Hahaha! The other one I’ve got in work is “this would be like making a birthday cake with a hammer” when someone suggests getting something fixed or working in a very convoluted way 
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*edit
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I have to wonder what percentage of those million learners are actually keen to learn to SPEAK Welsh, and so drop away put off by the writing aspect. Those people would be a great fit for SSiW if they had a chance to hear about it.
I tried Duolingo to learn a bit of Irish before going to Ireland on holiday, and it was hopeless. I got so frustrated by not being able to move on because I was making spelling mistakes when all I wanted was to SPEAK Irish, not write it!
I think the most important point being made here is that many of those 1 million Duolingo learners probably want to be able to speak and use Welsh, not just read and write it. They could be people who find it really difficult to get to classes and want to learn in their own time. SSiW would be the perfect fit for them … if we could somehow reach them.
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Just want to thank everyone in here for this interesting discussion, and for working to keep it SSiW-friendly and polite when there are varying opinions - and of course it’s the varying opinions which makes it an interesting discussion… 
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Hi Dee,
Yes, I think you are right. I do wonder how many are so bothered about reading and writing but are happy to go along with it as a means to speaking…although that is hypothetical and probably doesn’t make much difference… (!).
Yes exactly - I really believe you are right & this is true…SSIW shares the ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning characteristics of Duo Lingo but picks up/ focuses on the speaking side. When I discovered it I put a real additional focus on it to get me speaking …but kept up with Duo Lingo as it was another means or practice and broadening my vocabulary.
In terms of a ‘learning options big picture’ they are jigsaw pieces that could just slot together. If we could get the other 100,000 who really want to crack on with speaking, to use SSIW as well (as Duo Lingo)…it seems that everyone is a winner.
Rich
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A lot of the discussion here seems to focus on the methods of language learning and I would never suggest anything to change what SSIW is doing there - it’s great and it works and Aran and the rest have broken new ground.
I also have no doubt that Duolingo is vastly less effective, but seemingly very effective at getting people to dip their toe in and try it out.
Taking the debate of which is better and why out of the equation, the key thing for me is how do you harness the brilliant pull of Duolingo and make those people stay the course and move on to becime speakers.
To do that they will have to migrate to other things like SSIW and that needs a bridge between Duolingo and say SSIW to convert all the Duolingoers into SSIWers or whatever other method out there that I don’t know of that is just as effective - I guess wlpan courses and the like.
I would never diss Duolingo, because even if the average user may end up saying little more than bore da and diolch, then it’s still a great success.
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If you’re thinking of me specifically @rich , my immediate thought is that my publishers would see that as competition for the Welsh workbooks they already publish! 
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Hi Gareth,
Thanks for your reply.
I was thinking of it more as a product catalogue i fod yn honest…(actually seriously).
Apart from a basic translation…References on where to find out more would be a key thing…which in truth would reference your existing works. ( Advice / thought required on balance/ content).
…throw in a star studded SSIW cast for an introduction of SSIW, a carefully crafted narrative from the worlds most famous Welsh author - which joking aside I think would need to be done carefully…and not only have you got the accompanying booklet for @Nicky’s cds but the ultimate subliminal sales guide for all your works.
Rich
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Rich et al, I think I acknowledge here that Duolingo caters for dilettantism: a familiarising onself with all aspects of driving a different model of car without ever really engaging the engine and going anywhere in person, exercised on a static bike in a gym… I finish/graduate from DL familiarised but inexperienced and sans engine.
SSiW 6mth sets me on a road bike in a side road on an estate with suggested venues to go interact with the more highly powered but friendly road users, and I can progress quickly to new varieties of road vehicle but going places is the point, not manipulating the steering wheel of a virtual reality car on a virtual map - the distant roar of traffic won’t have to put me off because there are live people willing to keep me safe.
No SSiW for me, if I had not seen it recommended in a Facebook Duolingo Welsh learners’ forum. I would not have come across the Welsh Duolingo (DL) learners’ forum had I not discovered the DL Gaeilge (Irish) Study Group on Fb and those Welsh learners of Irish there. I hate much about social media but Fb DL forums set up by DL enthusiasts (tutors, vols, learners) beat the tedium of only having the DL website’s forum. The Fb DL groups are part of and a window on to that social media semi-virtual cultural reality that is the worldwide presence gained by diaspora languages.
