In challenge 5, 25 to 27 minutes in, bod dal suddenly replaces bofi dal. Totally lost and stuck on this challenge now. Is this one of those suggested deliberate errors?
Which you use depends on the structure of the following part of the sentence. If youāre joining something that would usually start with dw i then that will become bo fi when you put something in front.
If youāre joining something that starts with mae like mae rhaid i fi/mi then you use bod in place of the mae
e.g. āI think that I still speak Welshā - dw iān meddwl bo fi dal yn siarad Cymraeg
āI think that I still have to goā - dw iān meddwl bod dal rhaid i fi/mi fynd
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Hmm. Have I missed something?. I canāt recall this being introduced as a pattern before it just cropped up in challenge 5ā¦ Iāve now gone back to start of challenge1 to go through it all again. which is disappointing as I thought I was getting somewhere, To save me having to repeat can anyone tell me which challenge *dw iān meddwl bod dal rhaid ā¦" was introduced.or explained. I must have missed it somehow.
bod is introduced in Challenge 3, then mae rhaid i fi or rhaid i mi is introduced in Challenge 4 and dal is from Challenge 1.
As you move through the course youāll find that not everything is explained explicitly. You are given the building blocks then an example will come along combining them or showing you a different way of using them. This gives you the opportunity to start seeing how things work for yourself, a skill that is vital as you get into conversations and listen to more spoken Welsh.
I guess Iāll have to try and find an answer somewhere else then. This has thrown me completely. I can ask my Dysgu Cymraeg tutor at Bangor University when we start again after half term and have a break for now. Maybe the grammar section in the course book may help. Diolch.
As Deborah said, which one you use depends on whether itās dwi or mae that is being replaced by the āthatā.
Try splitting the sentence into two without the āthatā like this:
āI think. I still speak Welshā - dw iān meddwl. dwi dal yn siarad Cymraeg
āI think. I still have to goā - dw iān meddwl. mae dal rhaid i fi/mi fynd
Although both English sentences split this way start with āI stillā, in Welsh the second one actually literally translates as āThere is still a necessity for me to goā, which is why in itās split form it starts with mae (not dwi) and why when adding the āthatā it is simply bod (not bo fi) because the āfiā is later in the sentence.
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Diolch (which, to lighten the mood, I accidentally said to a Co-op cashier in my home town Poole, Dorset and got the response āyouāre welcomeā).
I nearly get it but having the word mae in a phrase about the first person (i and mi) is strange when mae is the present tense 3rd person form of bod. Aaaargh!
By the way, is there a transcript of the challenges to look at when listening?
Diolch eto Siaron a Deborah.
In English, yes. In Welsh, no! 
There is not an official transcript as the idea of the course is to learn aurally rather than visually. However, other learners have produced material that you might find helpful here Vocabulary from Challenges
Iād recommend only looking and listening simultaneously after trying the challenges without any notes first though. Try to use notes as consolidation rather than trying to learn from them - our ears are able to learn much more efficiently than we give them credit for and our eyes naturally overpower them when presented with visual material.
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. I agree totally with needing to listen only first but seeing the transcript after might helpā¦Thanks again
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Would you be able to show me what the unsplit sentences would be with the āthatā in them please.
Sorry to be a pain but I need to be able to move forward.
They are the examples Deborah posted earlier -
āI think that I still speak Welshā - dw iān meddwl bo fi dal yn siarad Cymraeg
āI think that I still have to goā - dw iān meddwl bod dal rhaid i fi/mi fynd
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AROS - is there now a challenge 4 and 5 recently published?! I finished Her 3 a few months ago and there was nothing after that (ie 25 lessons x 3challenges) . Diolch yn fawr, Jan x
No, level 3 is the last one but there are advanced listening exercises you can do, or some people work their way through the old course for extra vocab - and some do the opposite region to the one youāve done in the levels too.
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Aha diolch I thought for a minute there was some exciting news Iād missed! Hwyl, Jan x
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Hi Ian
I had many moments like you when doing SSiW (and still do outside of SSiW, now Iāve done L3!). I loved learning languages in school, but Iām quite ātraditionalā.
When I came across issues like you mentioned, I did sometimes try to find explanations, as Deborah kindly provided. I did find that relaxing about things I didnāt understand, or that seemed āwrongā did actually help a lot though. I was sceptical initially! I went from āarghhh, why on earth is it XYZā to āoh, thatās different - interesting. Iāll just say it; itāll make sense in the futureā.
Itās a bit of a leap, but I do feel it worked. SSiW definitely doesnāt give the learner everything, but itās not meant too. āJust say it, and donāt sweat itā was my mantra!
HTH
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Thanks HTH,
That was very helpful and I understand exactly what you mean. Itās getting the balance between understanding everything and, as you say, just using it and letting it unfold.
Diolch,
Ian
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