When I post some of my work to Internet and then publish links to it I always fear quite a lot it will appear as if I’m praising myself too much however I’ll go with this this time and put some (unneccessary) challenges I’ve put infront of me and did them afterwards (as that those @aran and @iestyn are preparing for us aren’t taugh enough and “bittering” at times already )
You may very well use this topic (so we keep forum clear of double topics) to post your such challenges (no matter how small they might seam to you) in here.
I finally found that courage to put mine here for you to (honestly) judge.
My first challenge:
It was last year’s Six Nations match with France ahead and I really wanted Cymru to win this match. I was excited and kind of knew they will win (as they did afterwards) and to confirm my excitment I’ve put this challenge for me to fulfill:
If @WelshRugbyUnion team (no if, they will) wins this weekend I promise I'll put all my effort into my #Welsh to write little blog entry.
As I (almost) always keep a promise (if I can) I did what I've publicly promissed to do. It was not an easy task and I (shamefully) spent 4 hours to complete it with all sorts of help as you'll read. And I have to admit I've edited it just today as I know (at least a bit) more of a language I did a year ago.
I’ve published link to the entry on twitter after I finished it however strongly hoped only few people actually saw it knowing that posts there are swiftly “lost”.
Well, I hope you won’t shed too many tears upon how I ruined Cymraeg language and grammar or you’d be too angry with trash I’ve made out of beautiful language as Cymraeg is. But please don’t only say “brilliant”. Criticism highly welcomed and appriciated, correction from which I could learn even more.
Da iawn Tatjana! I think it takes enormous courage to write publically in another language and you’re doing it in two - English here and Cymraeg on your blog.
There’s one little thing that you repeat a few times and it would improve your blog to alter it. Instead of “Dw i’n gallwn i ysgrifennu” you just need "Dw i’n gallu ysgrifennu’ (I can write) or “Gallwn i ysgrifennu” (I could write) ond da iawn ti!
Diolch o galon @Deborah-SSi a @faithless78. (hope I’ve put this right - never used this phrase before).
It didn’t even take so much courage to write things down and publish them however when wonderring if I should post link to the blog here or not it took me quite amount of thinking and ponderring my thoughts whether it’s suitable to do so or not. More then gatherring courage I waged thoughts about if it’s too soon to do so, would it appear of too much self praising and actually blog is real trash which will make native Cymraeg speakers and good learners cry … That’s why it took me more then a year to decide and post the link here.
The deceision to put it here was brought after such a long time also because I can be prety “good” writer in any language I’ve learnt but when it comes to speaking I burn out in a minute or so, so people could wrongly think I’m fantastic speaking partner who knows quite amount of language what would be totally false appearance of me though.
While writing, you have more time to think, have more space to get any help you can remember of, when speaking it has to be as swift as possible (if possible) and that’s harder to do and really takes quite some courage. (at least what concerns me though although I’m not afraid to speak publicly in any language I’ve learnt).
I wanted to use this, yes but obviously this “Dwi’n” is glued to my mind and doesn’t go away even when it should go.
I’m really very thankful for any feedback and I appriciate very much your very detailed and useful feedback you’ve posted to me yesterday @faithless78. I can really learn from it as I’ve written to you back in PM and I’ll be hard at work to correct mistakes, however not yet. I’ll leave the article for short periode as it is yet so people can see things and maybe post something in here and then I’ll do the correction.
I was on kind of vacations this week as I took the whole week off from work and I decided to go Cymraeg this week just for fun of it and to establish how much I really can do.
For day 1 I thought it would be just fine to listen to Radio Cymru so I switched my computer to it and wualla! my house was somehow filled with the Cymraeg speach all of a sudden. I have to say I somehow could pick quite some words from it all and listening to the novel read somewhere in the middle of the morning was interesting although I didn’t quite understand what’s going on. I sat behind the computer almost all the time and listen carefully to the program though and even managed to write some tweets to Radio Cymru, first in English but when they replied in Cymraeg I just couldnt’t resist to reply back also in Cymraeg. And to my satisfaction (ups) my tweets were even read on the air. Have to say I didn’t use Google Translate for that part too much but rather write on my own just checking word order from time to time. - I was somehow (yah … somehow again) satisfied with how much I can pick from ordinary speach so I can mark the day as successful exercise.
Day 2 was really strange. I couldn’t sit all day at the computer and listen to something so, despite my phone doesn’t have too long-living batery, I put the phone into the pocket and as I walked around in the house I did mixed listening and speaking practices from the site (mixed means Course 1 and 2 and Level 1). What I found out doing this was
While I’m doing something else I can listen but when comes to speaking this is tricky part. - can mark as not satisfied at all.
