If you do, the first 18 sessions of our Manx course are now up and waiting for you…
With huge thanks to Adrian Cain (the male voice and translator), Manx Language Officer at Culture Vannin: http://www.culturevannin.im/ - and Ali (the female voice).
And also huge thanks to Ifan, our in-house SSiBorg developer extraordinaire - while Adrian has been working his socks off getting used to the SSiBorg and producing the material, Ifan has been working just as hard making changes to the SSiBorg whenever I decided that bits of it weren’t working properly - it’s been a challenging task for both of them, but it’s hugely exciting that they’ve now got far enough to publish this first set of sessions…
And on Thursday next week, the 23rd of June, I’m going to be crash-testing as many of these sessions as possible in one day, on a live video stream at Blab - made a little more challenging by the rather stupid idea that somehow rose out of a night at the pub at the last northern Bootcamp - that I should try learning after drinking a shot before each session.
So Adrian has kindly (or mischievously) enough sent over a rather beautiful bottle of a new Manx Vodka - although I reserve the right to stop that part of the experiment if I fall off my chair at any point…
Where are they?
Just click on SSi (or SSiWelsh or whatever) up in the top left, click on ‘Choose a language’, and you’ll now see Manx in the list…
But yes, the switch to 10 sessions per level is deliberate - we’ve long been wanting to do the same for Welsh, and will one of these days - there’s lots of good research showing that people do much better when they can complete levels sooner…
Ah, fair enough. I’m guessing that the content is similar to challenges 1-18 in the other courses, and that the difference is merely in how many challenges there are per level?
Broadly so - although having said that, the SSiBorg spits out a few more sessions per set of target sentences than I do, so the material in 1-18 for Manx is probably covered (for the most part) by about 1-12 in Welsh - which may make the Manx sessions seem a bit easier…
I have just given this a little mention on my Facebook page. There are a few people I know who are interested in Celtic languages who may take a look at this, or may even share my post (hopefully).
Hi, I don’t know if this is the right place for a first feedback, but anyway…
I’m on Challenge 6 now and I think it is addictive (as every SSi course so far for me) but I find the course (or the language) very difficult. I should add that I did SsiWelsh and SsiSpanish with the old courses and jumped into the Levels with some knowledge. This is the first course that I start with the new format.
I am really happy that I can learn this language the Ssi…way. I have to read the vocabulary list after every challenge to be sure if I hear “m” or “n” and so on, but I’m always surprised how the words are spellt. I would never been able to say the words right only by reading or hearing them once, only the repetition gives me the feeling that I can say the sentences more or less understandable.
I know that I shouldn’t worry about anything but I’d like to ask some questions:
-there are two words for " I think", are they interchangeable , if not , what is the difference ?
-the Manx for " you have been" sounds for me like " ta la vey" even after seeing it written I keep hearing the letter “l”
-when adrian says I’ve got more = Ta tooilley ayms, I keep hearing a “r” it sounds like: tooilley r ems
-“dy ynsagh” and “gynsagh” I thought, the difference is like " i ddysgu" and “dysgu” in Welsh. But sometimes the English prompt " I’m trying to learn" is translated with " dy ynsagh" sometimes with “gynsagh”. Also, sometimes you say in English: “I started learning” or " I started to learn" does it matter what I say?
Again a huge Thank you and Gura mie mooar ayd for this wonderful course and the chance to learn a language, I didn’t know anything about before starting learning Welsh. I’m afraid I won’t be able to visit the Isle of Man and to speak the language in the wild, but I enjoy the learning.
I wish Adrian and all those who try to make the Manx language stronger good luck.
Hi Brigitte!
I’m having exactly the same issues as you! I am on challenge 6 too.
I am finding though that sometimes words I have been completely unable to recall during the challenge suddenly just pop into my head at random moments through the day.
Like you this is the first language I have studied with SSi without any prior knowledge and I too am finding it really difficult. It is really hard to trust the process when everything is so alien and unfamiliar, and I fail to recall so much material. Every time something new is introduced I want to say ‘Slow down! I haven’t got the last bit yet!’ I see now why people have a hard time adjusting to the SSi method!
That said, I am really enjoying the challenge and have complete faith that it will work.
Thanks again to Aran and the team for giving us this opportunity.
Gura mie ayd
As a general rule I would definitely stick to the process (and believe in it) as it’s as good as anything out there. It also helps for a language like Manx not to see the words first as this can cause some confusion…listen and repeat and then don’t get too worried about what you then see!
There are likely to be a few glitches/issues to start off with which we hope to have ironed out over the next few weeks but in answer to the specific points:
You’ll here people say er-lhiam (I reckon technically) and Ta mee smooinaghtyn for I think…just go with it!
I’ll listen again to my pronunciation to check how I’ve said some of the vocab and report back!
Tooilley = is sort of pronounced tooilya (er). The ey at the end of Manx words is not pronounced as it is in English but is usual ‘er’ or ‘ya’
The ‘dy ynsagh’ ‘gysagh’ issue is something we have debated but again you’ll here people say both…it partly depends on how idiomatic you want to be. I would just say ‘ta mee prowal gynsagh’
Cheers for your feedback…keep it coming as we’ll definitely get there!
Gura mie ayd reesht
Adrian
Brilliant to hear that people are using and enjoying these! For a while there I was the only member of the “people who have ever done an SSiManx lesson” club, alpha-testing them on my lonesome - great to have more of you on board
Speaking of “tooilley”, I recall noticing that Ali (the female voice) pronounced it more like “tooilloo”, and that she didn’t include the linking -r-, but I didn’t worry about it - you’re going to hear a certain amount of variation when listening to any language after all.
Similarly for the er-lhiam vs. ta mee smooinaghtyn - I realised fairly early on that we’d ended up with two bits of Manx which had the same English equivalent, but I also realised that they seemed to be pretty much interchangeable, so whenever I said one and Ali/Adrian came back with the other, I declared myself correct regardless and carried on
Okay - for the intense day videocast on Monday, you can get the necessary urls (once they’re available - Monday morning) at www.saysomethingin.com/manxday
One little tip my father got from one Russian man: while drinking vodka, eat sour cucumbers along with that. I’m not sure if your stomack can bear this but as much as I could see (didn’t try by myself though) it works.
On the picture: Slovenian best cucumbers - ETA Kamnik.
