The biggest and best thing to do is to have conversations in Welsh with other people - no matter how many times you go over the course material, if you don’t start chatting you’re lack of confidence will become a bigger and bigger block.
That said, if you have the time, it won’t hurt to go back over things and this time do all the ‘extras’. Alternatively (or additionally!), you could try the ‘old course’ material and the ‘advanced material’, but the main thing is to get those conversations going. And remember, this forum has loads of support and information available so it’s worth a browse if you haven’t spent much time here.
Great! Just remember - you’ve got this! At level 3 you’ve definitely got enough Welsh to speak with, it’s just a matter of confidence now, so go for it - you don’t have to start with really long chats, your Welsh doesn’t have to be perfect, you’re allowed to throw in the odd English words if you need to and mistakes help you learn!
If group chats are too daunting, you can arrange one-to-ones in Slack Welsh Speaking Practice if you haven’t got a Welsh speaker in person near by.
Hi @sarah-mari, get in touch if you’d like a quick 1-1 chat😀 also I recommend the old course and advanced content. But chatting is definitely the best way to boost your confidence. Throwing in English words here and there makes you sound like a natural Welsh speaker (i tell myself😂)
Pnawn da pawb - Good afternoon everyone
Enw fi ydy Bob - My name is Bob
I live in Colwyn Bay North Wales and I am a cover supervisor at Ysgol Aberconwy
I am enjoying the course so far and have begun task 17 this morning.
Ydy pawb yn mwynhau course yma? - is everyone enjoying this course?
I’m on wk 10 off the first course and have recorded the few sentences but can’t work out were to send them to . I haven’t been on any forums or anything because again i don’t know how to access them. Could someone point me in the right direction please as i think I’m ready to try now . Thanks
I’m very confused about people saying there are different subscriptions and that there is one with access to tutors. Has that been done away with? I can only find one subscription, for £10 a month.
Hi, I am on week 4, just finished, and not sure about “that”…can’t remember when to say bo’fi, bod i, bod - I know it’s cheeky to ask about grammar but I can’t help it, I just love all that stuff! Please help my inner nerd…
Firstly, there is more than one way that ‘that’ gets translated depending on what words follow, so while it would be too confusing to go into them all at this stage, it’s handy to keep in mind that this particular pattern is not the only way to say ‘that’.
So, the bod type of ‘that’ - this is the one that gets used when followed by pronouns.
There are two sets of this, one ‘formal’ and one ‘colloquial’. It’s the colloquial one that is used in SSiW, and this set goes:
bo’ fi - that I
bo’ ti - that you (singular/familiar)
bod e/o/hi - that he/she/it
bo’ chi - that you (plural/polite)
bo’ ni - that we
bo’ nhw - that they
The other set, which you will come across is the fully grammatically correct set, which is seen as more formal in speech but commonly used in writing:
mod i
fod ti
fod e/o
bod hi
bod chi
bod ni
bod nhw
Don’t worry about whether to leave the d on or not - the more you use the words, the more your mouth will naturally find when it’s easier to leave it out or put it in, so it’s best to not overthink it.
I’m a bit puzzled as to why in challenge 4 around the 18minute mark the pattern changes from "mae dal rhaid i mi…("for I’ve still got to …) to "dwi dal isio … "(for I still want…). Is it merely because the word isio always has a different structure or is there a more general principle at work or is it just an alternative equivalent structure?
Many thanks
It’s because Welsh treats verbs a bit differently than English - typically (though not always), the first word of the sentence is a verb. The “dw” in “dw i”, for example, is essentially the Welsh word for “am”, and “mae” is (near enough) “is”. Then after that, you have the subject of the sentence (where English does this in the opposite order), which is still kind of part of the verb. After that, you have dal.
So, “mae rhaid i mi” is, more literally and with the words in roughly the same order, “is requirement for me”. if you put “dal” in there, you have “mae dal rhaid i mi”, or “is still requirement for me”. For “isio”, we have “dw i isio”, or “am I wanting”, and when you insert “dal”, you get “dw i dal isio”, or “am I still wanting”.
Hector
thank you very much. The thing that I don’t understand is why is a different construction used in the statements set out in challenge 4. Is it
a) that isio as a word requires a different construction?
b) a matter of speaker’s choice
c) some general principle or other reason
Or, to say it again, sometimes “dw i” sometimes “mae” - why? How do I know which construction to choose?
Ah, I see. A small number of patterns use “mae”; the vast majority of the time you use “dw i”. It’s just a difference between how English and Welsh treat certain concepts. Where in English we focus on the person having an object, for example, in Welsh we focus on the object being with a person. This extends also to a couple of other words like “rhaid”. In the overwhelming majority of cases, you’ll use “dw i’n”.
The difference is because although we often translate rhaid as a verb (“I must” or “I’ve got to”), it’s actually a noun (“a necessity”), and you can’t use dwi + noun, you have to use mae + noun.
We’re literally saying:
Dwi isio = I want
Mae rhaid i fi = There is a necessity for me
x