[now starting to publish] Level 3 northern

[Y_Ddraig_Las]

But why oh why on an important chwe gwlad weekend! Great, I think i'm pleased about the pace pick up, I may disagree once I go through these.

[AnthonyCusack]

The not correcting mistakes bit is what needs to be addressed, I feel. I attend an Uwch evening class twice a week. One of the teachers is extremely strict and you leave feeling less confident not like your Welsh is progressing.

At the moment a lot of the classes have been focused on prepositions (I think that's what they're call) the ar, at, yn etc. Arddodiad in Welsh, but I'm not too hot on grammar in any language.

This particular teacher will correct every gender mistake. To be honest, I don't care if it's ynddi or ynddo- if I've said a form of yn people know what I mean. I'll learn the rest as I go. We're not going to be perfect from the beginning.

That's what's so refreshing about this programme is that, you make mistakes, move on and through usage find the right form. I really feel that's the major failing of classes. Too much drive for perfect and not enough natural speaking practice.

[Pete2]

Agree totally. Yesterday i swear noone would have guessed me and @Sam84 were two learners having a coffee and chat.

We talked about lots of things.

Holidays
Mini bwtcamp
Children
Ssiw
The ssiw party
Etc

And of course mistakes were made. But so what. We understood each other perfectly well.

[AnthonyCusack]

Even if they did, I don't think there's any harm in people thinking you're a learner. I would love to be able to speak Welsh the way so many Europeans speak English. They make mistakes but it's not an issue at all. I quite like talking to first language speakers about being a learner. You can see the warmth when they realise someone from over the border, that ever present "other", is learning Welsh. That's a nice feeling.

[AnthonyCusack]

Lesson 3, 4, and 5 today. I'm really enjoying the patterns. The vocal is good exposure and I finally remember what hyd yn oed means now without looking it up each time.

[Pete2]

Just a quick one

Is 'na dydan ni ddim....' essentially the same as 'bod ni ddim'?

[AnthonyCusack]

pretty much.

Although it's more grammatically correct to say nad ydan ni ddim than bod ni ddim. Grammatically you'd use "nid" (I think)

However, I'm very open to being wrong on this, grammar doesn't really interest me. I think in terms of understanding in spoken Welsh, they're pretty much the same.

[aran]

I can't think off the top of my head of any time you'd say 'nad ydyn ni ddim' that you couldn't replace with 'bod ni ddim' without anyone really noticing...

[Pete2]

Thanks aran. I thought so. But just checking!

[margaretwerdermann]

Just a quick question about L3 Challenge 4. The sentence, "How high do you want to climb before you stop?" (or variations of that) is repeated fairly often. In Cymraeg, you're saying, "Pa mor uchel wyt TI eisiau dringo cyn i CHI stopio?"

I'm wondering about why it changes from "ti" at the beginning of the sentence to "chi" at the end. (...or, are you actually saying "chdi" and I'm not hearing it correctly?)

Not a criticism - just curiosity.

[aran]

In Cymraeg, you're saying, "Pa mor uchel wyt TI eisiau dringo cyn i CHI stopio?"

Ah, good catch! That looks as though a couple of elements that shouldn't have gone together have accidentally been matched... we'll put it on the 'fix it' list! Diolch!

[aran]

[Although I suppose if we really wanted to wriggle, we could claim that the first 'ti' was referring to a single person, and then the 'chi' to a plural - so 'how high do you personally want to climb before you (as a group) stop'...]

[margaretwerdermann]

Thanks, Aran. I'm glad I wasn't getting confused.

As for your wriggle room, though, I had actually tried to wrap my brain around that possibility; but I kind of dismissed it as unlikely.

[OlwenR]

Any news on when level 3 South will be available (not that I feel ready for it yet - I am going back over some of the stuff that went over the top of my head halfway through level 1 at the moment. It's making a lot more sense the second time round!)

[Y_Ddraig_Las]

wyt TI

See. see. Knowing 'wyt ti' wasn't so useless after all!
To be honest, I never know whether you are going to use ti neu chi, so i didn't notice!

shouldn't have gone together have accidentally been matched

Do you not record the whole sentences?

Also just killing the cat really. Do you and Catrin record your bits separately without knowing what the other has said? (the impression is that you are sitting next to each other)? Sometimes they don't match. For example Catrin will say 'iddi' and Aran will say 'iddi hi'. Not that it matters, the differences are incredibly useful!

Finally how intentional are the different pronunciations. In particular gwyliau - I say 'E-ai'' and so does Catrin (so I'm not 'wrong') and Aran says 'E-ah'. You two live together or do these things get that hard wired into your speech?

Challenge 6 done and dusted!

[aran]

Any news on when level 3 South will be available

Work has started on it, but we're just implementing one last (I hope!) fairly major shift in the course creation tool - should be running in its new form in a couple of weeks, at which point Iestyn will be able to carry on, and it shouldn't be too long before we start to publish new southern sessions...

Do you not record the whole sentences?

Yes, we do, but if there's a ti/chi shift slipped into the text, it's pretty easy to miss it when recording. It's at the sentence building stage that the hiccup would have happened.

For example Catrin will say 'iddi' and Aran will say 'iddi hi'.

This is usually deliberate - we record separately, and Catrin goes with whatever the text says, while I'll try to freeform known variations into it to give you added exposure...

In particular gwyliau - I say 'E-ai'' and so does Catrin (so I'm not 'wrong') and Aran says 'E-ah'.

That's Catrin getting a little formal when a microphone is in front of her... In general, she's probably the strongest single influence on my accent, but we certainly don't (and probably never will) match perfectly...

[Pete2]

certainly don't (and probably never will) match perfectly..

I beg to differ. You two are a perfect match

[margaretwerdermann]

It's making a lot more sense the second time round!

I felt the same way. When I got to the end of Level 2 (Northern) and was waiting for Level 3, I started at the beginning of the old Course 1. By the time Level 3 arrived, I felt much more confident with my base knowledge.

[margaretwerdermann]

Catrin goes with whatever the text says, while I'll try to freeform known variations into it to give you added exposure

Brilliant system! LOVE it!

[AnthonyCusack]

I really enjoy that they say things differently too I like hearing the -af endings from Catrin but tend to drop the f like Aran does. I then sometimes seem to add my own third version - for example "stopio" instead of "stop-ee-o" I tend to say "stop-o". That might be because I live in the South and went to the bootcamp in Tresaeth or just my free-styling...who knows?!

I really enjoy the regional differences. Used to see them as a mountain to climb, now as an added option for when I'm talking.