DL isn’t perfect but (given Duolingo Fb activists) it beat the other multilingual facilities (e.g. Transparent, busuu) in keeping me returning to one place. My 40 year old O-level Russian gets an airing, I can kill two birds with one stone, revise Russian from French, Italian from German, etc toggle around Indo-Europe. The Punjabi horizon is out of sight but I’d go there. (The Arabic horizon will start to appeal to me if a neighbouring family originally from Iraq, having connections with Wales, really does deepen contact. )
(Another anecdotal aside: I am delighted that I introduced a young friend to Duolingo, months ago, because, when he met his Polish girlfriend, he took the initiative to get a DL smattering of Polish. On my meeting her for the first time this week, I show her SSiW and, as she is learning Spanish, I show her SSiS, too. Now she may get a clearer idea about passing her mother tongue Polish on to my friend/her boyfriend.)
Online language platforms’ more extrinsic motivational aspects don’t entirely work on me, or not for long. I tend to feel patronised by all of them. Sentence building with given virtual flashcards is a fun puzzle. Much literacy is boring and pointless, and obstructive to boot.
I love my language books and cd/dvd courses, but I am loathe to buy more till I am not left using them alone, because the local class has folded, or turned out to be impractical for me.
A local Irish tutor of Irish was excellent one-to-one but made classic mistakes in his teaching strategies in his tiny, hugely diverse, hard to manage, class. He mis-taught beginners - which drove others away entirely, and me to all the other online things I have mentioned.
Sadly I must admit that anything built on the (excellent for some purposes) European Languages Framework, is identifiable a mile away, and turns me off very quickly as it reminds me of the testing industry. Gaelchultúr’s Ranganna Irish at Intermediate level bores me to tears, really, but it covers important ground well.
The arts and imagination, literature, theatre, drama, film, songs and some prospect of functioning in adult concerns in community, democracy and citizenship, campaigning and social justice, (or even enabling business success for somebody with noble motivations and ethics) matter more to me than getting a flippin’ certificate, which can so get in the way if one feels contempt for a conventional ML teaching industry which has excluded and hampered more than it has helped.
I know immersion will work as a last resort if I ever truly need a language. What I want is incidental access to information on, and insights into, cultural propriety and intelligent, intercultural contact; to increase my capacity to communicate/build community across linguistic bridges and interfaces. Knowing what constitutes good language acquisition and learning is part of developing a capacity to keep myself and others from being functionally just a mere monoglot.
I am one individual representing one set of motivations. There are gaps in provision and market. Connections that are useful and sustainable will make and sustain themselves. What fills a gap or bridges a difficult barrier/chasm will be taken up, and may be a runaway success, one hopes not fizzle out but lead to something sustainable.
I am still on a bike on the SSiW beginners’ estate. I do want connection beyond the estate, but any excursion into the wider landscape will have to be well planned if I am not going to abandon my own pedal power, or hold back those on keen to move longer/ faster on tourers, racers, etc. Routes and guides and excursions could definitely be devised. Dal Ati, Bore Da/Prynhawn Da are a little beyond me, and I am deliberately learning as an outsider, neighbour, Saesneg.
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People learn in different ways. The old adage is: “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” I personally learn by seeing words written down and then hearing how they are said. I love Duolingo because I can see the words, I can see the structures, I can work out the grammar and the repetition is so important. And - albeit sometimes with an iffy pronunciation but good enough for learners - I can listen to the words as well. And their notes are excellent.
I have tried SSiW three times over two years and had to give up each time, feeling very despondent and dwp, because it’s too fast for me, and the sentences are so long that it becomes a test of memory rather than meaning. So I’ve gone for language courses (Thank you Gareth King) and a Skype tutor and occasional visits to Wales for weekend courses. It has led me to finding Welsh speaking people in the English city where I live, and some wonderful adventures. Even if I never become fluent, learning Welsh has enriched my life already.
But I will persevere, and may even dabble with SSiW again perhaps. I enjoy the SSiW email letter very much. It motivates me, even if I don’t use the course itself. Diolch yn fawr.
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I’m not sure I understood what @rich is proposing here.
