Spoke to someone who was doing mynediad course in tŷ Tawe and told him to look at ssiw as well.
On a side note, someone introduced me to a first language Welsh speaker and was complimenting me on my Welsh. His first reaction “let me guess, did you learn via ssiw”. He was well aware of it and said he had met a number of successful ‘Ssiw’ers’.
It was nice to meet someone who already knew about ssiw. I still can’t get my head around people who have been learning for 2/3 years and still haven’t heard of it. Should be the first port of call for any learner (in my humble opinion)
Today at lunch one of the members of our team (not sure if you remember; went to Welsh primary, moved to Singapore, her mum uses SSiW?) said “I’m on lesson 4 already”! (Started yesterday). Then she passed around her phone so everyone else could listen. Since then, 2 others in the team have asked about the course.
Then, went back upstairs and one of the other OT’s announced “Dw i’n trio dysgu Cymraeg” - and he too has started using the course!!
This always makes me smile. In the back of my mind I have this little idea of holding a ‘Change to Welsh Day’, when all across the land in pubs, cafés and shops, everyone changes to Welsh when a monoglot English person walks in . Impossible to do, of course, because you would have to ask everyone on entering whether they can only speak English and then give a signal, which just shows how daft the concept is in the first place. But if it could be well-publicised beforehand, so everyone is in on the joke (English and Welsh speakers)… maybe just in one town then?
For the second time in a few days I ended up chatting with a garage receptionist (on both occasions, ending up with handing over a terrifying amount of money ). Today our conversation started with my asking “Wyt ti’n siarad Cymraeg?” She answered apologetically (in Welsh !) that she was learning in Welsh but that a) she found mutations a stumbling block and that b) her teachers had said that she MUST learn them. I don’t think I need to go over my response to this approach because it has been rehearsed so often in our community.
Suffice it to say that I identified myself as a fellow learner and that I had experienced the same stultifying approach in formal lessons, but that I had found the approach of SSiW liberating, effective and confidence-building. We had quite a bit of time to talk (as I waited for my bill to mount up ) so she logged on to the SSi site as we were chatting. She seemed genuinely taken with the site and enthused to restart her learning. She has other incentives which I won’t share for privacy reasons.
She was, I think, another ideal candidate for my “Unlock your inner Welsh” slogan. (plug, plug )
EDIT: Am i still right to say that the first level (24-ish leassons) are free and that people can follow subsequent levels for a modest monthly payment? If not, I need to change my sales pitch.
I always say this too (well, actually I say 26 lessons because I still think about the old northern course) but I think it’s still the same deal with about a £3.99 monthly fee from level 2 ymlaen. Is it?
This morning in Swansea, I was chatting to a first language friend who is originally from the Llyn Peninsular. I was checking out if some of my Northern Welsh was correct. “How do you know these things?” she asked. The rest is history as they say.
OK, she’s unlikely to need SSiW, herself, but who knows which of her friends might. They all seem to use her as a Welsh Dictionary
and before he took the stage someone asked me to remind them how I learned Welsh, “what was that app called?”, so I started to explain all about SSiW and before I knew it there were 4 people crowded around intently listening and taking notes. One guy said he goes to a local class and finds it a little slow. Hopefully they’ll get on it, we’ll see. You can lead a horse to water …
I went for number 16 of 19 injections that I have to have at Glangwili Hospital today. They take 5 minutes to administer as it needs to be done slowly. The best way for me to get through it is to talk - non-stop - so what did I talk about today? Bootcamp of course, and all the people learning with SSiW and coming from countries like Australia and the US to live for a week with no English at all.
The nurse was from Cardiff, having moved to Caerfyrddin 5 weeks ago, and spoke no Welsh. She said she and another English nurse had agreed that they really needed to learn in order to give the best service to their patients and hey presto! I just happened to have a couple of SSiW business cards left in my wallet. She also mentioned that the Welsh government might be funding nurses to learn Welsh in the near future. Could this be an opportunity for SSiW?
… so I was looking for a Welsh birthday card on Monday and I popped into a bookshop in Rhuthun and was greeted in Welsh as I walked through the door. Anyway a nice conversation ensued, in which I was offered a choice of suitable cards and I happened to mention that I was living in Lancashire … i.e. over the border in England.
Apparently, living in England and using Welsh as a normal language of conversation with local Welsh speakers in a small market town counts as somewhat exceptional. So, it was assumed that I must be Welsh … maybe I had moved to England later in life? Hence, I managed to create an even greater impact after clarifying that I had, in fact, grown up in England, speaking English.
I did, of course, acknowledge the origins of my Grandfather’s family in the area around Wrecsam - but that is simply a motivation for me to “reconnect with roots”. There weren’t any Welsh speakers in the family around me when I grew up.
So, of course, I was able to credit the twin pillars of SSiW and the Saith Seren (Welsh Centre/pub) in Wrecsam for my journey to where I am now. I was happy to hear that Sioned in “Siop Elfair” already knew of both SSiW and Saith Seren, but it was nice to be able to demonstrate the link between the learning method and the outcome - all entirely in Welsh
The next time that Sioned, the helpful and friendly shop lady, comes across someone who needs to learn Welsh effectively, she can tell them about the middle-aged bloke who popped into her shop and chatted his head off in “fluent” Welsh [her words, not mine] and turned out to have grown up in England, in English and only learned a couple of years back - using SSiW followed by the Saith Seren.
. Impossible to do, of course, because you would have to ask everyone on entering whether they can only speak English and then give a signal, which just shows how daft the concept is in the first place. But if it could be well-publicised beforehand, so everyone is in on the joke (English and Welsh speakers)… maybe just in one town then?
) so she logged on to the SSi site as we were chatting. She seemed genuinely taken with the site and enthused to restart her learning. She has other incentives which I won’t share for privacy reasons.
Aw, diolch!
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and turned out to have grown up in England, in English and only learned a couple of years back - using SSiW followed by the Saith Seren.