I’m putting together an online grammar guide which is based on Mark Stonelake’s work for the Learn Welsh Swansea Bay and WJEC course books. It will be available for anyone to read for free and organised into bite-sized topics. Initially it will be in English, and then I aim to have it translated so that it becomes a bilingual grammar guide.
Before it goes live in a couple of weeks, I was wondering if there are any people who (gulp!) enjoy Welsh grammar and would like to have a look through a preview version and provide feedback?
Perffaith, diolch Sandra and hewrop. If you can pop me an email to parallel.cymru@gmail.com, I’ll send you a link on the weekend. I will appreciate your feedback, brave language pioneers!
Just to be clear to @neilrowlands and anyone else who might raise their eyebrows at me offering to help with a Welsh grammar project, I am a Welsh learner and shall be responding as such, so I won’t be qualified to comment on the “correctness” of the Welsh grammar. There are people much better placed to do that including one of the leading Welsh grammar authors who often contributes to this forum.
I have now received the material by e-mail and my first impression is that it is both concise (all the better for that) and very useful. I look forward to sending Neil my comments and impressions by e-mail by the end of this week.
Diolch Huw, that is a great clarification. This is not grammar instruction that I have written- if I wrote a Welsh grammar guide, it would only contain half a sentence, which would probably be ‘Pick another Grammar Guide’…
Yep, I’d like to get users and Welsh learners views on it prior to going live- does the table of contents relate well to the actual contents, are there topics missing, are there any explanations that are overly consise etc.
Thanks- Kinetic- received. PeterG- if you send me an email on parallel.cymru@gmail.com then you’re more than welcome to have a look through. I’ve put Mynediad level material on, and am progressing through Sylfaen at the moment- and then Canolradd and Uwch still to come!
Diolch Neil. Apologies, I thought I’d already sent the email yesterday but on checking today see I’ve received a bounceback - for some reason I sent it to hotmail rather than gmail… So much for my proofreading abilities! Anyway, I’ve sent the email to the correct address now!
Hi,
I started SSi in the summer (we moved to Cardiff in March) but became a bit bogged down by the long verbal strings. Sadly I too learn languages by grammatical analysis - being dyslexic, I find it difficult to learn long strings of verbs/words but if I can work out what I’m, saying and why, I off.
I started the Mynediad course in Oct (just found out a local centre then) and although good, our teacher, a native Welsh speaker, isn’t so hot on the grammar. I made my own verb cards but have come across anomalies and explanations seem difficult to come by. Not helped by most of the small class already having done some Welsh at school and 3 of us are absolute beginners. So any help on grammatical construction would be helpful. I hope to attend the speaking course at the uni on Feb 3rd so that might help.
Thanks Moira. I’m glad that you are attending classes and gaining benefit. As you go to different classes and day courses you will see that each tutor brings a different aspect to the class. Some are grammar experts; some bring joi de vrie; some are skilled at explaning things very simply; some have a wealth of experience of working and lving in the Welsh language; some can give lots of detail on a particular dialect.
If you have an appetite for grammar than I can recommend anything by Heini Gruffudd (http://parallel.cymru/?p=1428#grammar, http://www.ylolfa.com/authors/24/heini-gruffudd), or if you like technical details and have a spot of spare cash then Gareth King’s books are fantastic- Gareth is also an active member of this forum (garethrking).
WHat I’m putting together should be ready in a fortnight. It’s the grammar content from the Swansea Welsh for Adults course, sequenced and ordered. it wil be great for people to easily find items, reference things on the move, or support their primary study method.
I may well be at Cardiff’s day course on 02/03- they are well attended, with 80 at today’s course in Cardiff.
Thanks, I use the Welsh Learner’s Dictionary and wouldn’t be without it. An invaluable tool as I’ve started doing a Welsh diary every day. Probably my Welsh is up the shoot but it does help me to explore and learn.
