Shwmae pawb, I just wanted to tell someone about my plans to hopefully accellerate my Welsh this summer.
I am at college & have just finished Mynediad dau. So have 6 weeks to spare for Cymraeg!
I have done some lessons in old course 1 but now am up to new level 1 challenge 9.
I have also been using memrise to build my vocab. And…meet 2 weekly in Carmarthen SSIW but my speaking is very poor. (Oh, I am also going to Carmarthen Y Drindod Dewi Sant. Summer school for 1 week)
I decided from July 1st to concentrate on accellerated listening & hopefully speaking even if out loud to myself! 
using Aran’s tips of building a raw material list of words. But
, listening to welsh most of the day on radio, tv & my welsh music. The listening & speaking practices will come into this too, though I wanted some advice how to do all this please.
I intend to try Aran’s tip of trying to echo sentences in Cymraeg in my head 5 times a day and taking every chance to try speaking to my many Welsh speaking friends, without getting stuck and switching to English!
Any thoughts and advice from anyone would be greatly apprieciated. 
Your speaking will not be as poor as you feel it is. Dal Ati! Keep at it!
Grab every opportunity you can to practice. The more the merrier. And expect to feel at times like you are talking rubbish - making mistakes is (as Aran is always reminding us) a totally necessary and integral part of the learning process. But your mistakes will not sound anything like as bad to others as they sound to yourself.
Be prepared when doing accelerated learning to feel even more lost than usual. Your subconscious mind will not be lost at all, just sorting stuff out for you.
When I speak with fluent speakers I feel like a beginner and it reminds me how much I still have to learn. But then, when I speak with relative beginners, or even learners of a few years’ vintage who have lacked the confidence to move forward, I sometimes feel quite fluent. This reminds me how much I have already achieved.
I live in Northwest England (Wigan) so I have to travel to North Wales to practise. The Manchester SSiW meeting is only once a month. Seriously, if you can find one or more regular sesiwn sgwrs groups in your area, I would seize the opportunity to practise speaking and/or listening. Both are valuable skills and of course, they work together.
Pob Lwc!
It might be interesting for you to see how many lessons you can get through in a day if you a) don’t use the pause button (and don’t worry about the mistakes/incompleted sentences) and b) don’t repeat any of the lessons… 
Thank you for the advice and I do take it on board.
You do very well if you have to travel from Wigan! I live in Gorslas in the south and I am surrounded by Welsh speakers. I do have another group I go to but we only meet for an hour and dont meet in school holidays. Having said that, I only have to go to the local Co-op for a coffee, and I can hear Welsh spoken all the time. I really have no excuse.
I hope I can improve soon. Roll on the next 6 weeks! Thanks for your advice
Thanks Aran,
I have been thinking about doing this. I have read your high intensity book too. I can see how it would work and will definitely give it a go.
My only doubt is I am not as young as I was and wonder if I would retain it? (I am 68) Having said that…I really don’t believe anyone is too old to learn and being retired means we have that wonderful thing called time!
Some of the strongest learners I’ve seen have been in their 60s and 70s - age-related memory loss is not a clear-cut thing - there are some kinds of memory where older people score as well as younger.
The worst case scenario is that you get through the whole of Level 1 and then decide you need to run through it again - but the best case scenario is that you realise enough has gone in for you to push on (saving huge amounts of time)
Thats sound encouraging Aran thank you. I will try it and let you know how I get on. In the end whatever happens its always worth having a go and I may have a lovely surprise!
Helo!
Having done Course 3 in a high intensity weekend, I would say that if you do decide to try it, do not judge your progress based on what you can do/remember within a week or two after you finish the high intensity session. Give it a month or two. The consolidation does happen and you will surprise yourself with the words you remember. It’s been almost three months since I did my session and I’m still noticing changes in my understanding (despite generally not doing anything Welsh). Just remember that any progress is progress and that’s something to celebrate!
Helo Megan,
I am always up for
a bit of celebration any old excuse!
Its interesting to hear how you got on though. The whole idea of high intensity learning is facinating. To think that you can see the benefit after 3 months. The human brain is amazing. I am beginning to wish I was a young teacher! (Instead of a retired nurse)
I shall take note not to be too gloomy if I am not improving as quickly as I would like.
Thank you for your thoughts and advice Megan. Enjoy the sunshine but drink lots of water!
Watching S4C for plant. Presenters playing ‘I spy’, something beginning with ‘h’. Me, gazing at advertising cornet, “Halen ia!”…It took me an appreciable couple of seconds to realise I’d said ‘salt’, not ‘cream’!! Is this age? Maybe, maybe not!! But at least it’s funny!! 
Hugely important comment/feedback 
Worth reading that paragraph a couple of times at least, folks
Well, today I am checking in with an update. I’m afraid none of my plans have materialised so far! Life seems to have taken over and I have not felt great lately, so needed a break.
I have now finished challenge 13 and have been watching/ listening to S4C/Radio Cymru most days plus the listening exercises. I have also started to make my list of raw words, that I know and can remember. Only on the “d’s” though.
However I am nowhere near where I wanted to be. My energy levels remain a bit low at the moment.
On the plus side I don’t think college starts again until end Sept or perhaps Oct. So I still have time to try again. About 2 months.
I intend to do as Aran suggested and just push on with challenge 14 without trying to revise. It seems right as even though I sometimes feel lost, I am able to recognise quite a bit on the listening exercises. I have downloaded the whole of Level 1 onto my MP3 player too.
I was wondering about the raw list of words? Is there a right/wrong way of doing it?
I am using memrise to create for myself, a list of words alphabetically. At present only using the words I am sure of. (Guessing about 50%) Then I thought I would do the same with the words I am not sure of.
I need to do this before going back to college anyway but…any thoughts on this or anything else please? 
Life is like breathing in and out - the tide coming in, the tide going out - sometimes we feel good, sometimes we don’t. It’s important that you let yourself have your tide going out days, and don’t give yourself a hard time about them
With the supplementary exercises - word lists, Memrise, and so on - if I were you, I’d leave those for the time being, and just concentrate on pushing on through as many new lessons as possible - they give you the exercises that your raw word list leads to
And that feeling lost - is a great sign that you’re pushing yourself hard enough, so keep on keeping on! 
Thanks Aran,
I will leave the lists for now then give myself another couple of days rest. Then push on.
By the way…I just watched the video with Martyn learning Spanish. Wow! Very encouraging. I am impressed, bendigedig! Very weĺl done to you both. Please pass on my congratulations to Martyn.
I did try to watch the video on facebook but it would not play for some reason. Works perfectly with your link on this forum though.
I will be in touch again when I have something to report!
I’ll look forward to hearing how it goes for you