Breakthroughs: Does anybody have small successes/breakthroughs speaking Cymraeg they want to share?

Well, there really is nothing more rewarding than hearing that - so diolch o waelod calon to you… :heart:

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Sometimes, in work (I’m doing a PhD), I listen to Radio Cymru or other Welsh music and just let it wash over me while writing. It doesn’t distract me like English language radio would because, after all, I can’t really understand it.

But today I put a podcast of Tudur Owen’s on, oddly enough while writing about cognition, and I can’t concentrate on writing. I keep picking up on snippets of sentences and words which are really distracting me. Disappointing given I’m enjoying listening to him but great, I guess, from the point of view of my understanding improving! :grinning:

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That sounds hugely promising! :star2:

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Diolch Aran!

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I had a very complimentary comment yesterday whilst taking my daughters to a Welsh rhyme time in the library. After speaking in Welsh to another mum for 5 mins or so, I then spoke to another mum in English and she was asking about my Welsh and I told her I was a learner and been learning for a year and a half now. The Welsh speaking mum then said to me that she thought I was a first language speaker. (herself first language)
Whilst there are many up and down days when learning Welsh, this certainly gives me much confidence and of course I always promote SSIW to anyone and everyone who will listen. As many have said before, without this course, I would not be where I am now. I would love to see this rolled out in secondary schools across Wales. Maybe one day.

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Brilliant!! Da iawn chi! :smile:

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That’s superb! Well done :grinning:

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Oh, that’s the gold standard compliment right there! Llongyfarchiadau mawr iawn iawn… :star: :star2:

And thank you very much indeed for helping to spread the word!

As it happens, we’ve got some conversations happening with some GCSE teachers about the new requirements for the oral part of the exam - which might just lead to some custom SSi for GCSE stuff, which might finally open the door into the school system… [fingers crossed!]

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Just a very early success, but my incurable American ‘r’ turned into a rolled ‘r’ for all my practice yesterday! Even if I never use the Welsh I’m learning (which I certainly will do eventually), I’ll have gotten that. My choral conductors thank you. :slight_smile:

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Oh, well done! I’ve known people who’ve been struggling with that for years - they’d probably not take very kindly to you solving it so quickly…:wink:

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Well, the fact that I’ve been starting and abandoning the course every 6-8 months for the last several years probably has something to do with it… :wink: Now that I’ve stuck with it, I guess my tongue went “Hey, you’re doing it! Let’s reward you!” :smiley:

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Aha! A well-deserved reward, then… :slight_smile:

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I got to use some Welsh at work. All it was was editing two documents (one in Welsh and the same one in English) to change the names of towns to another town ( I’m not quite ready for professional translation services yet, but at least know to look up what the Welsh for a town is). However it was ever so slightly easier being able to have a rough idea of the Welsh!

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I met someone this afternoon who’s first language and went to a Welsh medium school who’s pointed me in the direction of a host of people who want to practice speaking Welsh face to face, in the local pub/cafe etc. A breakthrough in local networking I guess as I didn’t quite realise the extent of Welsh learners in the area and also the number of mam iaith speakers who are willing to help as well. It’s all jolly exciting.:grin:

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Years ago, family friends used to raise sheep dogs and shipped them all over the world. They were taught everything in Welsh, though; so, they would send a cassette tape (yes, I said it was years ago) along with the dog to teach the people who bought them how to communicate with the dog in Welsh.

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Crikey, Riley! Well done Tom.You must have felt like you were flying…brilliant.:grin:

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I went to a different Paned a Sgwrs group today and had a really good time. I think I understood most of what was being said and found that my speech flowed better than previously. Pleased with that :slight_smile:

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Well done! It is nice feeling when it all starts coming together :slight_smile:

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That makes sense. My Indian landlord only spoke to his dog in Indian, when tried to communicate with the dog in english, the dog looked at me like I was crazy. On the plus side, when I practice Welsh on my own dog, she gets very excited and rushes all about excitedly.

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I finished Ffenestri by Lois Arnold today. It did get harder as it went along, but not too bad. Although I needed to use the vocab at the bottom of the page more as I went through the Canolradd section, I was able to read the stories and poems without translating to English in my head all the way to the end. Pretty pleased about that! :slight_smile:

Now I have to decide if I want to read Bywyd Blodwen Jones or Sgwp next…

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