How do you know when you’ve finished one Challenge and are ready to go on? I’ve gone to Challenge Seven and am now completely lost. I’ve repeated doing a Challenge, think I’ve done reasonably well, then forget things when I go on to the next. (I mean forgetting a word like “cofio” or “ymarfer” fron Challenge One, which I’m continually blanking on!) The Introduction tells me not to worry, the Welsh will come, but it hasn’t.
I’ve studied German and French in school and was considered a good student. The German or French word pops into my head frequently instead of the Welsh!
Should I start over again or what? I could really use some help here. Thanks!
On a more serious note; not necessarily. I definitely have those consistent lapses with some particular things. Dweud/siarad…boom!
Angen kept getting me until I struck upon the idea that I was ‘angin’ for something… An Australian euphemism for ‘in need of’ -ta-da; angen solved in challenge 5 (not week 5).
Plenty of time for mnemonics and whatever works for you. @aran can be found talking about repetition in a number of threads if you search.
Everyone is different. If you are really bothered by your listen/repeat process, mash pause if you think your brain can do with a few seconds to hit you with I K N O W T H I S oh yup - here is word…derp!
We are always here to cheer you on!
From my own experience I can tell that I followed the guidelines and noticed that I just remembered words at some point - especially cofio and ymarfer, you’re going to certainly meet many more times in the future in the challenges and outside.
There’s a few words that just didn’t seem to stick -sometimes still don’t- like “twenties”, “rubbish”, “as much as”, “if you’d slow down”.
But I see that at some point, as other expressions get more automatic, and vocabulary naturally gets wider they all find their own spot in memory.
And in worst case, from time to time I know I can just throw in an English word and everybody will understand all the same:
like “rubbish” that - sorry for Iestyn who seems to enjoy pronouncing rwtsh llwyr a lot! - but I heard also many fluent Welsh speaker saying it in English!
The most important thing is keep on enjoying learning.
Can you give a little more detail about this, Nancy?
Does ‘completely lost’ mean that:
you didn’t get any model sentences ‘right’ at all in Challenge 7?
you didn’t get any of the material from previous challenges right?
If it’s more nuanced than that, could you give a rough guess at about how many of the model sentences you were close to? And let me know if you’re saying something in every gap?
I think lesson 7 was the one I also found really difficult - from memory there is a sudden jump. I gave up then went back to it and after doing it again was still struggling so thought sod it and moved on to lesson 8 - the next 2 or 3 actually covered the lesson 7 stuff again. Try moving on you’ll probably be fine.
I agree with your other comment though - I often use German instead of Welsh when I reply without thinking, leads to some funny looks!
You are not alone - many of us have been where you are now. I have certainly experienced the feeling of doing a challenge and thinking “this is hopeless, I just can’t get this”. I also found, at first, that it was almost impossible for me to get an answer out without pausing the recording - perhaps because it was, to me, a completely unfamiliar way of working.
If your concern is that you are not remembering everything from the challenges you have completed then I would suggest this is perfectly normal - there may be a lucky few who have special talents but for many of us (most of us?) the reality is that we don’t complete a challenge and then have perfect recall of everything we have done in it.
The good news is that challenges are structured to continue to bring up things we have done before, so the approach I took was just to keep going. Bit by bit I found it easier to get my answer out without using the pause control (and now I never use it). I still forget things from the early lessons (and I’ve got to the end of Level 2), but I am now finding pieces of Welsh springing into my mind without prompting.
I agree with the other replies you have had - take the “or what” route. I would suggest you just keep on working steadily through the challenges, without expecting to remember every single thing. I suspect you will find that, slowly and without having any kind of sudden “Eureka!” moment, phrases will just start to sink into your memory.
I found lesson 7 last week really hard and I haven’t even opened this week’s challenges and repeated lesson 7 again. I found it slightly easier second time but I’m going to move onto 8 before I’m perfect on 7. I’d never get through the course if I couldn’t move on till each challenge was perfect. It’s the little phrases I get confused with, like - I must, I’ve got, I’ve got to… I’ve still got,
I never do revisions. I found that what felt difficult at some point starts to feel natural 2 or 3 challenges later.
I am a good learner but I have problems with concentration. I can’t do more than 15-20 minutes at once, or if I am tired, I can only do 10-15 minutes. So I usually break the challenge into 2 or 3 parts. I would get nowhere if I did so small chunks more than once
As you can see, everyone is different. Do whatever works for you.
I found the German would pop into my head instead of the Welsh for ages but with time that stopped happening, I suppose when the Welsh word becomes known unconsciously. Now that my Welsh is better than my German and has been for a while it only happens very occasionally and you get to the point where you can laugh it off.
Yes, if you do feel like you need to go back and have a run through a previous challenge, every 5th one does contain a lot of the previous 4, so that would be enough. A lot of people don’t need to go back at all really, but it can be useful if just to demonstrate that you have in fact retained a lot more than you realised. Occasionally running through Challenge 25 of Level 1 will help to keep everything you’ve learnt in Level 1 accessible in your memory.
The way Paul is studying here is closer to the way we recommend for High Repetition Learners, the small percentage who do find it difficult to learn with our usual method and need to repeat more, but the general pattern we suggest is to do 5 challenges in blocks - e.g. work through Challenges 1 to 5 one after the other, then go back and run through them again in sequence until it starts to feel easier for you, then move on to 6 to 10. This is the method we recommend if you get to Challenge 5, then go back and run through Challenge 1 and it doesn’t feel much easier than it did the first time.
- but I heard also many fluent Welsh speaker saying it in English!