I can remember and use things I’ve learnt just recently no matter how often I use those words and phrases but can’t remember old things which I repeated and used many times in the past. I couldn’t sometimes remember even really simple things like gneud or dweud which are first things you ever learn and use them almost all the time from that time on. - can mark as not satisfied also and kind of strange.
It can very easily be I was a bit stressed though as my computer went to waste and phone was the only thing I actually had to go with.
Day 3 I thought as day 2 wasn’t too successful in my eyes, I’d use some Anki cards package I’ve made some time ago and do some words refreshing by study that deck of flash cards. There’s no clue what Anki program will give you to study so you’re without the clue what comes next and you just have to remember the words and phrases on your own. If you’re honest to yourself and don’t turn card around before remembering the answer you can do prety good work in study and if you mark your progress honestly too of course. (those who use Anki for studying things will know what I’m talking about). - I was prety satisfied again but some things which I should know if you wake me up at midnight just couldn’t go into my memory satisfyingly enough.
Day 4 is today and I decided to listen to Radio Cymru again. it can be that there was linguistically more simple program i was listening to at the time as I could pick quite more things from as I did on day 1. This time I’ve challenged myself with letting radio to play in the background doing my ordinary work, walking around the house not putting too much attention to what I’m actually listening to. That was fun but was shorter event as my son came home and he put his own music on. The fortune is we both like quite same sort of music so it was not disturbing at all (he’s 16 by the way). - I believe I can mark this day as satisfying also.
Tomorrow is day 5 final day and then I’ll take a break for the weekend. I’ve stumbled upon some old poems I’ve written some time ago. They’re prety simple and mostly contain most of the words and phrases I’ve already learnt in Cymraeg so I might challenge my brains to the top level by translating one of it. If not I didn’t think of any alternative thing yet but you’ll surely hear from me when the day is behind me. It could be chat on Skype but my computer is dead. What a pice of computer I’m writing this on now could hardly be called as computer so Skype chat is not possible at all and I don’t want to use Skype on my phone much though.
Well, this is it. Fun with a bit frustration at some points but still … fun.
Day 5 didn’t look like I’ll do any special thing at the beginning though. I went to the town and did some things which were neccessary to be done (my dead computer’s fault as I’ve lost all digital certificates I had ) but when I came home I decided I’ll just plug my phone into electricity and listen to Radio Cymru again. The enjoyable novel reading again and jolly Bore Cothi presenter that was the pleasant mix of listening while cooking lunch for all three of us. Nope, no tweets this time (they at Radio Cymru could be tired of my tweets as they probably are too boaring)
But … I’ve listened to the radio already on Monday and yesterday so here has to be more to be done I thought to myself so I went to that poem translation and finished it just right now. Well, I only translated first part of it as the second is quite tricky to do so. Here’s English original (yes I originally have written it in English and not in Slovene) and beneath is the first part of it in Cymraeg.
A friend
Walk with me
And I will walk with you.
Be my friend,
And I’ll be friend to you.
Give respect
And I’ll respect you too.
Bring me peace
Andi I’ll bring it to you…
Love the ones you love
And I’ll love them too.
Be honest
And I’ll be too.
Treasures to give are not needed
Just friendship and homesty will do.
Mae ffrind
Cerdded gyda fi
A bydda i’n cerdded gyda ti.
Fod ffrind i fy
A bydda i’n ffrind gyda ti.
Rhoi mae parch
A bydda i’n parch ti hefyd.
Dod a heddwch i fi.
A bydda i’n dod a fe i ti.
Feedback highly appriciated as always.
So this was my Cymraeg week.
Thank you for reading and (potentially) commenting.
Now one silly challenge - silly because I believe almost everyone can write this word down however I had quite some dificulties with it.
Since I am very happy when someone acheaves something great I don’t waste my time to congratulate that person for their acheavement. I tend to do this in their native language if possible and since I learn Cymraeg I just wanted to be able to write “Llongyfarchiadau!” down correctly too.
This was my long term challenge - to be able to write this word down without looking into dictionary, Google Translate or whatever.
Now I finally could do this typing as fast as I can and only when once written down, proving it with the dictionary if it’s written correctly.
Well, this long term challenge is obviously done and the word spelling finally sticks in me.
Today I found one picture on which I was surprised to find one poem I (obviously) have written it a while ago probably when I was in the same desperate state of mind (or even bigger) then I am today. The poem is originally written in English by me and all of a sudden I’ve got huge wish to translate it into Cymraeg (with a little help of dictionary and Google translate to search the proper words and proofreading of course). It took me about an hour and half but did I do at least a bit of good work or not you’ll tell me.
Corrections, suggestions and criticism highly appriciated as always.
