Well, I’ve been listening to the weekly podcasts of the BBC Radio Cymru Pigion (highlights) on a regular basis for well over half a year now, and I wonder if some people may find my progress encouraging - since we find not a few postings on the Forum from people concerned about how poorly they rate their own listening skills.
The best way by far to learn a language is total immersion. The next best way to improve one’s listening is … well … to listen as much as possible to real Welsh. It takes longer than total immersion in the native country, but for many of us, myself included, that’s the only option. It’s interesting and most pleasurable to see how much progress one can make in a few months.
I have gone through the following stages over the last few months whilst listening to BBC Radio Cymru Pigion:
Sounds like someone being sick in an unidentifiable Gaelic language.
Sounds like Welsh. Totally unintelligable, but rather pleasing to the ear.
Starting to recognise a few things that they taught me on SSiW. Blimey, those lessons weren’t fakes after all.
Starting to feel comfortable with the structure of the language, even though my vocabulary is too sparse to make any sense of it.
Starting to recognise more and more words, and even the odd phrase.
Starting to understand the subject of some of the articles, even though the majority of the contents eludes me.
As vocab expands, more and more is understood.
Opened a really, REALLY good bottle of gwin coch.
I am up to stage 6 above. I expect stage 7 to take a long time, but I just love looking back at the previous stages and saying “yeah!”
To everyone struggling with listening - keep at it. Everyone progresses at a different speed and it can take a long time. But eventually you’ll get there. I’m not there yet, but I’m confident.
And a listening question. The Pigion podcasts all end with what can roughly be translated as “…And that’s it for this week. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this podcast, and that it’s been useful and…” Well, I don’t get the next word. It sounds like “yn difyrichi”. No idea of the spelling, and I can’t find it in my dictionary. Can anyone help me please?
Wow… what quick answers. Thanks very much @Deborah-SSi and @siaronjames. I think that’s correct! And thanks @siaronjames for the inebriating encouragement!
You’re spot on with the stages @Baruch.
I’ve been listening to Ar y Marc podcast from Radio Cymru since starting SSIW…absolutely zero interest in football but find it a great way to hear the lang and different accents. Think i’m about a stage 3’r but also picking up some v v useful footie terms like 'sgorio’ and ‘cwpan y byd’
Just also started listening to Beti a’i phobol podcast and this morning, even though i didn’t understand the vast majority of what was being said, I did feel like somehow my brain was processing the flow of the conversation and ears pinged everytime a word i knew was spoken!
Great post @Baruch … so easy to feel down about what you can’t do and feel like you aren’t going forward, and forget to look back and see how much you’ve achieved and progressed
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…
…listen, hear, earwig, eavesdrop, understand, follow;
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…
… let anyone know I’m utterly lost in a pub conversation, can only “hear” sung lyrics in English or any language without putting on the subtitles, and then if I turn them off, the subtitles, I cannot hear those lyrics unless remembered word for word, especially popsingers and non MTanglophone singers singing in English.
…stand the exclusion, or be big and meditate, feel so sad and stupid.
…understand sign language, or follow it any better
UNLESS I am bubbling with confidence and enthusiasm, have momentum, am free of care… (in which case MAGIC happens)…
…excepte with unfamiliar song lyrics, possibly ever after. Amen.
I don’t know if it will help directly in conversation, but another programme which I think can be recommended to learners for listening practice is this:
Each programme is only 5 minutes, and in each one, he takes one or more Welsh words or phrases and examines their history, etc. He has a lovely clear voice, so very suitable for learners, but also for any lover of the language.
And if you click on “penodau” you will find many more episodes. And they don’t seem to disappear relatively quickly like most iPlayer programmes.
