Just a tweek on the advice that you have been getting. (I’ll keep out of the debate on when to boost your knowledge with South Wales, Welsh.) My wife and I are from North Wales, so I can only advise you based on that experience.
IF you choose to solidify and do Levels 1 and 2 which I did - with the slight tweek that I tried the latter lessons of Level 1 first to see if I was ready to go to Level 2.
The other tweek that I might suggest is that if you consolidate with Levels 1 and 2 and do Course 3 you may find that Aran ( @aran ) has Level 3 coming on stream - which would be wonderful timing for you if that happens in a natural way.
I am not sure if this is helpful but… I started Lesson 1 with the notion of trying to remember my Cymraeg and improving understanding of S4C, as subtitles are sometimes less than accurate!! (Sometimes they have me rolling with laughter!!). I chose South because I have never lived in the north. When the Challenges began to appear, I switched from Lessons. I’d reached about 1.13. I liked the Challenges much better. More colloquial.
However, it may be because I’m so ancient, but I soon found that all I remembered stuck like glue. Never mind what @Iestyn said, what came out of my mouth was what I had known for years. I have found a lot is Northern because I tended to talk in Welsh with folk from Gogledd Cymru! I don’t speak what I learned from books back when, so I have learned ‘street Welsh’, I guess, and I can’t remember some ways of being polite via chi!! But, as soon as I reach where @iestyn gets to ‘chi’, I’ll remember what I knew and I bet I’ll always use past habit in preference to new learning.
So, if you switch from North to South, I’d guess it’ll help you understand, say, moyn instead of issia, but you’ll probably never be as comfortable to actually say it in southern!!!
This is this issue with learning and actually being Welsh, because I was taught at school (which I now realise was the more Southern structures). My last lot of formal classes was with a native Northern speaker. I stupidly moved away to England for year or so, so stopped learning. The thing is there is all these previous learned Welsh ,sitting in long term memory, which my brain is going ‘oh, so you’re using this stuff now, allow me to make it more accessible to you’. which is great, but there was a lot of confusion buried there too! (Part of me is still screaming ‘it’s ‘rwyt ti’n mynd’ not just ‘ti’n mynd’’ ) The thing is a lot of this unearthed data is quite formal, rather than spoken Welsh. Actually I’m already a mash up of Welsh from all over Wales already!
Street Welsh? like ‘Goldie Lookin’ Chain’ ?
How I deeply agree with both of you! That’s why I learn the language not wondering which version is which … happy to siarad with more "gog"s then "de"s despite I learn de. It enreaches my vocabulary, it extends my knowledge it feels more Cymraeg then ever! Bring them on all - gog neu de! I love Cymru, I don’t love south or north! I love language not south or north version of it. I surely don’t know why (or I do, who knows) but I never had that “version complex” in my head. I just went with the flow … FINALLY, HUH?
Yes, yes, I know … I had other complexes like “Allai ddim!” “Allai ddim cofio!” “Dwi ddim yn gwybod!” and what’s more to them … Thanks to you all it all gone! Now’s only pure language I learn whatever version - lightly! (ummm … OK … not so lightly anyway. - hehe) So go for learning not for what version you’d master. This is what I think (now). And don’t be like me, minding too much how much I could remember and learn. If you feel like, you do things, if you don’t pause and come back to it later on when you’ll be in the mood! and siarad, siarad, siarad, if even on Skype in our “silly” group (sorry that silly is meant the most pleasant way ever) developing our “Eddie the Eagle” story. Oh, I loved that last one group conversation to the bits. It was fun!
Yesterday, i seemed to forget everything, but it mysteriously came back today. So I started on Level 1, challenge 1. it wasn’t quite as easy as I thought it would be, maybe I’m over-thinking, I’ve been trying to cut back on my ‘yn’ use and understand when to use it. I’ve been thinking for a while that I’m using it more than Aran and Catrin .
I was wondering when we would start to conjugate verbs, and there it is lesson 1!
So I’ve learnt that ‘medru’ conjugates to ‘fedra’ for the pronoun ‘I’ anyway, yes?
So there is plenty to do in Level 1 for me. And I’m still not quick enough to get in before Catrin every time, even on challenge 1! or if I’m too quick I say licio instead of eisiau/isio ??
Again thanks for the advice and extended discussion how the whole North/South thing is yet another thing ‘not to worry about’. It is so true, that worrying too much really held back my previous language learning attempts. And I was really pleased with myself after hearing the word’ ‘gwahanol’ several times on the radio today, I thought it seemed to mean ‘different’, checked in the dictionary and this is the meaning! :O)
I love Cymru, I don’t love south or north! I love language not south or north version of it. I surely don’t know why (or I do, who knows) but I never had that “version complex” in my head. I just went with the flow … FINALLY, HUH?