Ask your FIRST question about SSiW in here...:-)

No, not most at all. Everyone feels like that. Well done you. Welcome. :slight_smile:

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What a relief ,I can’t remember anything when I first finish.Later bits and pieces pop into my head and go round and round.its scary and exciting.

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I think I’ve chosen the wrong dialect to learn. Was just wondering how to change it… I think it’s wrong because I learnt in school that I want is dwi eisiau and on the tape it says dwin moyn

You’ll be fine. Schools tended slightly to the more formal style. Moyn is normal in South Wales. Same as you might remember Rydw i’n or perhaps Wi’n. You can always keep the stuff that you learnt in school in your back pocket, for extra background.

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Thank you… I’ll carry on then. Learning more words can’t hurt I suppose lol

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S’mae Pawb, My first questions.
I have been learning with SSiW for 3 months and I am now on level 1 challenge 16. I have learned to trust the system and to follow the advice given and it seems to be working for me.
However, I have two questions;

  1. To say " I didn’t " you seem to have two choices, nes I ddim & do ni ddim. Is there any rules as to when to use which.
  2. In challenge 16 a sentence reads " someone who told me that you want to read that book today."
    The translation given reads " Rhywun naeth dweud wrtha’i bod hi’n moyn darllen y llyfr na heddiw "
    I thought the translation should start with " rhywun sy’n dweddodd wrtha’i … etc.
    Helpu, os gwelwch yn dda… Tom
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As far as I understand it, the rule of thumb is that the nes i construction is usually used for actions, while do’n i is used for states. Two examples:
Nes i ddim yn deall beth wedaist ti - I didn’t understand what you said
Do’n i ddim yn gwybod hynny. - I didn’t know that.

Rhywun naeth dweud is correct, and it is functionally the same as Rhywun ddwedodd. It is also possible to construct the sentence with the auxilliary sy(dd) (which is a conjugated form of the verbnoun bod, to be), but then you don’t use dwedodd, but dweud instead (because you can only have one conjugated verb in a clause, all other verbs appear in their unconjugated verbnoun form). So Rhywun sy’ 'di dweud wrtha’i would be just as correct and it’s more or less just a question of personal preference or simply a case of which construction is the first to crop up in your brain. :slight_smile:

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Thanks Hendrik… I think I understand now… Tom

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I’m following the 6 month course… Just finished week 2. Challenges 3 & 4. It seems to be going well so far! Sometimes I want to keep going farther with the audio lessons. Should I keep pace with the course?
I haven’t been listening to much radio in Welsh, just maybe once or twice a week so far. So I’m thinking I could keep pace with the course and listen to more Welsh podcasts while waiting for the next week. Or I could push ahead and possibly overwhelm myself? :slight_smile:

Thanks for this wonderful course. My family in California are learning fun Welsh phrases from me everyday. :slight_smile:

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The key thing is the emotional journey - if you can press ahead and laugh it off when you get out of your depth, that’ll be fine - if you think it might make you feel a bit down, then maybe just extra podcasts - you’re certainly not going to find the 6 month course a slow process… :wink:

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Hmm…we just wondered why this was the case too. Is it to do with the use of ā€˜efo’?

No, not particularly. It does follow ā€˜efo’, but then it also follows ā€˜i’ too. It’s just one of those dialect things.

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I was worried about doing another lesson, because i think , ā€œhow can i add MORE when there is so much that hasnt sunken in?ā€ But I keep wanting to do more. So I’ve done lessons 6, 7 and 8 ahead of the course pace, in the past few days. And every time I am surprised that it still feels good and I’m just learning more and more. I’m not feeling overwhelmed. I’m just wanting to do more. =) I’m eager to have more to say in the online chats, so I think that is one main motivation right now.
Thanks for the advice. I will try and keep it fun for myself.

it is a very exciting process, and my mom even signed up for the ā€œone sentence in welshā€ emails. which was very surprising to me! But she said, ā€œ you’ll need someone to talk to!ā€ =)

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This is something that we haven’t yet really solved - that the underlying truth is that the entire course is the ā€˜lesson’, and that it’s the process of revision that creates the memories - so you actually have to keep on moving through the course to get the learning to happen - it’s so, so natural for people to want to repeat a lesson until they’ve ā€˜got it’ (which in every single case I’ve met so far has meant that they have repeated more than actually necessary)…

One of these days I’ll figure out a good way to explain it so that it’s clear from the very beginning… :slight_smile:

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The secret is in the marination :relieved:

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That makes me think of… At the end of most of the southern lessons, I am being reminded to come back to the lesson the next day if I feel like I haven’t quite got it. Or to repeat it until I have answered it about 80% correctly.

If you want to encourage people to push forward, the end of each audio lesson is one place you could. Have a little reminder… Like, ā€œif you managed to say SOMETHING in Welsh in each gap, even if it wasn’t right, keep moving onā€.

I definitely don’t want to repeat a lesson, if I don’t have to! :smiley:

Nice to hear the perspective of the entire course being the lesson. That’s a really interesting way to put it!! I’m feeling very motivated to finish this (very long) lesson!! :folded_hands:

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Yes, we’ve definitely got to re-record ALL those old intro/outros… :scream:

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Ohhhh, ok.
That sounds like a lot of work :slight_smile:
Well, I’m massively impressed with everything you’ve put into this entire project… Thank you.

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We will get there, eventually - but it’s a real old chore, which is why we’re probably dragging our feet about it a bit… :wink: :slight_smile:

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Quick question about pronunciation. On SSIW, eisiau is pronounced something like e-SHAY, but on Duolingo, whcih I’ve been finding great for learning vocabulary, it seems to be pronounced more like AY-shy.

Is this a regional difference?

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