am going to do just that. The urge to write down the English sentence so I can get ALL the words in my brain before translating is strong but I am resisting and I am trying not to pause either. It doesn’t help when you hear non Welsh people from America and Australia seem to have no trouble or not so much anyway but I suppose we all learn at different rates. In a small way this way of learning a language must be getting in to my head because yesterday I was constructing sentences in Welsh in my head all day. A good sign I feel. The course does make your head spin though.
Forgive my inaccurate wording - yes listen-and-produce is what I am attempting. I am (mostly!) speaking in the gap. I am not getting tired of anything, and am a great supporter of SSIW. I seem to have given the wrong impression . . . ?! The struggle is with me not your course, which is why I thought the intensive might help.
Just noticed your message because it was next to mine. I also struggle with retaining the whole of the English sentence in my head to reproduce, and I am nearly 63 years old as well. It must be an age thing. Pob lwc!
Remember, everyone’s journey is unique to them - and when you hear other people trying to speak, you don’t know how long they’ve been working, or how frightened they’re feeling - and they would certainly not feel that they’re having no trouble…
Well DONE - you’re resisting all the dangerous stuff, and you’re committing to all the stuff that works, and if you keep on touching base with us through the process, you ARE going to get there - and that bit about building sentences in your head all day? That is GOLD. Superb. Keep it up! It’s a brilliantly positive sign
No, no, not at all, sorry if I have! It’s just that the emotional journey is SO important - if you say that you’re struggling a bit, and you think you need more than the auditory approach, and I say ‘No, you’re fine, come on a course which is built on the auditory approach’ - well, I’d feel more than a little shabby about that!
To be honest, I think if you’ve got almost half-way through Level 2, you’d probably be best served by pushing on, and finding someone to practise with regularly - having said that, I did say the emotional journey is vital - if you feel that committing to the 6 month programme, revising a lot of the lessons and completing the weekly task list to build patterns of using the language would help you push on through, then it would be wrong for me say you shouldn’t do that…
Thanks nordzinpamo. I think it is that the course is not how I used to learn things at school and such but we have to believe in this course and it’s methods.
One universal truth I have learned is that we are all on a scale, with people one side doing better, and people the other side doing worse. This applies to everything - how nice a house you have, how rich you are, how quickly you can run, everything. So some people will learn Cymraeg quicker and easier than you, and some will struggle more than you. The point is - I think we should all focus on our own journey in life and not worry about comparing with others. That is my secret to happiness. Sorry if I am preaching, but I do passionately believe this.
Hugely, hugely important - thanks for sharing that, Iain
And even within the journey to Welsh, people will be on different scales - some will find the listening easier and more intuitive, some will find speaking is better, and people will move around on those scales - some people will find jumping in to use it much harder, some people will get stuck on grammatical issues that others fly through - but it’s all mixed up and jumbled - so that person you’re thinking is doing brilliantly on the group chat might be feeling stressed that they can’t understand what anyone else is saying, etc etc etc.
We never know (unless they tell us) what internal struggles someone else is going through. We can see if a house or a car is bigger - but we can never see from the outside what another Welsh learner is going through - so it makes no sense at all to compare ourselves unfavourably to them…
Have finally found my way to the Forum after several days since starting Level 1, and certainly, A Funny Thing has Happened! About three quarters of the way through both lessons 1 & 2, I can tangibly feel my brain shift into slow motion. A really disarming sensation. I guess I’ve just reached saturation point, so have either, left it until the next day to pick up, or continued, using the pause button. Hope either or both of those is okay?..
Also, an interesting thing happened when I was trying to think in Welsh, as I tried to recall ‘what’, I found myself saying ‘what’ in Russian instead, and I haven’t used that language for years! Will sometimes miss Thursdays (self-employed commitments) Really enjoying the challenge.
on my knowledge of Slack 
