Course 1 vs Level 1 - which? Why? When? What?!

@aran Hello (or should I say Helo.) I just wanted to say, having finally got the courage to get through the whole of course 1 South, I’m sat here with a big tear in my eye. I’m truly amazed how much easier it’s been to learn with this method along with Iestyn’s humour and encouragement. I’ve laughed out loud at times and have really felt exactly as Iestyn said I probably was as I’ve moved through the lessons. Before I got to no. 6 I did have a cheeky little delve into the first couple of challenges. They seemed so totally different at that stage that I decided to stick with course 1 through to the end. I’m now in two minds as to whether to go through those level 1 challenges or continue to course 2. Still, first up will be the vocab I think. For now a huge Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi gyd.

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Awesome stuff! Well done! That first proper conversation is a huge, huge step - many congratulations :sunny:

Fantastic work - well done you - that really is an enormously impressive amount of work, and however much further you choose to travel with the language, you now have enough under your belt to survive without English (at a pinch!). Llongyfarchiadau mawr iawn iawn… :star2:

I’m a bit confused. I jumped in, downloaded the iPhone app and started working through Course 1 (I’m up to lesson 6b now). I’m wondering whether to switch to Level 1.
I have some Welsh already, so I know most of the vocabulary so far, although I have found the lessons extremely useful.
Would it be a good idea to switch to level 1 now?

Depends - are you enjoying where you’re up to? If so, then you might as well continue on with Course 1. Once you’ve finished that, perhaps then swap over to Level 1, since they both teach different things (and occasionally different ways to say the same thing).

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I’d recommend switching - but Hector’s absolutely right that it doesn’t matter if you carry on with the older material first :slight_smile:

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Thanks Hector and Aran. I think I’ll switch now. I’m enjoying course 1, but it will probably do me good to start again (and possibly whiz through a few lessons at once!)
Diolch i chi

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It’ll be interesting to hear at what point it feels tough enough to stop you whizzing! :slight_smile: [Might be earlier than you expect…:wink: ]

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Not exactly whizzing, but I did work through 2 challenges today and hope to do another 2 tomorrow. Quite a lot of new material from the old course!

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Stick with it - go at whatever pace you feel comfortable with. After 8 weeks now I’m pretty good at understanding quite a bit - although obviously I make loads of mistakes.

I’m more interested at this point in learning how to construct sentences so sometimes if I can’t remember a specific word I’ll just miss it out and see if I can continue the sentence. Sometimes it works well. Sometimes it doesn’t.

I did the new levels first then after finishing I switched to course 2 - relying on some very old memories of words I learnt in school etc. Course 3 sometimes has me floundering when I can’t remember words like tickle for example!

Overall however I’m now getting used to mixing tenses

eg I won’t be going where you said that you wanted to go

The other thing that is useful is hearing different patterns of saying the same thing. The old courses and the new levels differ a fair bit in that respect but it’s useful to hear them.

My daily record for what it’s worth was 5 lessons of level 2 - I admit I had to repeat them but it was I think more useful to to it that way than to keep repeating a lesson before moving on.

Just my opinion though. @aran may disagree but I doubt it!!!

:smiley:

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You’re in Lancaster? Me too!

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I was… I went to uni there but I’m in Manchester now!

Aran, is there any estimate as to when lesson notes will be available for the challenges in Level Two North? I just started the module recently, and having the notes available for review would be very helpful I think. Thanks very much.

Try looking through this topic: Guide to Level 2 (Northern)
It only goes to Challenge 11 (so far) but perhaps someone will extend it.

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A few mistakes but this is everything posted by others condensed into one

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Thanks, Peter! I thought that was out there somewhere, but couldn’t find it on a quick search.

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Dim problem.

Its not perfect but it helped me to have some notes

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Sionned, thanks very much. And Peter, this is marvelous. Exactly what I’ve been looking for. Diolch o galon i chi.

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I’m very confused by the changes. In the new course “dw i’n medru” has been replaced with “mi fedra i” and there seem to be severak other changes like this. There is no explination, why has this been done? Do I have to completely re-learn everything from Course 1?

Are the listebing practices supposed to be a conversation? If so, why are they spoken by one person? It would be more helpful as a conversation with two.

There are a lot of changes because there are a lot of ways to say the same thing - just as with other languages.

Dw i’n medru is closer to I am able, while mi fedra i (or medra i) is closer to I can. It’s because Welsh works differently to English in its sentence order: where English goes Subject Verb Object (the cat sat on the mat), Welsh goes (sat that cat on the mat).

Dw i is commonly used for I am, but even there the verb comes first: dw is the verb “to be” when used for oneself. It’s similar to gwnes i (the g is usually silent) - it’s the past tense for gwneud, and using it (gwnes i ddweud) is akin to saying I did (I did say, with this example).

The first listening practise is a monologue; the rest are dialogues, and are at double speed.

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