SSiEverything - where we go next (aka interesting times)

Welsh General / Questions
#1

I haven’t been quite as active on the forum as usual in the last few months - but there’s been a reason for that… :sunny:

We’ve been trying to crack some tricky problems. The main ones are:

  • how to automate the process of building a new course so that people can build them without needing input from me

  • how to get more materials published for our Welsh and Spanish courses

  • how to reach more new learners for Welsh and Spanish

There are some difficult bits in there. Automating the course creation process - well, don’t get me started on that…:wink: And getting new materials published runs into two main problems - Jeff’s time to do the mastering, and the availability of recording artists. And reaching new learners - put it this way, if you’re coming to the SSiW party in the Eisteddfod and you want to see me cry, just whisper ‘pay-per-click’ in my ear…

But this isn’t a rant.

This is about the solutions I think we’ve found… :sunny:

First up - we’ve cracked the automation for course creation. Oh, there’ll be little bits we can fine-tune, sure - but as of right now, the course creation tool (which we’ve slipped into the habit of referring to as the SSiBorg) is producing scripts which are as good as or better than our existing material.

Which means we are ready to start reaching out to volunteers again and building courses in new languages. The only bottleneck here is going to be the time our volunteers have to put in - but with the tool, what used to take me 8 or 9 months of work can now be done in about a week.

Second - we need to put some money into mastering and recording. Which is tricky, because we, er, have been putting all our spare loot into cracking the course creation tool. But we’ve got some ideas about how to push on with this - some of which are going to involve doing some stuff in partnership with Benny Lewis, some of which are going to involve looking in the direction of Kickstarter, and some of which will involve giving you ways to help choose what we prioritise. More on this soon… :sunny:

Finally, the reaching new learners side of things - which I’ve been hoping for a while would help us solve the money issue - but which we’ve been kind of stuck on. There are no simple fixes here - so we’ve been a little stuck à la Catch-22, because having more courses would be one good solution, but that’s a slow process without some spare cash. But now I’m working on some real improvements to how well we help and support new learners, which I think (and hope!) is going to make a real difference.

So that’s why I’ve been a little more quiet than usual!

And more details (particularly about how you can help turn the idea of SSiEverything into a real, achievable goal, rather than just a nice idea) in the very near future… :sunny:

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#2

It’s been chaos without you! Absolute Bedlam!

Glad to hear your hard work is on the verge of bearing the results it should, and here’s hoping SSiW will grow even faster thanks to it, and that learners of other languages will gain the benefit too.

Well, you were with me almost at the start of the real journey of learning Welsh, and though I don’t use SSiW as much now, (which is a sign of its success I think!) you’re definitely still there ;-), and hopefully now you can be as important a part of many, many more other people’s journey as you were to mine.

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#3

I have seen several people discuss grammar.

[Diolch ti, Ow :sunny:]

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#4

Will this have to stop now? :frowning:

Bear me in mind when you come to looking for volunteers although I’m not clear whether you’ll only be looking for first language speakers.

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#5

I’m a little conflicted on this - for course creation stuff, I think that we benefit from having first language speakers - but of course I’m not a first language Welsh speaker! So fluent second language has to be okay - in general terms, I guess that just means me being a bit more ‘I mean, seriously fluent, okay?’ than I normally like to be! :sunny:

#6

If you want to do French and are stuck for a first language speaker, I’d be happy (in fact would want) to do an audition because I definitely have an accent (mind you, you could say the same about someone from deepest Languedoc :smile: ).

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#7

If you’re looking at the crowd funding route, I would say look at some of the options besides Kickstarter. Don’t get me wrong, Kickstarter is a great system, but with Kickstarter you only get the funds if you reach your goal. If you come up short, you get nothing. Other platforms allow you to keep whatever you raise, even if you don’t reach your goal. I have complete faith that we can hit the goal, but these campaigns are a fair bit of work when you do them right and so I’d hate to see you get nothing for your blood, sweat, tears, and occasional ritual sacrifice. :wink: I’ve worked on these campaigns before for films and have some ideas, if you’d like to discuss sometime.

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#8

I could audition for SSiEnglish through the medium of English, if you like?

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#9

I agree with Kickstarter thingy.

And, if you’d ever (possibly) want to do SSiSlovene and need Slovene native speaker, I’m here for you.

And funding … I can always give little something (if things on my end regarding job and such thingys wouldn’t change), so I’m here for you in all aspects (if you want of course).

And, thank you for all your patience with me @aran from the very beginning of me comming here (since I can be aweful on myself and others).

And not less thanks to all the rest of you here. .

I hope one day one more SSiS would be seen here - SSiSlovene. :slight_smile:

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#10

Bearing in mind what’s being discussed on a neighboring thread, I’d think SSiItalian would be a good candidate for a new course.

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#11

Yah, especially for renewing my knowledge of Italian. I’ve learnt it really quite well back in the days but since I didn’t use it almost at all, I have forgotten it almost completely despite I can still say some little thingys, still know some grammar and still understand a lot.

Yah, Italian I’d like to see here in deed so German wouldn’t be bad aswell. I forgot some things in this part too.

Oh, but forgetful as I am, it’s strange I didn’t forget everything already, even English. :slight_smile:

#12

Drat! There goes SaySomethinginGothic! :speak_no_evil:

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#13

There’ll be 3 SSiS courses once I get SSiSarcasm sorted. Although there’s already a lot of fluent speakers here already.

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#14

I can sort out the South Walian version for you if you like…? :wink:

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#15

I was taken for a fellow Belgian on a train and addressed in Flemish! I doubt there is anyone who doesn’t speak French with some sort of accent!!

#16

I can do a south Leeds course entitled SayNowt. In fact, that’s all there is😀

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#17

Oh sure, that would be REALLY popular. (Do I get the job? :wink: )

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#18

How did you cope in Flemish/Dutch? I’d have thought Walloon/French would have been easier for you both.

(I’m aware of course, that Flemish is not exactly the same as Dutch nor is Walloon exactly the same as French)

#19

I will so definitely be taking you up on that :star2:

In the not-too-distant future, I hope - I think I remember that @garethrking would like to test run it…:wink:

In other news, Louis promises me that he’s a first language Gothic speaker… :sunny:

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#20

Of course, there’s nobody better. (:eyes:)

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