The SSi Growth Club

Well if you want ideas of what to talk about, perhaps once a month.
Beth ydan ni’n weld yn yr ardd, neu beth dan ni’n weld tra oeddwn ni’n mynd ar ci (bach) am dro.

Cheers J.P.

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[quote=“aran, post:345, topic:3192”]
ut we have a tough time of it getting her to talk in any kind of a ‘now say something’ scenario[/quote]

Naturally! (It’s bad enough for grownups!) I thought maybe having the ci bach involved might help to relax the situation. She could maybe help him with his first interview. (Sorry if that’s a recipe for havoc… you still have full right of veto!)

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Isn’t there a rule in “showbiz” never act with children or animals…?

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We’ll give it a shot! Worst case scenario, you’ll get five minutes of Catrin and me describing the chaos it caused…:wink:

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Hmmmm … Well, we’d be able to listne to something anyway … :slight_smile:

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If anyone is still interested in word frequency lists ( @JustinandEirwen ?), is this of use?

https://www.bangor.ac.uk/canolfanbedwyr/ceg.php.en

This is a word frequency analysis of 1,079,032 words of written Welsh prose, based on 500 samples of approximately 2000 words each, selected from a representative range of text types to illustrate modern (mainly post 1970) Welsh prose writing. It was conceived as providing a Welsh parallel to the Kucera and Francis analysis for American English, and the LOB corpus for British English, in the expectation that such an analysed corpus would provide research tools for a number of academic disciplines: psychology and psycholinguistics, child and second language acquisition, general linguistics, and the linguistics of Modern Welsh, including literary analysis.

The sample included materials from the fields of novels and short stories, religious writing, childrenís literature both factual and fiction, non-fiction materials in the fields of education, science, business, leisure activities, etc., public lectures, newspapers and magazines, both national and local, reminiscences, academic writing, and general administrative materials (letters, reports, minutes of meetings).

The resultant corpus was analysed to produce frequency counts of words both in their raw form and as counts of lemmas where each token is demutated and tagged to its root. This analysis also derives basic information concerning the frequencies of different word classes, inflections, mutations, and other grammatical features

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And another word frequency list, bases on a corpus of children’s books:

http://www.egni.org

EGNI = “Ein Geirau NI”

Follow the links to the actual data.

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Really interesting, thanks @mikeellwood!

I’ve got a “learner’s dictionary” published in 1967, produced by the University of Wales. 2,500 words, the result of “an objective attempt to ascertain what vocabulary should be presented at different levels of teaching Welsh as a second language”. Words selected according to “frequency, availability and range” (whatever that may mean! :blush:) and presented in three “levels”, to be introduced in turn.

Interesting reading, but no idea how useful it would be! And I can’t link to it anyway. :blush:

There is also a book called “Welsh Words” (in both a north and south edition) which seems to be based on research, more recent than 1967 I think. I don’t have the book though, and I don’t know how many words it has.

I won’t give a link (it’s easy enough to find), but here is some stuff copied from the description:

Welsh Words - Geirfa Graidd, Lefel Mynediad (De Cymru/South Wales) Paperback – 20 Oct 2014
by Steve Morris (Author), Paul Meara (Author)

This is not a list of every Welsh Word you will ever need, nor a long list of words to enable you to cope with the Mynediad level course for adults. This is a core vocabulary and is based on research by experts in the Welsh for Adults field. These are the words you will need to know by the end of the Mynediad course level. The easy to use size means it will fit neatly in your bag. Nid rhestr hirfaith yw hon o bob gair Cymraeg fydd ei angen arnoch i ymdopi gyda Chymraeg lefel Mynediad i oedolion. Rhestr o eirfa graidd yw hon ac mae’n seiliedig ar ymchwil gan arbenigwyr ym maes geirfa/Cymraeg i Oedolion. Dyma’r geiriau fydd angen i chi eu gwybod erbyn diwedd y cwrs lefel Mynediad. Bydd y maint hwylus yn golygu y bydd yn ffitio’n dwt mewn bag.

In passing, I noticed another book (unrelated I think, and earlier) called “6,000 Welsh Words”. I don’t know if that is based on any research. It gets good online reviews, FWIW.

That kind of book looks useful, but on the other hand, I’m not quite sure how one would actually use it in practice.

Similar to my thoughts.

And yes, the mythical ‘two sessions in one week’ event has finally happened… :sunny:

But sorry, no Angharad Lliar this week - I realised that there’s a slight flaw with that, in that I do the Growth Club sessions on Friday, and, er, she’s at school!

So I’ll try to remember to do a session with her after school next Thursday… :sunny:

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Arghgghg… very sorry, we’ve had Ifan up here for a couple of days, and he and I have been flat out on an intense ‘think-it-all-through’ dive…

So I went and forgot that Friday was, er, Friday - so I thought optimistically that I’d catch up today, which has instead gone past in a blur of family meetups and young girls’ birthday parties…:wink:

So I’m officially switching to optimistically planning to catch up tomorrow instead - once I get back from driving my mother-in-law to Abergele for a cataract operation!

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Good luck to her. I actually know how it is went through 6 classical operations and 3 laser ones (not all being cataracta though but still eye ops (glaucomma & stuff) … If she’s optimistic about the whole thing and not stubborn about not obeying doctor’s advises it’ll all go perfect.

Big greetings to her! :slight_smile:

For you … don’t rush what concerns me … family matter should always come first. :slight_smile: Paid poeni. We’ll stil all be here waiting for another sgwrs to come out. :slight_smile:

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Arghgghg - by the time I got back from Abergele, I was washed up, and Angharad Lliar was in no mood to try recording anything - so I think I’m going to try and charm her after school tomorrow… :sunny:

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Why I have the feeling you’ll have to use all your charms? … - hehe :slight_smile:

Is it too soon to ask how was op going?

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The op seems to have gone very well, diolch :sunny:

And… step by step…!

I’ve got last week’s Growth Club, starring a surprisingly well-behaved Angharad Lliar, up and waiting for you - but I haven’t had time to finish the transcript yet. We’ve got to take Beuno in for a check-up today, and then Catrin needs to visit her mother, so I’ll do the transcript early(ish) this afternoon… :sunny:

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And the transcript is up…

I’d be particularly interested to hear what you made of this - was it a helpful/useful variation, or is the jump to understanding a 7 year old a bit too much of a nightmare?.. :sunny:

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This was my favorite episode so far! She was adorable, and I didn’t have much trouble understanding her. Your prompts helped, too (especially after the laundry list of names at the beginning, lol). I definitely found this helpful.

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Thanks, Joanie - that’s really valuable feedback.

Angharad Lliar clearly enjoyed doing it - she loved the idea of ‘doing work for SSiW’ (so the brainwashing is going well), but I thought she’d clam up when she got in front of the microphone, so I was very happily surprised with her talkativeness.

If the general feeling is that it was a valuable change of gear, I’m sure Angharad Lliar would be up for sharing it week-on, week-off with her mother… :sunny:

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Feedback?

Here it is! (My own way) :slight_smile:

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Does anyone have the mp3 of no. 11? I haven’t had good enough internet to download the ones I missed while I was away until now, and 11 has disappeared!

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