Challenge 12 - fenyw or menyw
Hi All SSiWers, I am in the process of reviewing Challenges 1 to 12 (Level 1) and making a note of all peculiarities which continue to hinder or confuse me. Hopefully there will be less than half a dozen in total by the time I’m finished and speakers of Cymraeg can put me out of my misery with some definitive answers. But for now I am still plodding through Challenge 12 and I have one irritating concern.
I believe ‘hen’ old – softens the following word. ‘hen ddyn’, ‘hen fenyw’. And ‘ifanc’ has no softening – dyn ifanc and menyw ifanc. If this is true, why does it appear sometimes as ‘fenyw ifanc’ and not menyw ifanc?’ as in Challenge 12 at point 12:25. It’s driving me nuts right now trying to figure it out.
Also, I’m also glad that I looked up the written form for ‘ddyn’ as I thought Iestyn was saying ‘veen!’ Now knowing it is ddyn it is obvious now that Iestyn is saying ddyn.
Another quick curiosity for this post, my dictionary doesn’t show woman as ‘menyw’ but rather ‘gwraig’ Is this a colloquial version or a version used up north?
Diolch yn fawr to you all.
And finally and most importantly, may South Africa lose their next rugby match in style!
Hello DraigGoch
you’re right in everything you wrote. But there’s a rule that maybe was not taught in Level 1 new: If you use a feminine noun with the definite article, the noun undergoes soft mutation, so : a women: menyw, the women: y fenyw, or: a cat: cath, the cat: y gath.
But don’t let this worry you, you’ll always be understood, with mutation or not.
Enjoy the course and yes, may South Africa lose this match in style.
Indeed ‘dd’ and ‘f’ sound very close.
‘gwraig’ is used as wife in the south course.
There’s no cath in Level 1 if I’m remembering correctly (neither are there any dogs for that matter. Ahh, and there are no girraffes either. 
) but it was taught a woman=menyw and the woman=y fenyw however it was explained just once I believe and then you have to get it from the examples. Prety tricky thingy though as I never remember what @Iestyn uses in a sentence; does he use “the” or “a” … then when sentence is said properly by him and Cat I’m starting to wonder: “wait, what was it said in English really?” It’s so easy to forget or miss out things …
Y, yr, 'r meaning ‘the’ always cause a soft mutation of Single female nouns.
Oh boy, this is by far the hardest Challenge to date. I have not missed a day running through this Challenge for nearly two weeks now and still I can’t get things out before Cat. I thought I was doing really well until I hit this brick wall!
Still, undefeated, onwards and upwards but it would be nice to know if anybody else has had issues with this Challenge and does life get easier after Challenge 12?
Diolch yn fawr
[Alarm bell ringing] - sorry - how many times have you gone through this Challenge?
Might I suggest just moving onto the next one? You’re not expected to get the whole thing perfect; so long as you’re getting around 70%-80% (as a rough guide, not as an exact figure), it’s fine if the longer sentences aren’t coming out before the demonstrators. Ideally, you should be doing each lesson once, maybe twice at most, before moving on.
Everyone will tell you not to repeat and repeat!! Go on to the next one. You are not expected to reach perfection!! Think of a child learning. We are using the same method. The child says all sorts of ‘wrong’ things before getting it right… it’s all part of learning!!
p.s. I do think the Boks deserved their win and, if they put up a really good show against the Blacks, it makes us look better!!
As I think Scotland were robbed, I want Argentina to win on Sunday!!!
Ok advice will be taken. I will move onto Challenge 13. It’s not the length of the sentences so much as the different options of responding which cause issues, For example, The old woman would like… I start off thinking it must be Mar hen fenyw… when actually it’s that awful bydda mix.
Challenge 12 is taking shape and I am around 60% before Cat at present.
Tomorrow I will listen through Challenge 13 (quite honestly I am really glad of this advice as 12 is getting me frustrated - but not defeated).
Rooting for Cymru 2016 now the tough boys are out of England 2015.
Thanks all for your help.
