New course 1 differences

Aha! Bulls who respond to red flags always end up very good Welsh speakers…:wink:

Welsh speaker replies, ‘Ffantastig! Pa mor hir dach chi’di bod yn dysgu?’

I understood ‘Ffantastig’.

I understood ‘Ffantastig’.

Exactly. And you’re at the end of Course 2! But this sentence is one of the first things you’re likely to hear when you talk Welsh to someone - ‘how long have you been learning?’

People doing the new stuff will be able to understand that, and say a small mountain of things in response, by the time they’ve got up to Challenge 7…:slight_smile:

and the length of sentences increased more rapidly

Oh grief yes; I just did L2, and the sentence length difference from how I remember the old C1 being is drastic.

(As a side note, I rather like the intro-outro music change)

I like the approach to the new course. The old course essentially turned me into a Welsh speaker, and I have a good sense of humour so loved the approach with purple dogs and so on. My only issue with it was that stuff you hear all the time in spoken Welsh (alla i/ fedra i for example) and also many of the contractions 'di for wedi, and 'im for ddim came in much later. This might have been perfect - it worked for me after all, but because they are so common in every day speech I found it was tricky for me to catch stuff on TV and radio until quite far into the course. The new course addresses this, so is naturally an improvement, as all rewrites usually are. I wonder though if they very kind and gentle way the old first course worked might be why I got on so well - the time it took to lay the foundation before going into contractions, short forms.

It’s all good because now we have all the courses, old and new, and together they just reinforce each other. The old course is already a “classic album” as far I’m concerned anyway - far and away the most effective language I have ever done.

Diolch o galon, Bontddu…:slight_smile:

I wonder though if they very kind and gentle way the old first course worked might be why I got on so well

One of the things we’ll be in a better position to do by the end of the year will be vary certain factors in the new material, and do some A/B testing to see what impact they have on learners - we might even end up being able to offer an easy/moderate/challenging set of options, that kind of stuff…:slight_smile:

I’m doing C1L3bis right now, and I’m seeing a huge difference in (perceived) usefulness. I was curious as to whether the effort you were all putting in to the new course was worth it, but now it seems it’s a resounding “yes” from me. Thank you, can’t wait for L4+.

(I also think the difficulty has shot up, these seem like far longer sentences, but it’s difficult to judge)

Mae’n blin 'da fi / ddrwg gen I
Through no-one’s fault but my own, the current version of the new Course 1 Lesson 3 South contains a couple of repetitions (which don’t seem to be too confusing fortunately.)
I’ve supplied Iestyn with a corrected version (thanks to our vigilant checkers) which he can publish when he has finished booting people at the April Bootcamp.
Huw

I’ve just been doing the northern lesson 4 (primarily to hear some of the northern ways of saying things), but using the southern Welsh, and I’ve noticed there’s one pattern that never came up even as late in as course 3: different ways of using dal. In course 2, it was introduced as still doing something, or keeping something, but we were never told how to use it as introduced in lesson 4 in the new course - I still have/I still have to. Just one question: would it be “Mae x dal 'da fi” and “Mae dal yn rhaid i fi x” for those of us on the southern course? That’s what I was using, but I just wanted to make sure.

Thanks Huw, that was quick - you’re a star! I was just about to try and make a note of the couple of mini-glitches.

Hector, yup, you’re spot on there with both of those…:slight_smile:

but now it seems it’s a resounding “yes” from me

Diolch, Kev! It’s great to get that kind of feedback from a wary/careful tester…:-))

I’ve just had my first listen to the new Lesson 1 (Southern) and I think it’s great! I didn’t realise you could use ‘dal’ exactly like that, so straight up after completing all the Course 3 lessons available weeks ago, I go to the new Lesson 1 and learn something really useful!!

It’s hard to put yourself into the shoes of a raw beginner, but I can imagine getting to the end of Lesson 1 and feeling a real sense of accomplishment too at being able to get those combinations of sentences out.

I’m feeling a little frustrated at the moment and also somewhat stupid! I’m almost finished course 3 and on Dee’s recommendation I started level I (Southern) - which I enjoyed -.However this morning when I clicked on to level 1 I can only find the northern version. No matter how many times I tried coming at it from other angles I can only find the Northern version. What am I doing wrong???

Are you looking for lesson 4 or beyond? Only the first three are up there. I also noticed that if you just click ‘level 1(new)’ the initial page only gives you North - but clicking 1-3 gives you the South too.

I’ve finished course 3 (southern) and today I’ve started the new level 1. I’ve definitely learnt a few new things which is great.

I feel the content is slightly better than the old course, but for some reason it seems harder and faster paced to what I remember of the old course. But that could be a trick of my mind. But I still think it seems excellent and slicker.

One question though. The use of ‘still’, we use ‘dal yn…’

From the old courses we mainly used the phrase ‘still believing’ which I think the welsh was ‘dal i gredu’.

Any reason for the use of ‘yn’ as opposed to ‘i’ after ‘dal’?

I’ve finished course 3 (southern) and today I’ve started the new level 1.

Llongyfarchiadau mawr iawn iawn! That’s one heck of an achievement…:seren:

In the original framework, session 1 has ‘dal isio’ and ‘dal angen’ - no ‘yn’ required - how is that coming over in the southern version?

Unless I’m totally imagining it (which will be worrying as I was driving at the time) there were several sentences along the lines:

I still want to…

excuse spelling

Dwi dal yn moin…

Aha, the old ‘moyn’ thing rearing its ugly head again!

Iestyn will be able to throw more light on this, but my guess would be that ‘moyn’ just kind of nudges you into behaving a little differently, because ‘dal i foyn’ just doesn’t exist - ‘dal i ymofyn’ would work if anyone ever used ‘ymofyn’ any more, but moyn just kind of behaves oddly.

But yup, most verbs you’d use it with would go ‘dal i’ - dal i feddwl, dal i siarad, dal i aros…:slight_smile:

Ah, thanks for the explanation - very much appreciated. I wasn’t worried and sort of hoped it was just an anomaly. But ‘still’ I wanted to check as it is a useful word to use :slight_smile:

If I remember correctly, Iestyn ummed and ahhed a bit originally about whether moyn ought to be ‘dwi moyn’ or ‘dwi’n moyn’ - so go ahead and use/abuse it however you feel like, it’ll all come out in the wash…:slight_smile: