Appreciation of new Welsh course

Welsh
#1

On the old course, I’d worked my way up to about Course 3 (North), Lesson 10 or so. But then felt like I was missing too many pieces, and went back and ran thru Course 2 again, with a focus on not using the pause button. Then, I figured instead of going back to the old 3, I’d start with the new.

I’m midway through Challenge 6 now. One of the things I’m delighted with is that I don’t use the pause button at all, even with the fairly short pause gaps used in the new course. I get talked over by Catrin all the time, but am able to retain my train of thought and finish the sentence, often finishing just ahead of when Catrin finishes :wink: Mind you, I credit managing the short pauses with having done most of the original course(s) already. I think I would have become an even worse pause button addict if I’d started with the new course originally.

But I come not to bury the new course, but to praise it :wink: What I really appreciate is how it quickly builds up to reasonably long sentences. I was initially worried when I saw the script with all the long sentences, since that was what always killed me when I was starting to learn. However, the way in which the new material is put together, makes those long sentences feel very natural, and lets the learner focus on making the words flow, like a fluent speaker does. I almost never get stumped by long sentences in the new course (and I was frequently cursing in the old course after long sentences that fried my circuits).

#2

Jeff - “I get talked over by Catrin all the time…”

This is exactly Aran’s problem. :wink:

Thank you so much for your positive feedback Jeff, we really appreciate it! :slight_smile:

But this is definitely not all SSiW’s doing, I’m suspecting quite strongly that you’ve had a significant breakthrough in your learning - llongyfarchiadau mawr iawn to you!

Thanks for sharing! :slight_smile:

#3

There is certainly something about the way the long sentences are used in the new course that feels very comfortable. Perhaps because the component phrases are built up over the course of the lesson so they don’t feel overwhelming.

I’ve found that in doing the new course 1 I sometimes start to say the sentence before Aran is completely finished with the English, confident that I’ll be able to hear how the sentence ends and that the words will be there for me.

#4

I suspect it’s down, at least in part, to using long sentences made from a much smaller pool than that used by the time long sentences crop up in the old courses.

Trying to get the right answer in the gap feels a bit like cryptography - smaller entropy pools makes it easier to brute-force the cypher in time :slight_smile:

(Apologies to the non-geeks)

#5

I’m a big fan of the new course 1, also. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I’m intrigued by the way it combines bits of the old course1, 2, and 3…and is still a beginner course. Amazing really.

Wondering what the new Course 2 will be like!

#6

wondersheep said: I suspect it’s down, at least in part, to using long sentences made from a much smaller pool than that used by the time long sentences crop up in the old courses.

Trying to get the right answer in the gap feels a bit like cryptography - smaller entropy pools makes it easier to brute-force the cypher in time :slight_smile:

No doubt that is a big part of it, but having just finished the new Lesson 22, I feel like the pool has grown quite a bit, and yet the pace of the course still feels comfortable and unhurried. That is a great confidence booster.

I’m reminded of something a friend told me in college. He was a classics major, and he explained to me that they all had to study both Latin and Greek, but that everyone had a strong preference for one or the other. In Latin, for any given concept there was exactly one correct way of saying it, whereas in Greek there are perhaps a dozen different ways of saying the same thing, all with slightly different nuances or moods. It seems like Welsh is more like Greek in this respect. Often the biggest hurdle in the challenges is not so much saying something, as deciding which way to say it.

Maybe it is this quality that makes Welsh so suitable for poetry and song.

#7

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here, Jeff. I learnt to speak German in school, and occasionally I dip back into it and to me it seems a very precise language, and its use of the four cases means it can also be very precise with very few words. Now, Latin as you probably know, was also heavily dependent on cases for meaning, which means you can move words around in a Latin sentence and it still conveys the same meaning. So for me, Latin and German have a kind of “precision”. I don’t know any Greek at all, ancient or modern, but I certainly can see what you mean about Welsh. The multiple ways of saying things, expressing meaning, plus the lack of standardisation, present fairly unique challenges to the learner.

#8

I’m not sure that I fully agree, you know…

That is, I agree entirely that the lack of standardisation is challenging to a learner (although I’m not 100% convinced that Welsh is any different to spoken French or Spanish in that case, just maybe our variations are concentrated in a smaller area…), and I entirely agree that, compared to Latin or other case-based languages like the Slavics, the ability to change meaning by changing the word order is probably a bit of a challenge.

But when it comes to precision, I find Welsh more precise than English, That is, what seems to an English speaker like “multiple ways of saying the same thing” actually shows ways of expressing subtle differences that don;t exist in spoken English, or that have to be expressed in different ways.

Obvious stuff like yesses and noes, for instance. When my children cross the road, I often ask “Is there a car coming? Can we cross?” Answering in English is fraiught with dangers - “Yes” (there’s a car coming, or we can cross?), but in Welsh, Oes or Ydyn tells me which question is being answered.

A bit more subtle, the emphasis difference between “It’s a dog” or “a dog it is” (yes I do speak like that in English…) just aren’t available in English patterns.

There are loads of Welsh subtleties that I (obviously biased, as a first language speaker!) miss in English, but this is presumably just a function of which language is your strongest.

It’s interesting that the same difference between Welsh (famous for art and poetry, and definitely over-represented in the maths world) and English (famous for a world-wide empire, for industry and organisation) can be seen between Greek and Latin… I wonder if there’s something in that?

#9

It’s interesting that the same difference between Welsh (famous for art and poetry, and definitely over-represented in the maths world) and English (famous for a world-wide empire, for industry and organisation) can be seen between Greek and Latin… I wonder if there’s something in that?

I am sure Aristotle, Archimedes, Pythagoras, and their ilk would have something to say about that, Iestyn :slight_smile:

#10

When my children cross the road, I often ask “Is there a car coming? Can we cross?” Answering in English is fraiught with dangers - “Yes” (there’s a car coming, or we can cross?), but in Welsh, Oes or Ydyn tells me which question is being answered.

Never cross the road with a non-SSIW Welsh learner then! Could be terribly perilous - everyone on traditional Welsh courses seem to get in a right twist about yeses and nos! :wink:

Though that’s a great example of why they can be a good thing.