Is anybody willing/wanting to do 1-1 Skype practice with me?
I was thinking of maybe a couple of short sessions a week, say 10-20 minutes.
Having been on the 5-Day intensive course, at the beginning of February, I’m still very much a beginner, but I’d like to try and verbally extract some of the things I’ve learnt, as my daily life doesn’t bring me into contact with Welsh speakers.
You can reply to this thread or PM me 
I’m interested Have sent you a PM.
You’re going to need to be careful saying that, or you’re going to end up scaring the bejaysus out of real beginners…
During the group Skype session I took part in, yesterday, I felt very much like a beginner… 
but maybe I should just put that down to debut nerves and technical issues… 
Debut nerves, I think. Get yourself on a bootcamp; that’ll sort you right out ;).
@hilary fach , if I ever get competent to say anything sensible on Skype, I’d love to chat, but don’t hold your breath!
Hmmmm … didn’t I say you’ve done just fine? Technical issues, yes and the fact that we all talked too much - haha! Fortunately I had mic problems so I was not heard most of the time otherwise … 
No siriously … don’t wory. I still feel like a beginner many times too especially when I just hopelessly try to compose something twisting words around my tongue and say them all wrong …
If my “bwrw geiriau” doesn’t disturb you, I’m surely in too. If does, you can always freely say “ups, sorry you’re talking way too much”.
Yup, but that’s just standard language learner stuff of comparing yourself to a) other people and b) all the things you know you can’t say.
If you had someone who had been doing evening classes for a couple of months (ie, a real beginner!) sit in on one of those Skype calls and listen to you, and then tried to persuade them you were a ‘beginner’, they would want to throttle you…
Okay, I concede That’s a good way of looking at it, and reminding me just how far I’ve come. Funnily enough a Welsh night-class post popped up on my Facebook news feed, and I considered it for all of about 3 seconds before realising it probably wouldn’t do much good 
Tatjana fach, i must complement your use of language to describe a common sentence from me.
I suspect Hilary’s biggest problem (which is not a problem) was that the conversation was jumping subjects, at time about things which she has no prior knowledge. (like the 'draenog ’ references).
So Hillary, if you don’t know, draenog is hedgehog, and the reference is it being one of hedddraig’s dogs toys. (these remarks could have been dropped in, in English and you still would not have realised the connection).
So Hilary, i think short one to one calls will be great for your confidence, and the next group call will i hope be a little more rewarding (and i really hope the quality of the sound is better, i feel drwg because Philip missed out and is going to Wales soon).
Cheers J.P.
I think you’re probably right, and I don’t feel so bad now Coupled with words dropping from the sentences I could hear, it was a bit difficult for me. On the other hand, there were one or two sentences/questions from @Novem and @brigitte which I could hear and understand perfectly, so maybe I should take heart from that. It was certainly a very valuable experience. Thank you 
@brigitte is brilliant speaking partner. I’m speaking to her every Saturday (we spoke that saturday prior one another group chat too so it was about 3 hours of talking in Welsh to us both). She speaks very clear and although she speaks Northern and I Southern I can understand her perfectly with no particular difficulties. Actually “gog” and “de” is not a problem for me anymore as Brigitte tries to speak both dialects too if neccessary and she’s very much willing to repeat/explain her questions. I remember the beginnings of speaking with her. There were several English parts of conversations at first with very much mixture of Welsh/German/Slovene in the midst. The more I knew to speak Welsh the less English was needed and now we usually do a quick research about the word we don’t know in Welsh with quck glance into the geiriadur wondering some times which to take to go with the context of our momental conversation.
@Novem on the other hand speaks very clear too although fast sometimes and is easy to be understood. I believe she can very much relate to you also as she went through kind of “intensive” course too (as she said in the conversation) so I believe she can perfectly understand your situation at the moment.
I’m (unfortunately maybe) by how mother nature made me, too talkative at times but actually quite many times hard to be understood quite some times also as I many times (probably) invent unexisting things presuming they might exist. When there’s all quiet at the other side when I talk I already know I just blurted something out which actually no one has the clue what I’m talking about at all. And after my silence it comes “aha” … as just might be the other person’s brains finally managed to process my inovation and take into considderation what I actually might want to tell.
If I think more reasonably and responsibly, for the “beginner” like you think you are, it might be I’m not too suitable to be in conversation with. I might bring bad habits of inovation in use which surely is not desirable at all.
(well, just pondering my thoughts a bit on the subject though)
I’m interested too! 
1 sorry about the draenog! It,'s really Pete’s fault because he insisted I had one on a chair last Skype session. I did not! But I said I’d bring the one in the kitchen this week and forgot. It was very rude of me to forget you had not been there and would not know what the hell I was talking about! Toffi expects to be in my sitting room in the evening and gets bored. I spent most of the time surreptitiously rubbing her tummy! Oh and Milla is @Novem on the Forum and is from Italy originally, now living in Finland!
Oi!!! it looked like a dreinog!
Oi!!!, for a minute there i thought i had mis-spelt draenog.
At bootcamp, i mixed up squirrel for chicken (and yes it was one of those “oh how we laughed moments” ), sometimes i feels like i have not improved (but it’s still good fun).
Cheers J.P.
I’d be interested in doing some one-on-one chats! I’m in Australia so timezones can be tricky, but I really do need to speak Welsh much more regularly than I currently do, so I’d be up for short or long chats if it can be worked out
Well, I started my last post with 1 and forgot to put 2 before the second thing I said!! Mae’n ddrwg gen i! (That is the most frequent comment yn y Gymraeg which I say or type!!)
To @ramblingjohn I would have visualised you on a ramble ‘living off the land’, although I believe draenog is better to eat than gwiwer! (Well, based on stories of Romanies covering the spines with mud before roasting and getting lovely clean, tasty meat at the end!)
To @Pete2 I did not have a draenog on a chair. I had nothing resembling one! Our ‘Monkey’ is enormous and totally unlike any hedgehog!
To all - if you haven’t found the ‘What’s outside’ thread, have a look! John puts lots of species names in Welsh as well as teaching us about all sorts of fungi, trees, birds etc!! (And snakes and lizards, frogs and newts…and…slime moulds and… with alerts…pryf copyn [spiders]!!)
“What’s outside” thread you can all find here but be sure you take all the time of this world when you seat and read/watch/learn as it’s one of the largest topics on this forum containing already 2208 very interesting posts/comments/replies. Very recommendable for all nature and wildlife lovers.
Enjoy!
And don’t forget Hilary, that you had a 50 minute conversation with me a fortnight ago (in person) almost entirely in Welsh! I may have waffled on a bit at times, but you replied and nodded in all the right places! I can tell you that it was definitely not a beginner’s conversation.
Occasionally, I go to a chat group locally, where people have been learning since September (and much longer) and they cannot hold a conversation for 10 minutes, let alone 50. In fact, I find it quite a painful experience, so goodness knows how they are feeling.
I’m happy to meet up for a chat whenever you’re over this way.