I’m stuck on what is the best Welsh word to use for ‘meetups’ - of the sort we SSiWers hold. The only word I can come up with is ‘cyfarfodydd’ but it sounds a bit too formal to me. Is there any alternative that would work better?
EDIT: would something like ‘sesiynau cloncan’ or ‘sesiynau sgwrsio’ be better?
How about “cymanfa clonc” ? (or clep or clebran instead of clonc!)
Would aduniad work? Or casgliad?
It’s a tone thing - personally, I’d go for Sesiynau Siarad - because I like the two ‘sh’ sounds (and I’m just generally not all that fond of ‘sgwrsio’ 
). 
I happened to be reading about the old “cymorth gwau” and other things the other day, when reading about John Pris, who published the lord’s prayer in Welsh, way back when.
From GPC:
cymorth gwau, cymorth gweu: meeting of a group of women (held in turn at one another’s houses) for knitting and entertainment during the winter (lit. knitting assistance or assembly).
cymorth fedel: reaping-party.
What about Cymorth Cariad Cymreig (CCC)
I guess you weren’t totally serious there Aran, but is this because “chat” sounds too trivial or something? I guess “cloncan/cloncian” would be even worse in that sense.
BTW, looking up these words in Gweiadur, I came across:
siarad fel melin bupur - to talk like a pepper mill - explained as: siarad yn ddiddiwedd - to talk endlessly.
(I guess we all know people like that… ).
…
oh, here’s another good one:
siarad siprys - siarad cymysgedd o Gymraeg a Saesneg - to talk a mixture of Welsh and English.
No, gosh, not at all - I don’t mind the word ‘chat’ in the least - just not fond of the word ‘sgwrsio’ - dunno why
Thanks everyone. What I’m looking for is a general way of describing the meetups, so that someone reading it that knows nothing about SSiW would understand what it was. I’m going to go with ‘Sesiynau Siarad’ as I don’t think anyone can misunderstand that, and it glides off the tongue nicely too
I notice that we’re taught two different ways of saying I can’t: dwi ddim yn medru in the old lesson 1 and fedra 'i ddim in the new one. What’s the difference between them?
They both mean exactly the same thing , it’s just that fedra i ddim is a shorter and easier way of saying it. You will also quite often hear “dwi’n methu” for “I can’t” as well
As Sam said - Welsh has two main different ways of using verbs - the short form and the long form - we’re trying to get you used to both, and recognising the patterns you’ll hear most often
Going through the lessons lately i’ve noticed that sometimes in the past tense it’s used with another past tense verb and sometimes with a present tense verb. I don’t really know how to write Welsh, so sorry for the mistakes, but i feel like i’ve heard both versions used for things like “She told me that she wanted to speak Welsh”.
Ddudodd hi wrtha fi bod/oedd hi isio siarad Cymraeg.
Are these two practically similar? In English, using “she wanted” or “she wants” here is pretty much equivalent, but there have been other sentences where it would be different, i just can’t recall what they were now.
I’ve also just started level 2 and it’s kicking my butt…
Probably got some impact from English happening here - I’d say that ‘Ddudodd hi wrtha i bod hi isio’ is correct, but you’ll hear other patterns, perhaps particularly if the speaker feels that something needs emphasising… very extreme case of ‘Not Needing To Worry’, though…
Sounds as though you’re pushing yourself in all the right ways with Level 2! 
Hello.
Am I doing it correctly? Since I had the email not to use pause button and don’t repeat, do I not repeat the lessons or just the challenges? I can’t remember the lesson content very well in the latest. (I’ve done the 5 as suggested and when I went back to check I had definitely improved! 
).
Hi Jamie - the improvement in Challenge 1 is the key sign, so well done with that…
With the pause button - you’re aiming for as little use as possible, but it’s vitally important that you SAY something (even if it’s wrong!) in almost ALL the gaps - if you can’t do that without the pause button, you NEED to use it.
But don’t worry - you’ll never feel you know the most recent lesson very well - because we haven’t had time to revisit the content (in a ‘spaced repetition’ pattern) over the next few lessons…
So right now, for the 6 month course, now we’ve checked that Challenge 1 felt better for you, I’m encouraging you not to repeat - or, at least, to make sure that you always do the challenges in the weekly email (if you want to spend extra time to run through them again, of course, that’s fine too, as long as you don’t get stuck!).
Ok thanks.
“With”
So, I’ve been practising efo chdi / efo fi etc. Previously, I’d’ve used gyda
What’s the difference?
Efo is more of a Northern colloquial word. Gyda is the more standardised word, used widely in the South and also in written Welsh. They both mean with and are both correct, it’s more of a ‘context’ thing.
Strangely, I noticed “Efo” (not “gyda”) on a safety sign in the Caldicot School improvement site. Siaron will know, but I don’t think you can get much further SE than that.
I’m guessing that it was just a translation oversight or spare sign from N Wales.
yup, Caldicot is pretty much as SE as you get! I’d certainly not expect to see ‘efo’ down there! Maybe it was a Gog working on signwriting that day!