During. Then I have go back a bit to listen again
Right - couple of points here - first up, when you say âlisten againâ - you are saying the Welsh, out loud, in the gap between the English prompt and the Welsh response?
Do you think the distraction is about concentration? Does it tend to happen after a certain amount of time? Or does it kick in from the very beginning?
I tend to lose concentration half way through normally. But last night I spoke out loud after each prompt and remained focused until a couple of minutes before the end.
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Diolch yn fawr iawn iawn, Aran, you always say such kind things! Youâre one hell of a professor! 
I have been pressing on! On Wednesday, I did Challenge 14 - 18 during work, without ever touching the pause button. I made LOTS of mistakes, and when I was at my witâs end (witch occurred often, I tell ye), I just said something in Welsh, even though I knew it wasnât correct. I disciplined myself not to expect anything of myself and just enjoy the Challenges and the words and expressions that happen to stick in my brain. 
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That sounds absolutely SUPERB, Claudia - well DONE! Keep that attitude up, keep on pressing on (you can always run through them again later) and you WILL keep on improving (even though youâll doubt it sometimes). 
Ann, that actually sounds hugely promising - the ability to concentrate can be increased, but for you to have stepped up so far so soon strongly suggests that you can get to 30 minutes in a go faster than I would have thought - way to go! 
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I think it took me from June (when I started) until now to actually grasp the brilliant SSiW method! I can see only now how brainwashed I was from school - you know, the whole frigginâ âConcentrate and please, think logically! You should be able to do this without making mistakes! Too many mistakes, Claudia, now, repeat it until you donât make them anymore. Everyone else understood it, why canât you?â - lark!
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Brilliant Claudia, well done for overcoming that piece of your past.
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Yes, what Alice saidâŚ
Sounds as though youâre in the middle of a big psychological step forwards right hereâŚ
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@Alice and Aran
I find it interesting, how completely different school experiences can be for people. I know people who enjoyed school and understood this âtry to do this with as less mistakes as possibleâ - attitude as a challenge. They wished maths and science lessons would have been much faster paced, with much less repetitions and explanations. Itâs true, I felt drawn to these highly gifted kids, I found them so fascinating and looked up to them (and secretly wished to be like them and belong to them).
I think itâs myself I must forgive for not living up to my own expectations, for not being university - material, for learning rather slow and painfullyâŚ
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Claudia - you had a difficult childhood, didnât you? Did part of that include not having all that much conversational interaction with your parents?
Because one of the things we know about how children respond in school (particularly in the early years) is that when there is not much conversation interaction at home, children have fewer opportunities to hear/use words - indeed, the difference in how many words theyâve heard/spoken can run into the millionsâŚ
And when that is the case, itâs inevitable that school seems tougher - because their brains are still playing âcatch upâ, and trying to get the exposure they need. The kids you envied probably just came from environments where they had much more early exposure to language.
That didnât stop it being painful for you, of course - but it DOES mean that instead of seeing yourself as ânot university materialâ, you could recognise a few things:
-
your brain has about 100 billion neurons - with about 10,000 connections between each of them - which makes it just about the most complicated thing in the universe
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your brain is plastic - it changes depending on exposure - so even though youâre not a child any more, you can still learn and improve and change (and you could certainly get a degree if you wanted to enough)
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what youâve already done with Welsh shows both the above things - and because youâve had the courage to come back to it after a break (which is tough) we also know that you have determination and commitment (which are, incidentally, MUCH more important in university students than how easy they find the work).
You should be proud of yourself for keeping going when itâs not easy. Thatâs a far, far more admirable quality than âfinding things easyâ.
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Wow, thank you so much for this great and interesting reply, Aran! 100 billion neurons - with about 10.000 connection between each and every one of themâŚthatâs mind - blowing (in a quite literal sense, isnât it)! Yes, I read that the brain stays plastic and is able to build new connections, no matter how old we are.
Hmm, all I know is, that my mum talked a lot to my sister and me and read us stories every night. My father, well, no, he didnât spoke much to us. I talked with my mum yesterday and she said that I was too burdened and preoccupied to have had much âspaceâ left to learn. My father was a heavy alcoholic then and had regular rage fits in his drunken state; and I had to stay up until he finally passed out and slept and couldnât hurt my mum anymore.
You are right, I could get a degree, itâs just that I donât have the means to achieve that. Iâd have to do the Gymnasium first and make the Matura - that would take me at least 4 years, since Iâd have to go to school for a year or two first, in order to get a chance to pass the entry test. Iâd have to cut down my working pensum, which is unthinkable regarding our already disastrous financial situation. Iâve applied many times for a scholarship, in order to be able to make a shorter and less qualified apprenticeship for people with learning difficulties - not even this was granted. Switzerland offers so many opportunities for adults to learn and studyâŚif one has money. Maybe, when my sons have their university degreesâŚwho knows, maybe theyâll send their auld lady back to school thenâŚ
Now, Iâm going to download Challenge 19 - 25 on my iPod and leave for work. Iâm working a 6 hours shift todayâŚso, I should be able to finish level 1 in this time, right? 
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So itâs your situation, not you - so you donât need to feel that youâre not good enough for a degreeâŚ
Great that you got good linguistic input from your mother - but itâs not surprising that you didnât achieve what you wanted in school with that kind of trauma going on in the family.
Focus on your strengths⌠you have plenty of them
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Managed Challenge 14 yesterday and 15 and 16 today. Just burning my next cd with 17-21 plus listening practices.
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I seem to be in the middle of Ch 18 now. I guess I have done quite a bit of cleaning today (!)
How is it going for you Claudia? Anyone else want to report progress?
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Awesome, Challege 18 of level 2!!! 
Your Welsh must be really good already, Alice! 
Can you remember most of the new words and put them into your treasury of words after having made a Challenge just once?
I was 4:34 into Challenge 25 (at work), when the accu of my iPod fâŚcoughâŚgave up! I must be honest, from Challenge 18 onward, I have just been able to say fragments of sentences or even only single words. Iâm far, far from having mastered these Challenges. The word I can remember best is ânebâ, and I had a lot of fun pronouncing it with a horrible Swiss accent, out loud - something like ânäääääääbââŚimagine the sound of a bleating goat. Acting stupidly does relax the brainâŚ
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You will never, ever, forget ânebâ now. Having fun is good for learning.
I am going through Level 2 for the third time and I have sort of reached 24. Last time I was reduced to silence by about this stage, but this time there are only certain expressions that I canât get at all. I intend to do 25 and then press on to Level 3, ready or not.
Sue
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That would be EXTREMELY unusual, if she could! It takes the spaced repetition (along with the other memory techniques) over several subsequent lessons before Iâd expect new stuff to have had any chance of bedding in properlyâŚ
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No way! Definitely not. As Aran said, it takes lots of repetition. And some words or phrases take more repetition than others.
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Thanks Claudia. I am not sure how good my welsh is really.
To answer your question. No, not really. I canât necessarily recall and use the new vocab straight away. Random bits of the phrases float into my mind through the day sometimes when Iâm not practicing. But one thing I notice is that if I really do just try to say whatever comes into my head for when the phrase includes a newish word it quite often rhymes or otherwise resembles the actual welsh word (like I might say something like âviglenâ instead of the welsh word âbodlon/fodlonâ. Itâs wrong but I can see that my brain is trying. I think that process of saying a wrong thing is one of the steps towards the words being right there when I am trying to speak welsh rather than trying to âhaul the words outâ from a cognitive remembered/translated mental structure. If that makes sense.
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Great, Sue, I say go for it.
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