A Kentishman's Welsh Conquest - wedi cwpla cwrs SSiWelsh!

##My progress report - yr Hydref 2014##
Since my last report, I have :
• Completed Course 3!
• Improved my access to Welsh media at home
• Planned another few days away to Wales in November - including (hopefully) a visit to a well-established weekly meet in De Cymru!

So… I have reached the end of the course (well, the old course at least!) and after a gruelling last 2 lessons, I’ve decided that I will run through the Course 2 vocabs once again, to refresh my memory of some of the words and patterns that I struggled with on my first run through lesson 24 of course 3. Afterwards, I intend to do a quick run through course 3 again as well, concentrating on some of the short forms that I struggled to remember (he did/she did, he/she got, he/she has…). The ‘wneith e’ and ‘wneith hi’ structures I’m still finding myself saying the long form until I’m reminded of the short form. It’s getting better, but it is still a source of frustration for me! The Cael forms, the goings and the comings, getting the tenses mixed up when talking about ‘he’, ‘she’ and sometimes ‘you’ singular. I seem to be ok with the plural forms though.
Through this, I am also following the new course challenges as they are being published. In the new year, I am hoping to do my first Agored Assessment. For the rest of this year, I am going to try and get as much speaking practice as I can do. The monthly meets in Rochester will of course be my main means of practice, but I am hoping to visit a couple of other meets before the end of the year too. Despite the lack of privacy at home, and a busy work schedule, I have allocated at least one Sunday a month to chat on Skype with Amy in Australia. We had our first Skype chat a few weeks ago and will be having another this Sunday. I haven’t used Google Hangouts as much as I hoped I would, but if an opportunity arises I will try to take it! I have also come into contact with another learner from Cardiff and regularly chat to her on messenger in Welsh (showcasing my reading and “texting” abilities. She says she can understand and communicate in written Welsh, but not as confident with speaking. She is looking to change this though, and I’ve promised to help her with it. I have also recommended a very good online course for her to try… :wink: .
With the completion of Course 3 under my belt, and still not had the opportunity to find a ffrinDiaith as a learner (dinas being the closest to having a ffrinDiaith through the course - with much gratitude to the time he puts in to the Kent meets, which is often worked around my own free Saturdays! Diolch yn fawr iawn Kim!), I have been thinking about the possibility of changing my “learner” status to “speaker” someday over the next year. I will, of course, want to be MUCH more confident in my speaking ability before I do this. Maybe after I’ve completed one or 2 Agored Assessments perhaps. It would be nice if I could be able to help another learner without thinking of myself as a learner too. It’s just a thought at this stage…

To further help with my understanding of spoken Welsh, I have made a few improvements at home to be able to gain access to S4C and Radio Cymru without having to use the internet. At home, we use Virgin Media for the living room, but if my non-Welsh speaking housemates are watching TV, I had to resort to my iPad to watch S4C or listen to radio. We were Sky customers a year ago, and we still have a dish outside the house. So I ran a new cable to my room, dug out the old Sky box and connected everything up. So now I have Welsh TV and Radio on my own TV, leaving my iPad free for checking in on the forum while I’m watching!! Inspired by this, I posted a thread on the forum detailing all the possible ways you can get Welsh media if you live outside Wales, which many of you have contributed to with other services that are available to us - thank you!

I have a couple of weeks off in November - and a very tight budget! Despite this, I am planning another trip to Wales for a few days. I will be staying in Cardiff from Monday until Thursday. During this time, I’m hoping to pay a visit to the group who meet at Y Mochyn Du on Monday night. Tuesday I’m planning on seeing as much of Cardiff as I can in one day! Wednesday will be a visit to Swansea to see my nain, and possibly to meet with the Bay View group in the evening. Then on Thursday I will head to Haverfordwest to see a good friend of mine before a 5 hour drive back to Kent in the early evening. I will be hoping to use as much of my Welsh as I can in this time - just hoping there will be more opportunities in Cardiff than there are currently in Swansea (that I’ve found so far!).

Looking ahead to the New Year, apart from preparing to do the Agored Assessment, I will be looking into doing another bootcamp. I would also like to attend the SSiW birthday party and perhaps my very first Eisteddfod, but these will really be a matter of available funds and being able to get the time off work, but I would definitely love to do bootcamp once again!

