Bridging the gap between level 3 and advanced by creating my own challenges: good idea?

Welsh General / Questions
#1

Hello my fellow Welsh learners! I need some advice. I’ve started creating a challenge to help with vocab and structures in the first Becaai introduction recording.

I know I’ve seen plenty of people struggling with the transition from challenges to advanced content, myself being one of them, and I’m hoping this will help. I find the challenges to be more fun, engaging and manageable.

However, and this is where the experts will hopefully chime in, I’m apprehensive that as a learner I may be too prone to mistakes: missing mutations, using a structure in not quite the right context, etc. I’m definitely trying to be careful about this.

For instance, I wanted to include ‘gobeithio’ as part of this challenge. But the ways it’s used in this first recording seem to either be part of things we didn’t learn in the challenges (gobeithio newch chi fwynhau) or as part of future tense structures I’m not entirely comfortable with (gobeithio y bydd hynny’n gneud bywyd chydig bach yn haws na).

So I would most likely omit this one for those reasons, and I’m hoping that if I continue to be careful about things like that, these challenges will at least be helpful to me and possibly to others as well. But I don’t want them to be potentially harmful to the process of learning if mistakes still end up appearing.

Hopefully this makes sense. See what I have so far below (the Welsh spelling may be rough, would definitely double check before proceeding) and let me know what you think. Should I proceed? Diolch! :grin:

CHALLENGE 1

Cyflwyno fy hun - introduce myself

Let me introduce myself

Gad i mi cyflwyno fy hun

I have introduced myself

Dw i wedi cyflwyno fy hun

He made a promise

Mi naeth addewid

It’s not true that anyone can win the game unless they’re lucky

I should probably introduce myself

Dylwn i cyflwyno fy hun mwy na thebyg

I’m listening to every word

So that I can introduce myself

Fel bydd modd i mi cyflwyno fy hun

He made a promise that he wouldn’t choose

Let me introduce myself

I should probably introduce myself

Sometimes I want to fly

Where do you want to go?

I mewn ffordd - in a way

I have introduced myself in a way

He feels good in a way

They’re feeling lucky today

I don’t know if you’ve been able to check

In a way, I don’t want to go there again

I’m finding it hard to believe that you can’t guess who told me that funny story

We finished last night

You’re very funny in a way

Let’s agree that it was stupid to tell the truth instead of giving an excuse

In a way

I have introduced myself in a way

Ges i ngeni yn - I was born in

I was born in Wales

I was born in England

You’re very funny in a way

Let me introduce myself

I was born here

I have introduced myself in a way

Sometimes I want to fly

I was born there and I still live there

I was born over there

I’ll call you back

I was born in Wales

Dw i ddim isio eich dyflasu chi - I don’t want to bore you

Drwy siarad - by talking

Gwmpas - around

Am gyfnod - for a while

Rhieni - parents

Mae gen i rywfaint o brofiad - I have some experience

Fel oedolyn - as an adult

Fel da chi’n mynd yn hŷn - as you get older

2 Likes
#2

Hi Jake,

I like the idea of finding creative “tricks” to improve your Welsh after Level 3.
However I’m not sure I’ve understood how this is supposed to work.

Is it something like:
you think of sentences in English on the style of those you had in the challenges, but including new vocabulary. Then you translate them into Welsh.
Then? You record them? Or just read them?

#3

Couple of things here - first off, some very minor corrections to what you’ve got here already (since you seem to want to be careful enough to pick up this sort of stuff :slight_smile: )…

Gad i mi gyflwyno fy hun
Dylwn i gyflwyno fy hun
Fel bydd modd i mi gyflwyno fy hun
Mewn ffordd (not ‘i mewn ffordd’)
Diflasu

Second, the idea as a whole - I think broadly what you’ve got here is something like the moment when you turn a shower to cold and then immediately want to jump out - it’s normal to find the shift to the advanced listening challenging (but it should be a cheering thought that this is usually the pain you’d have no choice but to go through in live conversations, so if you can master it here, those conversations will feel much less difficult!).

What you’re proposing as a solution, though, is worryingly open-ended - if you’re going to do this for every listening exercise, it is going to take you years… and that might well end up becoming a very demotivating experience…

I would suggest that you get your fix of prompt->speak comfort by revisiting challenges 24 and 25 of Level 3 and Level 2 every now and again - maybe one per week - that you commit a good chunk of daily time to the accelerated listening exercises for Level 3 - and that you stick with ONE of the advanced listening pieces for two or three weeks until it starts to feel too easy.

That sensation of it becoming easy is what we’re looking for - because that’s the sign that your passive processing is reaching a new level - it’s your passive processing that will let you take part comfortably in conversations, and it’s taking part in conversations that will over time kick your active production levels up to the point where you stop feeling frustrated about them.

Hope this helps, and good luck with it - as long as you keep on working (in whatever way) you will keep on improving (even though you’ll have periods of time when it won’t be all that obvious)… :slight_smile: :star2:

3 Likes
#4

There are “accelerated listening exercises for Level 3”…have I missed these…?

1 Like
#5

Yes I could’ve made this more clear lol. Basically, I’m trying to recreate a challenge more or less exactly including recording it (with an atrocious accent of course).

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#6

Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply! I think (hopefully) I would’ve caught at least those obvious soft mutations before moving on to the next stage.

I agree with a lot of what you said. I think one of my main concerns is that the advanced content doesn’t strictly include any speaking practice, which is especially tough for someone like me who lives nowhere near Wales or any Welsh speakers.

I suppose it also calls into question my commitment to learning the language, which is of course difficult to confront. I just have a hard time getting myself to follow the method of listening, reading the lengthy transcript without knowing most of the content, listening again, reading the translation, and then repeating the process.

But as a learner, I think the cold shower analogy is very apt, and I probably just need to humble myself a bit and trust that the process will work. The fact that you caught a number of errors already tells me that this challenge idea is likely a misguided one. If I continue with it, it will be completely in private for myself.

Diolch yn fawr iawn!!

#7

I also seem to be missing these if someone can be kind enough to direct us towards this content :smirk:

#8

Have you joined the Welsh Speaking Practice group on Slack? There are lots of people who live nowhere near Wales or near Welsh speakers on there who use it to get their speaking practise in.
The advanced listening exercises don’t have speaking practise because they are there to specifically help develop the other essential skill needed in conversation - understanding what the other person says!
And of course you could always use vocabulary from your home-made challenges in conversations on Slack :slight_smile:

#9

I wasn’t aware of this, thank you! Just downloaded the app and I believe I need to be invited to the group correct?

#10

Yes, so I’ve just invited you! (normally I’d say send an email to admin@saysomethingin.com with WSP in the title for an invite, but since you posted your email address, I took an ‘executive decision’ :wink: )
You might want to edit your post and take out your email address now - this forum can be searched by non-SSiWers, so just to help stop spammers etc.

#11

Diolch!!! :smiley:

1 Like
#12

Upon reflection, I’m fairly sure he meant the level 2 listening exercises :face_with_monocle: which I’m not gonna lie are tough listening for me. The speed of the audio is maddening.