I’ve only just signed up and my brain is fried. Did anyone else feel this way ?
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Most people! As you progress through the course, in the little breaks where you get told about how really, really cool our brains are… at some points there will be definite smugness as reference is made to how fried your brain probably feels!
Accept it, laugh at it, and be amazed how well you are actually learning despite feeling overwhelmed. Once you really “get” how powerful this method is, it’s something of a rush.
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Thank you Verity
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Or I guess I should say Diolch yn fawr
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I’ve been using the (South version) challenges, and Iestyn comes out with some really weird visuals at times. Putting our brains through washing machines (on the fastest spin cycle, it feels like) and worse, a mangle!
I’ve laughed out loud a lot while learning Welsh. 
In March I was monolingual. Last week I chatted in Welsh with total strangers “in the wild”.
So I think, a few disturbing metaphors aside, what SSi does to our brains works!!!
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That is one of the most exciting things I’ve read on this forum! And you wouldn’t have got there without putting the effort in. Llongyfarchiadau!! 
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Diolch, Deborah. 
It was only fairly short conversations, but it was so much fun realising I’d managed real communication in Welsh, with someone who was neither a fellow learner nor a trained tutor, and I didn’t need to clarify in English.
I was on Nia’s “Live Welsh Week”, so I heard heaps of Welsh on guided tours etcetera, and followed more than half of it. (Educated guesses and following the group covers the rest.)
A real buzz.
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Occasionally I feel quite overwhelmed!
I can slip back into, ‘ I’m not up to this’ thinking. Even a slight panic that this is beyond me. I really like the suggestions about treating it more like a game and trusting the process.
One thing I don’t doubt is that it is very good for my brain, stuff is going in and lodging.
I don’t need to put pressure on myself, I’m learning for fun.
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I have just started the Challenge 01 and find that my problem is actually remembering what the English words were in the sentence to be able to translate into Welsh. Does anyone else have this problem? I actually do struggle to remember specific words in a sentence anyway. Is this just me and is it going to be impossible for me to learn or will it just take longer?
To start off with a tongue-in-cheek remark, luckily the course is called “SaySomethinginWelsh”, and not “RememberSomethinginEnglish” 
It may feel a bit frustrating to you if you don’t remember parts of the english prompt, but rest assured, in the long run that isn’t a problem. Just say the bits you can remember, and if you really can’t remember anything, just say something in Welsh.
Maybe it will take a bit longer, but it certainly shouldn’t be impossible for you to learn Welsh. And in any real conversation once you actually can say something, you usually know what you want to say anyway 
Good luck on your journey to become a Welsh speaker!
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Besides @Hendrik’s great advice, I’d like to let you know that…you’re not alone having trouble with the English part!
I did all Level 1 and 2 just saying the words I remembered, like Hendrik said. Sometimes, with longer sentences, it was even just a couple of words in the beginning and a couple of words in the end of the prompt: I just said those, without worrying too much about all the missing ones.
Right after, the 2 voices say the full sentence in Welsh. I just repeated the full Welsh sentences along with them, and carried on.
I almost never repeated challenges, just went straight to the end of each Level without trying to remember every word.
Then took a few months break and came back and did it all again.
It worked fine, and I’m pretty sure you’ll be surprised of how much you’ve learnt the first time already!
For Level 3, that’s a bit more complicated, I used a slightly different approach. But no need to think about it already!
For now…let us know how you’re doing, and good luck!
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I started using automagic where you are shown the English sentence, this works fine, I like to see the spellings of the Welsh words. For some reason I decided to try the slightly older version which you just listen to, it’s so hard! I started with challenge one so the phrases were very familiar to me having started last September. I am persevering though.
I think it will be really beneficial to me, I have to listen more carefully and be much speedier with my response, which is needed to join in a conversation.
I fear that if I had started on the challenge system it may have beaten me, although I’m surprisingly determined .
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Thank you Hendrick. That makes sense. I will persevere even if it is going to take longer. Normally I like seeing the words but I realise that it is the listening that I really need to practice. I struggle with this in my own language of English as I seem to miss the first few words of a sentence and am having to catch up and work out what the fist couple of words were. Thank you for your advice.
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Thanks Gisella-Albertini, that is great advice too. Thank you so much.
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Hi @victoria-36 I normally like to see the spellings of words too as my hearing doesn’t catch the different sounds no matter if it is in English or any other language. However, I realise that I become too dependent on seeing the words then than actually listening which I would need for a conversation. I wish conversations in real life would come with subtitles 
Thank you again.
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I am enjoying the challenges very much, I have to really concentrate on the spoken word. I fear that I am more slowly spoken in my own language than most, so it’s not surprising that in Welsh I am even slower.
I am unable to repeat the sentence in English in the gap allowed but do my best, I do pause, because I like the process of pulling out what I’ve learnt from my brain.
As I use the challenges what I have learnt is being bedded in, when I catch up with where I left automagic, I plan to continue both. Then I will have a look at the old course.
We will get there.
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Is there anyone who can explain the difference between bod and bo’fi that is introduced in challenge 3? I am finding it difficult to tell them apart and it is really making it difficult with some of the sentences in challenge number 4.
There is a thread called tiny questions with quick answers, you just use reply at the end to enter your question.
It seems to me that bod is been, bo is that. But the people that frequent tiny questions are very articulate and helpful.
Could you give me the times of the bits that are confusing you in challenge 3 and say whether you’re doing the south or north version - I’ll have a listen so I can explain better rather than guessing the context.
Right, so I am learning north dialect of welsh. And in challenge number 3 if I press on the vocabulary to get the list of words, I get the descriptions of the words bod and bo’fi.
They are as follows:
bod - that [as in …that I need to…]
bo’fi - that I [as in …that I need to…]
This then creates the confusion where in the next challenge they seem to use both of them but I can not figure out when to use bod and when to use bo’fi as in my brain they are essentially the same, based on the description given.
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