i have hit a glitch! I resolved to do as many Challenges each day as possible. I was going to start on Ionawr y cyntaf, but had some time today and decided to start. I’d redo from the beginning but Gogledd instead of De! Gwych! Getting along lovely. Then my little poodle, bored, decided she did not like all this talking to the iPad and just saying what it said! In the end I had to give up and take her to the back door in case she really needed to go out! She didn’t! I ended up doing only Challenge 1!! At this rate I’ll be skyping in years, not weeks!!
Da iawn ti! But no getting discouraged before it is even New Years Day! 
Maybe you can bribe Toffi with some treats so she’ll stay quiet 
Just think, even if you only do one challenge most days, you could be done with Level 1 by the end of January!
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Diolch for the encouragement! I don’t think bribery the best policy if I can avoid it!
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YES! I knew this just have to come!
Da iawn ti!
Next resolution: Skype conversation.
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Blwyddyn Newydd nesa (2018) at this rate!! 
Toffi sleeps peacefully as I type on laptop. I bet if I start a Challenge she’ll be up and jumping! “Paid naid” are the Welsh words most often said in this house!!
Later
@aran Finished Challenge 1.2 Gogledd. Question - if I keep saying nawr,rwan alla,fedra and other such de/gog mixes, am I cheating and if I was skyping a learner of the Northern ilk, would he or she have the faintest idea what was wrong with me or what I was trying to say?
@tatjana, at bootcamp and Eisteddfod, how did you get on with folk who had learned the other version?
You will gather that the de version pops out, to be instantly corrected, by which time I am in sync with Catrin!!!
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I’m not Aran, but from what I’ve heard repeatedly, there’s no big uniform “Gog” area and another big uniform “De” area – in actual life, people say all sorts of things. Especially in the middle of the country, so I’m told, people will – unsurprisingly – say both things you might find in a “Gog” textbook and other things you might find in a “De” textbook.
I just say whatever comes to my mind, whether it’s “Fedra i ddim” one sentence and “dw i’n gallu” the next. I figure that people will understand both “sidewalk” and “pavement”, regardless of which one they tend to use themselves
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To be honest, I was very ignorant of the versions regardless did I listen to someone or talk to them. I said what came to my mind and to be even more honest, I can’t actually remember which version one was talking to me. I just somehow understood them all more likely then didn’t understand anything at all. I’m actually in quite accordance to what I once said: it’s only Cymraeg for me, whether gog or de and I didn’t tend to adapt much. Whatever I’ve heard speaking I most likely repeated at some occassion so … I guess I’ve got with all just fine or they secretly rolled their eyes muttering “Oh, this woman doesn’t have even slidest idea about Cymraeg.” what, actually wouldn’t surprise me at all. Bad sight can be handy here as I don’t see such details …oh, but, yes, my other senses are very ken to sense such things and I for one didn’t sense any “missbehaviour” toward my Cymraeg. I was probably lucky enough and was actually never corrected. I was corrected with my English by @margaretnock what was actually great thing. Learning goes through entire life especially when learning languages.
(End of my expertise - LOL).
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they would be perfectly happy that some one else does the same as them, use what jumps to mind or mouth and paid a phoeni amdani. So make that resolution soon , just for fun you could make the first skype a joint call with Tatjana and me (plus any other takers) bydda di’n dysgu, sut i chwerthin amdani.
Cheers J.P.
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@henddraig, I Skype with my friend in Powys every week (both learners). I speak Gog, and she speaks De. There have been very few times that either of us hasn’t understood what the other was trying to communicate. Usually, we can figure out what a word means from context. When we do run into a word that “doesn’t compute,” we just ask; and then we’ve learned a new word to understand next time.
I agree with what a lot of people on these forums are saying - there’s really not that big a difference between Gog and De if you put in just a bit of effort to try to understand each other.
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Diolch yn fawr, pawb! I suppose what I was really asking @aran was whether I was cheating myself in thinking I was zooming along through the northern Challenges with no pauses if what I actually say is often pure southern or that with the gog spluttered out after it. I do know mixing per se is not ofnadwy. (How’s that for 3 languages in one short sentence?), I just wonder if I am actually learning anything properly.
Ah well, it’s still 2016 and I hope to finish Challenge 1.3 this afternoon! Noway will I ever compete with @Novem!!!
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I think you can stop stressing about “properly” and just speak whatever Welsh works for you. I’m sure it will work for everyone else too Da iawn for doing two more Challenges!
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No, as everyone else has said, that’s absolutely fine. I mean, if you were going in for some kind of competition in which you got shot if you said something in southern instead of northern, it wouldn’t work - but since we don’t tend to shoot people who are talking Welsh to us in real life, you’ll be fine just saying whatever comes to mind first…
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Diolch yn fawr!! I started to think that I wasn’t really doing anything to improve my Welsh, but if I just say what pops out without fretting about de or gog, then whistling along without the pause button is certainly possible for now,
Whether I’ll finish 1.4 today, I don’t know as Dydd Calan (New Year’s Day) is the holiday up here and people call and I have to cook duck with trimmings because our very Scottish friend doesn’t like steak pie, which is apparently the traditional thing to eat!!
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quite a few… Redo level 3 Welsh (advanced course) do level 2 in Spanish and learn some Polish (which is now officially the UK mainlands 2nd language) I live in Wrecsam and somedays I hear more Polish being spoken in the town than English (I think that they’re even chattier than us locals ) I’ve got a couple of Polish freinds and sometimes buy saurkraut sausages and strong beers from Polish supermarkets …so plenty of people to practice on …I think it’s going to be quite difficult as although there appears to be a wealth of learning rescources online I have yet to find a SSI style method HINT
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found one … Michel Thomas The Polish introductory course is free on Youtube. Very similar to SSI method but a bit rougher round the edges
Good luck- lwc dda! I have a Polish friend and I can’t pronounce anything she tells me!
Well, 1.5 done and listened to Practice.
May I say, @aran, and @CatrinLliarJones that I truly appreciate the clarity of diction achieved by you both. Never once have I been unsure what you have said!! This does make it easier to repeat. I’m afraid I still come out with the de Cymru version often, but I do find I catch on to things heard on S4C much quicker. I knew, in theory, for example, the meaning of angen, but now it auto-registers in my brain as ‘need’ without comscious translation! Diolch yn fawr. I’ll be a lingustic Gog at this rate… maybe!! 
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This is something we’d very much like to do (along with making the Welsh course available through the medium of Polish) - probably not likely in the immediate future, but with a bit of luck and a following wind there might be the odd piece out at some point this year…
Interesting - Polish was actually Michel Thomas’s first language (and he spoke every other language he knew in a thick Polish accent… ), although I doubt if that was one made by MT himself. I guess it’s one of the “Michel Thomas Method” courses?
…I had a quick listen on Youtube, and no, that isn’t MT himself. It might have been interesting to hear him doing Polish.
(Although I read in a book about him that he’d gone to live and study in Germany at a young age, and German became a sort of second first language to him).
From what I’ve heard, Polish grammar makes German grammar seem easy.
Of course, with the SSi approach, that shouldn’t be a problem …
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