Thanks for the encouragement, Stu. Reminds me - what is the Welsh for someone - I can’t seem to get that at all however much I listen.
I think that is “rhywun” as in rhywun trio yn galed - someone trying hard (like you). We all find a little difficulty sometimes, but keep going it’s worth it!
I think lessons 17, 18, 19 I have hardly got out a whole sentence - I always seem to forget something
If you were getting mostly complete blanks - as in not saying anything at all - I’d be a little concerned. But forgetting bits here and there is a) par for the course and b) neurologically valuable - every time you notice that you’ve forgotten something, you get an extra little jolt that makes it that bit more likely you’ll remember it next time.
And as for the changing in tenses - yes, you’re meant to find that challenging! But again, every time you catch yourself in an error, it’s a valuable addition to the process - and trusting the process, carrying on through, is going to reap huge benefits for you…
When you finish the 10 days, come back and try 17 again, and see how you feel about it by then…
Helo dw’in Caroline ac dw’i wedi bod yn dysgo cymraeg am ti a ddwy flynedd ruan. Dw’in gwilio yr cwrs pan dw’in ar y bws yn y bore. Dw’i’n’mynd I Westbank yn Exminster lle dw’n gweithio fel cyfrifydd.
I hope this says: Hello, my name is caroline and I have been learning Welsh for almost two years now. I listen to the lesson when I am on the bus in the morning. I work at Westbank in Exminster as an accountant.
Please can someone correct before I learn off by heart.
That’s excellent, Caroline! Here’s a tidied up version, but what you wrote shows that you’ve got a really good natural accent happening there already…
Helo dwi’n Caroline ac dwi wedi bod yn dysgu Cymraeg am tua dwy flynedd rwan. Dwi’n gwrando ar yr cwrs pan dwi ar y bws yn y bore. Dw i’n mynd i Westbank yn Exminster lle dwi’n gweithio fel cyfrifydd.
:seren:
Bore Da, 10 days ago why did i think that i would have time to fit in a 10 day bootcamp into what has been one of my busiest weeks at work and home. I am just catching up on some of the challenges. Just listened to Pigion - i did cheat a little because the first clip i listened to was 19 august and i presume was about sheep farming (lots of sheep sounds in the background) but couldnt pick up any words so moved on to the next one where i did better. Thinking in Welsh - i know the Welsh for feeling lonely - but at work we have been looking at a study on differences between loneliness and isolation. So what would the word for isolated be? I’m not going to finish my 10 day challenge in 10 days but i’m attending a charity conference in Bristol at end of this week and hoping i may meet Welsh speakers there as similar events i have attended previously have had quite a high representation from Wales.
I’ve just signed up for the “Bootcamp” and am awaiting my first challenge (tomorrow) with some trepidation. Reading of your experience, however has been most encouraging and has given me a greater insight into how it works, so thanks very much for sharing your experience.
10 days ago why did i think that i would have time to fit in a 10 day bootcamp into what has been one of my busiest weeks at work and home.
Ah, yes, life has a sneaky way of working like that…
It sounds as though you have nonetheless done very well indeed - it would be very interesting to read an overview of how you felt about it now you’ve had a little time for it all to settle…
You wanted to know how I felt about the online boot camp. Basically I think I found it too hard. It has shown me how bad I am at learning languages. Its really disappointing because I really want to learn Welsh but I don’t feel that I will ever know enough to have a decent conversation so I am close to giving up. I’m not sure what the doing 10 lessons in 10 days is supposed to achieve but I don’t remember anything from those lessons.
S’mae Caroline?
Which lessons did you do as part of the Bootcamp? If you go back now and try, say the 5th one of those, how does that go? I reckon you have absorbed more than you think and are being hard on yourself. Downers are a natural part of language learning - God knows I have had enough of them myself, as have everyone else on this forum. Please post back - it’s really important that you seek and receive support from your fellow SSiWers on here at this moment, because you CAN do this Caroline, you really can! Let me know your thoughts.
Hwyl,
Stu
Lessons 16-25 course two. I had been stuck for ages anyway on course two so was looking forward to doing this so it would speed me on. Part of the exercise was to go back and do some again and Aran’s comment was that we would probably be surprised to see how much we remembered. I was surprised but in a bad way because I couldn’t do any of it.