Last but not least, I have recently started to follow the SaySomethinginSpanish course, in an attempt to refresh the vocabulary I learned when I was at school, and to become more conversational in Spanish. I have already made my introduction on the Spanish forum, and completed the first 2 challenges in the new Spanish course. I am hoping to see more people appearing on the forum very soon. If you are also learning Spanish, have learned Spanish and consider yourself a speaker, or thinking of learning, why not stop by and say ¡hola!

So, my last progress report as a learner is complete! But it’s not ending there! I will still be around on the forum and I’m sure I will share any new developments with my Welsh conquest to become a much more fluent speaker as they happen.
In the mean time, hoffwn i weud diolch yn waelod calon i chi Iestyn, Cat, Aran a Catrin am hyn gwrs ardderchog!

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Llongyfarchiadau mawr iawn iawn!

It only seems like yesterday that you were taking your first nervous steps… :star2:

Have you done Level 1? :sunny:

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Diolch yn fawr iawn! :blush:
I have started Level 1 southern up to challenge 14, and just waiting on new challenges to become available.
I may run through Northern challenges once I’ve done my ‘revision’ of the old course, if I get a little impatient! :wink:

Click on the … at the bottom of your post, and you’ll get a delete button. But I think we get the drift, so maybe you should just leave it until you can edit it :sunny:

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Llongyfarchiadau mawr, Gavin!

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Now that’s what I call an edit! :star2:

Fantastic report, fantastic achievement. I strongly recommend pushing on with Level 1 before you revisit vocab lessons or Course 3 :thumbsup:

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Enjoyed your report, Gavin! As to “speaker” status you were at that level when we first met up a year ago.
Hopefully, with your technical knowledge we can make a video - to promote our meet-ups on S4C - this Saturday at some point…There could be a good number of local people watching, Dal Ati/S4C, who - we’re unaware of - but would love to join us.

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I’m still not sure if I should change my ffrinDiaith learner status to speaker yet. Perhaps when I’m much more confident a speaker I will!
We will absolutely look into making a video advertising our meet for Dal Ati. Hopefully we will have some nice enough weather to do this in the beer garden too!

I must admit that I thought that the Speaker status in ffrinDiaith was for 1st language speakers…but I may be wrong!

Hwyl,

Stu

Speakers in ffrinDiaith are those who are confident enough in their spoken Welsh to be able to help a learner. They don’t have to be first language speakers but I guess it helps if they are! :smile:

Hmmm, maybe you are right, but my impression was that ffrinDiaith was an initiative to connect 1st language speakers with “learners” (of all types and experience levels) with each other. I would not be the first time I was wrong though, so I will check with Aran.

Hwyl,

Stu

My measure: I remember after my first and second Bootcamps both Iestyn and Aran saying you’ve gone through a week totally in Welsh and “Your now all Welsh speakers.”
I remember Gavin coming upto me - for the first time - on the street in Rochester, whilst I was talking to friends and greeting me straight off in Welsh. They were very impressed as was I. By any measure he was a Welsh speaker…'Cause he was speaking Welsh.

You’ll get no argument from me about Gavin’s abilities, Kim! I too count myself as a speaker, and do not call myself a learner any more. I just want to make sure about the definition of Speaker on ffrinDiaith, because I recall this coming up before on the old forum. :smile:

Hwyl,

Stu

Looking forward to hearing the Ffrindiaith measure, Stu! Diolch!!!

Yeah, ffrindiaith is a bit of a special case - the bar is certainly higher there as it stands at the moment - but I think it really needs to develop to the point where it can differentiate between ‘first language’, ‘fluent second language’, ‘confident second language’ etc.

It’s important that people (particularly in Wales) can hold out for a first language speaker, because part of it is about creating ways into Welsh speaking society - but someone like Gavin (or Kim!) would be gold dust for an early stage learner living in Kent - so we need to figure out a way to make both of those work.

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Your report is truly both inspirational and inspiring. As someone who is only on Southern Course 1 and completed the New Level 1 to 14 you truly inspire those learners to continue to a higher level. I hope to one day achieve your level of understanding and speaking this wonderful language and knowledge of its history. Because I look after grand children I am unable to join up to the weekly boot camps. But I have now agreed with my two grandsons, one who is 8 and one who is soon to be 5, who both attend a Welsh medium school, that when they come for their weekly ‘cinio’ to Grandma they only speak Welsh that is my equivalent of my ‘Bootcamp’. It is the likes of you Faithless 78 that keeps us learners on track to achieve what you have achieved. Hopefully one day I can do a posting like you have!

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That’s a fantastic idea, Anette, and will make a huge difference for you - nothing’s better than having kids talking Welsh with you :thumbsup: