Why did you decide to try SSiW?

Welsh General / Questions
#161

Books? No not yet. Soon though! Currently I am doing a general poking about the over all effect the Plague of Justinian had on the Brittonic speaking peoples. And what role it played in making Britain effectively an Anglo-Saxon dominated Island. As for the Picts, eh, people make them out to be extremely mysterious but I suspect they were just another sort of Briton, without the Romanization and probably with more contact with the proto-Gaels in general.

IMHO The Picts get to be romantic because there are a lot of blanks but cool artwork, but we know little else other than that the Romans outright feared them and depicted them as inhuman almost demonic creatures making them exotic in our modern imagination. My bet is the Picts were just Britons in the farthest north, Britons who figured out how to beat up on the Romans.

Don’t get me wrong, Dalriada is great and all “Go Home TEAM!!!” but Scots-Gaelic makes my eyes cross, only Manx Gaelic has ever stuck.

#162

Thanks very much for the input, and welcome to the forum!

No trouble, It is an interesting course and so far me and my girlfriend have a lot of fun. Even if we’ve only only made it to simple stuff like “Ti’n hoffi siarad cymraeg?” (SP?) While our pet tortoise stares at us blankly.

It is pretty good. Especially for a couple of American’s living in the California central valley, we aren’t exactly going to be doing any sort of immersion stuff in Gwynedd or something any time soon. So, this works for us.

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#163

I started trying to learn some Welsh from the old EUP Teach Yourself Welsh book in 1962 and it led to my changing my graduate field of study to linguistics, After I discovered Pimsleur, I found that language learning was easier for me if I approached it verbally rather than traditionally. So when I looked on line and discovered SSIW, I immediately tried it and liked it. I am now a supporter of SSI and get my email statement every month and a charge to my credit card for the US $ amount of the monthly fee. I consider it to be money well spent as my knowledge of Welsh has increased greatly. I have an on-line radio and about 90% of my use of it is in listening to BBC Radio Cymru. I seldom understand much of what is said but I can usually tell what is being discussed in the discussion programs. I only wish that I had some nearby neighbors in the Smith Mountain Lake area of southern Virginia with whom I could practice what I have learned.

#164

Dw i 'n ddim yn siwr - not that I could say that here!! I suppose I can’t be happy with movement of people now and mutter about the past, but it seems sad when whole groups were subsumed. I can’t be sure whether those who crossed to Britain as the ice retreated were the same people as those who buried the young man at Paviland before the ice drove them south, but we do know that a lot of people were in Britain and found the sea had turned it into an island. They were the British and spoke some version of what is now Cymraeg. They defended their land very successfully against the Legions of one J.Caesar! It took guile as well as fighting force to conquer their descendents in AD43 and thereafter! But never, ever are we able to unite and it has been our downfall!

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#165

Thank you so much for your kind words and your hugely valuable support, Charles :slight_smile: :star: :star2:

#166

I suspect we are of similar vintage! Croeso!
Have you come across S4C (TV channel)? I am sending an invite for you to sign a petition for decent funding, as it the only channel yn Gymraeg yn y byd!

#167

So I decided to try SSIW because I was looking for a translation or dictionary app on my phone, and this was pretty much the top recommended one. I hadn’t really decided to try and learn Welsh at this point, really what I wanted was a guide to pronunciation, and maybe to learn some basics.

I have tried other language apps before (for hols in Spain) and just failed to really use them because the format didn’t work for me. I was terrible at languages at school, and really I could never figure that out, because I am interesting in words and language and etymology etc. I just could never remember any of it.

Anyway, it was free, had good reviews so I thought I would give it a go… and became instantly enamoured of it - the simplicity, the friendly voices of Iestyn and Cat, and the amazing amount of Welsh I could say (and remember) after just one lesson.

The first thing for me is that the method just makes so much sense. The way it is explained (somewhere, can’t remember where) is that we do not learn language by memorising lists of words, or conjugations. It is not how our brains are designed to retain information. And I am in particular a kinetic learner (ie by doing, as opposed to reading about or watching someone else doing).

