After ‘lurking’ for a while I thought it was about time that I jumped in to what seems like the friendliest forum on the web and introduce myself.
I’m currently around halfway through the Level 1 Southern lessons. I got midway through Challenge 14 this morning and it was super tough, but I’m going to follow the advice I’ve seen on the forum and just keep at it (with a slightly mad grin on my face) up until at least lesson 20 before considering any repeats.
I’ve had experience (both good and not-so-good) of learning languages already, which only makes it clearer to me how good the SSi method is for building speaking confidence and a level of fluency right from the start of the learning process. Add this to the brilliant support network and it seems to me to be a winning formula. Even though I’ve only used the forum passively so far, it’s already been a huge help, so I’m determined to start contributing to it in a positive way from now on – if you’ll have me of course!
Above all I’m just incredibly pleased to finally be ‘properly’ learning Welsh and I’m very excited to keep improving.
Welcome. Sounds like you are having a really good go at it. Well done! As you have been lurking, you know of all the friendliness and help that is available.
It pleases me to think that we have a good number of lurkers on the sidelines. Lurking is good, but now you’ve “come out” may I add my welcome to this forum. Croeso! - Pob lwc / Welcome - Good luck.
I lurked for ages, Jenny!! Then crept into the ‘What’s outside’ thread, nervously, as I wasn’t sure if the pictures had to be from Wales! I soon found that pictures from all over the world were great and my boring Scottish ones as nothing compared to emus! I also found a load of lovely friends and the best cure for hiraeth ever!! Where are you?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has felt a little nervous about sticking my head over the parapet and start joining in, despite how lovely everyone on the forum is!
Right now I’m in Germany, coming very reluctantly to the end of a truly transformational semester studying here. I’ve had the huge privilege of living in two countries over the last year (last semester I was studying in Spain). But come September I’ll be ‘settling down’ again for a year in the Midlands to finish off my degree. (After that… who knows!)
That sounds great. I know that area slightly but the area I know best is Jena, Thuringen, having done quite a few summer courses at the uni there (initially via the OU). I’ve visited Berlin of course and a few other places, but haven’t been as much as I’d like.
After many decades of slog, my passive German is quite good now, but I still don’t consider myself a confident speaker. If there had beeen something like SSi German when I started, then I might have become a confident speaker.
I sometimes think that if I had my time over again, I’d try to spend time at a German university as well. (Maybe a Scandinavian one as well).
Sorry, Claudia, I am just living in Scotland! I am an exile from Cymru! One reason I started looking for ways to re-learn my Welsh was because watching S4C helped to cure my hiraeth (longing for Cymru). and watching S4C showed me how much Welsh I had forgotten! I found SSiW and here I still am!
That’s interesting, an exile from Cymru living in Scotland…both places do have a rich Celtic culture and heritage, haven’t they? I’ve just quickly googled S4C, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s a Welsh TV network, right? I didn’t know about it at all, but I’ll check it out, that’s for sure.
I wish I was Cymry or Scot, too, since I feel a strange connection to both places and languages, even though I’ve never had a chance to visit either Cymru or Scotland (and as a single mom of two, my financial situation doesn’t allow me to travel anywhere). But thoughts and dreams are free, thank goodness…
Claudia, when you find the s4c pages on rhe web, if you go to their "International " section, it will show a list of programmes which are available world wide. (unfortunately not all are)
Very patchy in Scotland. Here in Argyll, the Irish landed and brought their language. Scottish Gaelic is very close to Irish, but not the same. Further south, the language stayed British and the poems of Aneirin in Y Gododdin are part of the heritage of what is now Wales. Further north and east there was a lot of influence from Scandinavia!
I am not sure that any children in mainland Scotland are taught through the medium of Gaelic, as they are on some of the Hebridean Islands, but I am not an expert!
That’s great - I wasn’t aware that the OU offered stints abroad! I’ve yet to visit any places round that neck of the woods, but I’d love to get to Leipzig one of these days.
I know exactly what you mean – I learnt German the ‘traditional’ way through school and speaking has always been my weakest skill. It’s only really since spending this semester in Germany that things in the murky unknown of my brain have clicked into place and my speaking has caught up a bit with my reading/writing. I just hope I can keep it that way from now on!
I’m absolutely not history savvy (the little “knowledge” I have comes from movies…), but yes, I’ve read somewhere that the Vikings and Norsemen landed in Scotland and that a lot of Scots words, such as bairn and even kilt derive from these old Norse languages. I must admit that I’ve never heard about the poet Aneirin…or was he called a bard? I’ll sure do some research on him, diolch for telling me about him and his Y Gododdin, dw i’n meddwl bod hi’n ddiddorol!
In school, we were taught that Swiss are descendants of the Celtic tribe of the Helvetians , hence the CH (Confoederatio Helvetica) sticker on our cars that always reminds us on this fact. If I’m not mistaken, Julius Caesar mentioned the Helvetians in his book about the Gallic war - and I think this is one of the strongest indications that Swiss truly have Celtic heritage and are of Celtic ancestry. I’m aware that this is a very complex topic and that I put it awfully simple and amateurish here…
Have you ever visited Germany?