What I can tell is:
-SSiW did not appear n my searches about Welsh language (Google from a browser in Italy/Italian)
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like many many others around the world I knew Duolingo and had used it before to revise languages I know, try to improve or just figure out a tiny bit of more or less obscure languages. It’s quick, easy, you can use it without audio - even a few minutes while waiting for a bus.
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when I saw Welsh I thought it could be my chance to actually understand a little bit of this language (besides singing along Datblygu songs in fake Welsh!). So I tried it but the first version was very very basic and I got bored fast.
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recently I decided to try it again and noticed it’s way better. And most of all it included a few included a few interesting links for further learning - including SSiW and that’s how I found this. So thanks Duolingo! By the way I’m still using it, a tiny bit every day, I find it pretty good to build a vocabulary and read and write a bit too.
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SSiW requires more attention and time but can be much faster to learn to speak. The Duolingo and SSiW learner style and objectives may or may overlap, in my opinion.
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Hi Megan,
Personally I too am a firm believer that everyone learns differently - it is only a question of degree. It seems that it must be true that in different situations the same person also learns differently eg in a Welsh speaking area vs Manchester.
So it is a question of finding the right way for you…in your current situation…ultimately SSIW or not.
I still use Duo Lingo - for me it is useful for vocabulary - and it’s incessant reminders (!) are actually a good thing. But no doubt it doesn’t suit others.
Personally I found SSIW a game changer but I guess consistent with the above that can’t be true for everyone. However I worry that you say it is too fast for you - as in finding the right way, you could press the pause button (e.g.) after every word if that is what worked best for you.
General guidelines are given - I followed them to a degree but I did what felt right for me and that changed over time. For example, I would go through the lessons in two different ways - one way pressing the pause button - checking I understood with no time limit as to what was meant to follow…plus the recommend way…that worked really well for me.
However if you have found a way - one which is completely different- and you are progressing then that is the main thing over and above everything else…
…don’t worry about ‘the rules’ - make your own!
Rich
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I’m off to France soon and when I went last year I noticed that the language seemed to be wiped clean from my memory.
Today, I rattled through Duolingo French - I didn’t do the individual lessons, but went straight to the checkout for each one. It’s blown away some cobwebs, but to be honest it is so easy to guess the answers, that I haven’t learned anything new. When you have a sentence in French and then some jumbled up words it really isn’t that hard to guess what the right combination is.
It doesn’t force you to try to create sentences of your own which I think is the hardest thing to do. I also don’t know my grammar, so learning the pluperfect and future subjunctive leads me to Wikipedia to find out what those words mean.
I’m grateful for having Duolingo at hand today, because in one day I don’t think I could have covered so much stuff, but ultimately you need methods that make you think very hard, tie you in knots and make you speak and create. SSIW for Welsh is more than a complement for Duolingo Welsh it is a major step change in loading your brain with the means to create the things that you probably want to say and get some very important listening experience, which is one of the hardest parts to master in any language.
SSIW probably seems a bit harder to use then Duolingo, but I think it has to be challenging to be effective.
PS French really is very easy to guess if you speak English (thanks to Chaucer and the Normans) , there are so many crossover words with English, far more than between Welsh and English - I came very close to guessing “poor” today, by trying to think of a less common English word and modified Pauper to Paupre - so close, but no biscuit!
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I think your testimony re French @Toffidil sums up the positive value of Duolingo and its sad limitations… although it has been working on getting interaction and a club feeling it remains atomising really, as if language proficiency is simply an individual attribute/ possession or good to be acquired.
The Facebook learner support groups add a whole new dimension, and I am grateful to SSiWers in those groups who signposted me from there to here.
Duolingo is a bit of a “gateway/halfway house/day centre” for those shy of commitment, who are language-curious. If people are stuck in the gateway to better things than that is sad, but sometimes people need a lot of hanging around in the gateway, and returns to halfway houses. and time in daycentres before they can find a settled home in bilingualism, being a polyglot, embracing a full cultural immersion in a culture, world view, tradition new to them.
There are a lot of monoglots with hankerings towards more communication/community - at least by having that gateway, busy adult returners to learning can have some little taste of where their kids may go before them, or what theykd like to embrace fully in retirement/ or if unemployment/underemployment strikes.