And it obviously works. The Welsh is mostly staying in my head - in fact I am getting Welsh ‘ear worms’ now, where I suddenly realise I am wandering around repeating little phrases from the day’s lesson (in my head, luckily). Today it is ‘wythnos yn ol’. I wonder if this is because Welsh is such a lilting language perhaps? It’s like a line from a song…

Which brings me in a roundabout way to the second most important thing for me - I am learning how to SPEAK Welsh - the accent, the pronunciation, the cadence etc etc. The biggest block to me in speaking another language is the fear of not being understood because of my accent or pronunciation is wrong, or I am stressing the wrong syllable or whatever. It’s the fear of getting it wrong and looking a fool. Now, I am not saying I am going to end up with a perfect Welsh accent or always get it right, BUT I will have had practice speaking out loud in the challenges, and I will have had practise listening to two separate voices speaking it. Plus the listening challenges too.

And of course, there’s the forum where I have been made very welcome, can ask questions without feeling too daft, and get support from the other lovely folk here.

All in all, it just works for me on what feels like a very instinctive level, and I can see that I am getting very quick results and so am inspired to stay and do more. And the more I do, the more I want to do. It’s a very liberating way of learning and my natural human curiosity is making an appearance now to help me along - something we are ‘untaught’ quite fiercely in school (at least when I was at school).

As I said somewhere else on here - I can almost feel myself changing as I (re)learn this intuitive approach. And my brain is having fun in it’s natural learning environment! :wink:

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#168

I tried it two years ago to see if it was any good. Had it not been, I’d have just moved on.

I found - and still find - it an excellent way to actually speak the language, whilst learning a good vocab base and the essential linguistic structures. The fact that it consists of MP3 files means that I can do housework whilst learning, otherwise I’d never have the time. Course notes are concise and excellent. I liked the fact that it was down-to-earth spoken Welsh. I do like grammar, but I have no desire to be its slave, and not having to worry about it was a big plus. The constant reminders not to worry. The friendliness emanating from it all.

The most important thing…difficult for me to pinpoint. Really a combination of all the above.

Great work - keep it up!

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#169

Thank you so much for such detailed and helpful feedback, Samantha - hugely appreciate it! :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Diolch, Baruch - that’s really kind and helpful of you :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

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#170

I had wanted to learn welsh starting when I was about 15 or 16 (I’m 29 now), and in the middle of America, resources were hard to find at the time. I had internet access, but it was very limited, and I was relying entirely on written material and descriptions on how the letters should sound. I tried hard and still managed to teach myself a few phrases, but lost it over time with no one to practice with and little sense of accomplishment or hope for improvement.
Then one day I was tired of not being able to speak Welsh anymore. I can’t remember what brought it back up, but I decided to google it. I initially thought the Rosetta Stone software would be my best bet. Sure it was probably going to be expensive but I thought it would be worth it for the certainty that i’d become fluent in Welsh. But to my huge disappointment at the time, the company had discontinued the Welsh course. I tried finding a used copy, but apparently the rosetta stone company doesn’t allow anyone to sell their old copies because in the user agreement I guess it says that the purchaser is only “borrowing” the content, and they regularly check ebay to report and take down any copies for sale. I messaged the company on twitter with something along the lines of, “How can I obtain a copy of Welsh if you won’t sell it to me nor let anyone else sell it to me?” but they only replied with a redundant and unhelpful stock answer informing me that the welsh course was discontinued. I even tried downloading illegal copies of it since they wouldn’t let me buy it, but I couldn’t figure that out in the end …

ANYWAY, sorry to be rambling. To get to the point, my failed attempts to purchase expensive language software led to more searching and I’m glad it did. I started listening to some welsh podcasts, and someone on the facebook group of one of them mentioned using SSIW and that’s where I first found out about it.
The reason I started using SSIW has a lot to do with the fact that I already wanted to learn Welsh, so I didn’t need any convincing that it’s a language I should be interested in. But the reason I started and stuck with this particular course is because it was so easy to get into. I can be really lazy sometimes when it comes to signing up for things and downloading stuff unless I’m already invested in it, but the fact that all I had to do was get on here and click play to see what it was all about made it easy for me to decide that it was worth making an account (not that making an account is a huge hassle, it’s just hard to get me to bother with things sometimes hahah).
It also helped that the structure of the lessons makes immediate success possible, even if it’s small. It’s just very encouraging to realise that you’re making your own sentences and really understanding what words mean and how they can be used in a natural way, rather than memorising a few things that will only be useful in specific circumstances. One thing that I think is unique about SSIW compared to other languages courses is the choice of words that are initially taught. A lot of courses stick with the same basic formula of greetings and “my name is” but give you nothing to continue the conversation with until much later. I like that SSIW seems to give very versatile words to start with, which makes it easier to find places to use them.

As someone else mentioned (I can’t find the post right now or else I’d quote it), it’s also really good to hear the bits of reassurance throughout the lessons, and to know that all my mistakes are normal. It’s a very low stress kind of learning in that way. I never feel like “if i don’t memorize it this time around i won’t ever master that phrase” or anything like that… which is great if you’re an anxious wreck like me most of the time!

I didn’t actually start my subscription until I ran out of free stuff to do, but it was more than worth doing. I found that by the end of the first set of lessons, I was speaking better Welsh than I ever had in my life, and to stop there after so many years of wanting the language to be part of my life would be ridiculous, so I carried on with it. I personally think that offering the first level for free is smart, because then people get hooked on it and will want to continue! or at least that’s how it went for me. Plus I do like the idea of supporting the resource that finally got me to say with any confidence at all “yeah I speak Welsh”.

I got kind of distracted just now and can’t remember if I was going to say anything else, but if you want me to elabourate on anything I’m definitely willing to go into more detail lol.

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#171

Oh, this is a big part of it for me too! the bit about walking the dog reminded me. I do it a lot when I walk my dog.

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#172

Frank, if I have already asked you, I’m sorry, but do you watch TV in Welsh, S4C? If so and you want the channel to continue with enough finance, please sign the petition from people outside Wales, I will send you an invite!
Croeso to the Forum if I haven’t sent one before!

#173

That’s such an interesting story, Frank - thank you so much - really useful insight in there :star: :star2:

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#174

So yep Aran have done a challenge a day since this post, no pauses and now up to lesson 8 of course 3 i seem to be remembering most of it. And weirdly things which i have not been able to remember from past lessons are just popping into my head, i will now persist until the end of course 3 if i am able. Cheers.

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#175

[quote=“henddraig, post:172, topic:5145”]
Frank, if I have already asked you, I’m sorry, but do you watch TV in Welsh, S4C? If so and you want the channel to continue with enough finance, please sign the petition from people outside Wales, I will send you an invite!Croeso to the Forum if I haven’t sent one before!
[/quote]I don’t watch tv in welsh, but only because I didn’t know I could! I’d love to start.

This sounds so much like my own beginning with the language!

#176

Click for link to Forum page on S4C
In that thread are other useful links, put there by those more
knowledgeable that me!
May I ask both you and @saethwr, out of pure curiosity, why you wanted to learn Welsh? Do you have family connections?
To @saethwr sorry if I already asked you, but am sending Petition invite!!

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#177

Awesome - that sounds as though you’ve really cracked it! Huge congratulations - keep us posted :slight_smile:

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#178

Aran’s original question
“If you can think back to when you first discovered SSiW …can you remember what the most important thing was that made you want to give it a try?”

The key thing aim i have is to talk in iaith (language).

I live in Australia, about 1/2 hour outside Melbourne. The only welsh class/group i could find here met in the city centre on a week night, so i can’t make it. This is important, as the reason i chose to give SSiW such a big go was that it most like talking to people. In Wales or places with groups of people I could reach to talk to face to face I would have chosen that in place of the internet giving a group feel, and the net would be a resource like a book. I picked this up in my first visits to this site both by listening to the lessons and also in the forum where the input of many people is gwech (great).

If you are looking for a reply on giving it a go for the first 6 mths ,(rather than the first week) which is where i am up to, then sing out.

Diolch pawb, am eich gweithio (thanks everyone for your work)

Steve

#179

Thanks a lot for that, Steve - really appreciate it! :slight_smile: :star2:

#180

i actually had to think about this for a moment because it’s been so long since i first became interested in learning Welsh. I think I do have some family connection, but my family had been in America for several generations by the time I was born, so I don’t really know anyone over there now. But when I was 15 or so I had a cartoon character that I would draw comics about mostly when I was supposed to be paying attention in school (none survive now, probably for the best ahah) and I decided that he was from Wales, which really had no impact on anything in the stories but I made it that way anyway. After making that decision, I thought I should do more research about Wales if I was going to be writing about a character from there, and that’s when I found out about the language. Since then I always felt a strong interest and connection to it, even if the rest of my family don’t seem to think about it much in terms of their personal identity. There was a long space of time where I didn’t practice it anymore because I had few resources and no one to talk to, but eventually I remembered how much I cared about learning the language and gave it another shot, which is what ultimately what brought me here.

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