Oh boy, I’ve really hit a wall and feeling a bit demoralized (but not defeated). I’m ‘still’ stuck on Challenge 12 after three weeks! Have tried to move on to Challenge 13 and have had some success but Challenge 13 has quite a few transpositions within sentences which throw me and also some strange word shortenings. It also appears that Iestyn is speeding up with his sentences. Going on even further is no use as I can’t remember/haven’t learnt the requirements for Challenge 13.
Going back to Challenge 12 and I think I’d better even go back to Challenge 9, 10 and 11 for recaps.
Is this really a difficult level or is it just me and my diminishing grey matter.
Fear not, I hit this wall recently and can really understand how you feel. As i’m sure most learners on here will. When I hit the wall I took a break for 3-4 days, as Aran advised me that my brain might be getting tired. After the break I went back to my last completed lesson and flew through it and the next lesson I was struggling on.
I think when you work for a long period learning new things your brain only half forms the neurological paths because its too busy creating new ones. Have a break and let it finish building the paths it already knows and then come back to it.
Good luck. 
Take a break, and then come back to 13 - do it once, and then carry on to 14 and 15. Don’t worry that there’s stuff in 13 you’ve haven’t internalised yet - the learning process is in the spaced repetition, so each time you revisit those items in the subsequent lessons, you’ll get a little bit stronger on them, until suddenly they don’t seem so bad… 
@aran, I find it really, really hard to remember what I am supposed to be saying. The sentences seem to get really long in 1.14 very quickly!! I thought Ch 13 was hard, but I am finding 14 even worse!!
You’re not alone. I spent a couple of months on Challenge 12. Still can’t get it 80% out before Cat. Challenge 13 was also the toughest to date and couldn’t agree more with you. Challenge 14 I find is a bit up and down. First 6 mins ok, then a struggle to about 12 mins. I have gotten as far as ‘she said that she…’. I recon it will take an age to get to speed with this lot. But dig in and we’ll get there.
13 and 14 are a little bit too tough, really - I strongly recommend you push on through them with minimum repetitions - ideally just the once (they’ll still be there later!) and then get on to 15 and 16 and beyond…
I find it very interesting how my brain is working with this whole approach. I can totally not remember a word, then suddenly, for no apparent reason, it ‘drops’ into place, several lessons down the line.
It seems counter-intuitive to move on when you haven’t fully got to grips with a lesson, but I’m feeling more and more confident that it does work. (I’m not a confident person in general, and definitely not, historically, a confident language learner.) it’s as if the words are there, somewhere in the brain, free-floating and inaccessible then they find their correct spot and BINGO! ever after that you can recall them with ease. (Except when you forget again🙄
Weird science?
This is an excellent description of what I think is one of the core elements of the method - that although we’re trained at school to think of learning as a black/white kind of thing (either you’ve learnt this list/word/structure or you haven’t!), the truth is that learning is always a partial and gradual process.
Schools like us to hammer away at a new word until we ‘have learnt it’, and then often suggest that we’ve ‘failed’ if we can’t remember it later on. But every time we hear a word, our brain will catalogue a little more detail about it - maybe just how many syllables it is to start with, then perhaps some detail about consonant sounds, until eventually we have it mapped well enough to be recognisable - at which point, it’s a very small step to being able to produce the word ourselves.
So the more mistakes you make, the more exposure you’re giving your brain, and the faster your brain will be able to go…
Diolch yn fawr iawn!!! That is the most encouraging thing I’ve read on the Forum!!! 
I will proceed accordingly! (If Scottish Hydro can manage to keep supplying power!!!)!
I am really hopeless! Still on Lesson 13/14 after months. Just can’t get it but not giving up. Still living in Borneo and never speaking to a sole doesn’t help. No good using the internet as I am old and useless at that too. To top it all, may have to leave Borneo this December or next June and return to South Wales. Where to live is a concern. Two teenage kids and am looking at Carmarthen but really, could be anywhere.
Am up to programme 20 in the old Now You’re Talking TV series. So perhaps not completely hopeless.
After programme 36 (the final one) there is a mention of a second series but I can find no reference to a subsequent series. Does anybody know if a further series was made?
Come on Cymru - see Ronaldo and his men off.