Okay, the key here Caroline is not to panic and not to give up because you are disappointed with yourself. I happen to know that lessons 17 onwards of Course 2 represent a steepening of the learning curve. In fact, I revised these very lessons not too long ago myself. I am sure Aran will respond with some very apt advice for you which is better than I can offer, but here is my take on your situation. Accept that you found the online bootcamp hard (everyone is different y’know); accept that you need to go over the lessons again and do so as required; do not give up; do make sure you stay in touch on the forum and get the support you need to work through what is certainly just a blip on your road to becoming a Welsh speaker.
Are you on Skype at all? If so, I would be very happy to swap contact details and help you out in whatever way I can. Let me know if you would find this helpful and we can set something up - use the Private Messaging facility.
Pob lwc
Stu
Talk us through this in a bit more detail, Caroline - you’ve said that you did 16-25, but previously you said that you weren’t going to finish in 10 days - so did you carry on past the 10 day mark, or did you try and squeeze things in?
How did the actual sessions go for you? You told us how 17, 18 and 19 went, but not what the rest were like - did you continue to have issues with tenses, and little bits of vocab? Were they the same tenses and the same bits of vocab, or different ones?
Which session did you go back to? When you say you ‘couldn’t do any of it’, do you mean that you literally couldn’t produce a single word in Welsh? Is that because you don’t know what the Welsh is for any of those words, or is it a different issue? Can you remember now, without checking, what the Welsh for ‘with him’ is?
Learners are very good at beating themselves up and believing that they’re not doing well. I suspect that if I could actually see you doing these sessions, I’d be able to identify a lot of stuff that you’re getting right. If you’re willing to go through the questions I’ve asked here to give me more detail, I’ll try and see if I can work out what’s happening for you…
I think I probably went on one more day as there was a day when I was out/at work all day so didn’t get any time to do a lesson that day. I went back to lessons 16 and 25 which is what you said to do I think. I couldn’t process it quickly enough to do it without the pause button and if I did use the pause button which I think I wasn’t supposed to when I went back over I couldn’t think of the words a lot of the time. The rest of the sessions were hard to take in - lots of mutations - and now words change for his and hers but I can’t remember how they do change. I don’t know what “with him” is.
No, it’s okay to keep on using the pause button - processing speed varies for everyone…
I’m trying to get a clear understanding of what exactly happened with Lesson 16 in particular - first you said you 'couldn’t do any of it’ and now that you ‘couldn’t think of the words a lot of the time’ - it sounds increasingly to me as though you’re being very hard on yourself, and mostly about how quickly you remember.
There are three mutation-focused sessions in the middle of that run - and they are challenging, because you really need to go with the flow and not worry that you can’t list them all perfectly - they’re developing your ‘ear’ for mutations - so if the fine details there are a large part of what you feel negative about, you genuinely shouldn’t be worrying about them.
Two key questions:
Can you remember, without checking, what ‘with’ is?
When you hear the correct sentences in Lesson 16, do you recognise them, or are they completely unfamiliar to you?
Hi Aran,
I can’t remember what "with " is - funny story about this - when my son was at school he could never remember the French for with ( I’m hoping its avec - haven’t done French since then ) He went all through French GCSE not remembering this). Later on at college he did a bit of Spanish and then starting saying avec! - really bizarre.
I just listened to a little bit of lesson 16 again because I couldn’t remember what was in it at all and realise what the problem might be. If a sentence has a couple of words in that I can remember - I’m quite good at phrases like swim quickly or feeling lonely or watch carefully - then I remember that bit but can’t work out the sentence structure around it even if I use the pause button etc.
That’s interesting. Does it hold true (the bit about not getting the sentence structure around the familiar phrase) even for sentence structures from earlier sessions?
How do you feel about lesson 15? Do you have the same kind of problems?
And:
When you hear the correct sentences in Lesson 16, do you recognise them, or are they completely unfamiliar to you?
It is ages since I did lesson 15 so will have to have another listen but I have always had a bit of difficulty with processing which pronoun and verb to use. I think that I hear the first bit of the sentence think in my mind what it might be is change my mind then think - no its something else and then hear a familiar bit halfway through the sentence and my brain just latches on to that bit.
So we might be talking about something that you’ve had difficulties with the whole way through the course?
Do the correct phrases seem recognisable to you when you hear them?
I had some difficulties in course one and seemed to get stuck on certain lessons but generally found if i went on then i could do later lessons ok. I found the vocab lessons on course one difficult to retain and i don’t think i would remember many words from those. Course 2 has been more difficult and i had to have several goes at the all of these lessons and there is a lot more stuff i dont remember from lesson to lesson.