So here it is - the picture, the poem and the translation - all in one, all made by me (picture aswell).
This is amazing, Tatjana. You beat yourself up about how slowly you are progressing, and then you come up with this. I don’t dare to write poetry in my mother tongue, let alone translate from one foreign language to another!
I wouldn’t dare to correct or criticise but might suggest (and my written Welsh isn’t great!) you begin with
O boy! Thank you @margaretnock! I was questioning those two (as I did the whole my poem translation) but then somehow sticked to the fact that Mae somehow has to be in each sentence. However poetry somehow can be without rules so yes, I’d say this is good suggestion.
And, why not dare to write a poetry in at least your first language. You’d be surprised what comes out if you let your thoughts flow and pure down to the paper or computer/phone screen in our modern age.
Tatjana, this is beautiful. Let that beauty and this impressive accomplishment pull you out of the “anobaith”. I think all of here wish we could make you see how false the vision you have of yourself is…
Diolch yn fawr iawn @AnnaC. I’m trying (however obviously not hard enough) to pull myself out of this, but if you live almost your entire life in the society where you have to proove yourself on daily basis even more being disabled and in the childhood there were people around who constantly told you you do not do things well enough, then it’s a bit hard to get out of (I can clearly say) perfectionists habit.
Well, sometimes I already am managing to get out of this habit and confess I did something right or good. As a matter in fact, I do like this painting “behind” the poems since I have no true painting abilities and talents but with modern technology, right painting program and brushes to disposal even someone like me can do something good if enough effort is put into the making.
Well, I think the translation of the poem is quite good and I appriciate comments of you all. However if one thinks it’s not, I’m expecting correction from that one.
And … you’re all the best including those who might not like me particularly. I like you all and your comments are highly appriciated.
I’ve sat on the bus yesterday and 2 rows in front of me was group of a bit older wimen. I could almost swear they were from Cymru. I believe they spoke Cymraeg as I could recognize some words like dishgwl, delen i etc …
Don’t shout “chwych!” immediatelly because there was nothing like me speaking to them involved. My challenge was even to listen to them as they were obviously in A VERY GOOD MOOD and almost laughed their souls out especially one of them. I was amuzed with their laughter, brightening my day but one man sitting right behind them was obviously annoyed so much that in the middle of the drive he went to sit somewhere in the back.
I didn’t dare to even open my mouth not much because of there would be nothing to say but mostly because I’m always afraid how one might react. You know, it’s a bit strange one just sit near saying “May I ask you something? Are you from Wales?” So I rather held my mouth shut despite I even made a plan in my head what I might say and how.
Well, lost opportunity which might never be in sight again …
But as I’ve said, even listening to that group was a challenge itself.
My challenge in this week I’ve came back from holidays was how to get me a new (beast) machine … HAHA
No, I’m kidding despite I’ve got me a new PC though and the challenge was also how to cope with installing all the programs I had on privious laptop and how force them to work due to Windows 8 …
Here goes the challenge:
I’ve done 7 days free tips from Benny Lewis (more about this here: Get 7 days of tips from Benny Lewis and help SSi at the same time! (Read carefully)) and as the final task you get to actual speaking the target language - in this case Cymraeg. I won’t tell you what comes in the middle - from the beginning to this point, you rather see for yourself, but it’s nothing scarry, believe me. Making and sharing video of your actual speach is what is the final product of it and OH OH … here’s mine. I’m warning you that it sounds more like I’d speak Slovene or maybe some other Slavic language then cymraeg but - HURRAY! - this was my first actual speach.
Uhh … now … here it is:
Yah, yah, I know - “dysgu” is something like “dyski” and not “dysghi” etc, etc … and my Slavic origin is VERY WELL present … I also have to say that I only practiced approximately 5 or so minutes before recording. And yes - HAHA - I’ve recorded 3 or 4 videos before deciding this one was the best.
Ah, and, of course, I had to share my video here too: fi3mplus.com
As always criticism and those stuff highly appriciated …
Thank you. It was 7 in the morning, 5 minutes of recording several videos so I could hear how I’m actually talking and that was it. But yah, it’s not even near to what I wanted to be but … smile at the end prevailed to choos that one videl. - hehe.
Actually only a few things on my comp to be sorted out and I’ll be ready to chat again. So, yes, I’m looking forward to practice a bit.
Not so near future, believe me. My slovene accent is horribly present.
Out for a bit laughing - I tired to say a sentence or two in Italian and German aswell but ended up laughing upon my blurts … so this additional things will be on waiting list for now.
I admire your determination and eagerness for information and knowledge of all kinds regarding Cymraeg. I bet you can do better then me!
)
