Course 1 Northern Am I Normal? (plus remaining Level 2 North course notes)

I strongly recommend that you save yourself the pain, and push straight on - if by the time you get to session 10 you still feel you need to revisit 6.2, it will still be there :sunny:

Really? It’s nothing like gone in?

So am I, so do I, yes, yes yes. The other thing is that there are far more, easily accessible learning resources. The hardest thing nowadays is choosing. Not like when ah wer a nipper. And ah ad nobbut one clog😀
SSIW style learning is probably the start of a revolution in teaching. It’s the on-demand, slot it in when you want nature, together with the chance to draw on a wider reservoir of experience that blows classroom stuff out of the water. So, all good, then.

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Has anyone mentioned to you the need for use of alcohol in Welsh language learning? Just a matter of careful titration😜

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Lol! Well you would have thought I was quite squiffy if you had heard my repetitions of 6.2 , although I’m stone cold sober!

Yup. Press on. Accepting a lack of conscious control is one of the best things you can do when you’re learning a language (with a course with decent spaced repetition!) - because you don’t have to have learnt it perfectly the first time - the continued exposure will eventually give you most of it, and probably at least as much as you would gain by banging your head against the same lesson over and over again.

And as I said, there’s no downside - if you’re still convinced you need a repeat by the time you get to 10, you can go back and do it then (at which point, you’ll almost certainly find that it’s become surprisingly easier than you remembered…;-)). :sunny:

Who knew?! Well, I’m definitely happy to be guided by you aran. Ive downloaded 7 and will follow your advice. Thank you.

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And an extra bonus - if you feel this hurts, you can blame me…:wink:

I’m not sure if Aran will appreciate the comparison, but Michel Thomas said one nice thing when talking about his courses, which was that he, not the student, took full responsibility for the teaching / learning; the learner was not to worry about this.

Aran doesn’t quite say that, but elsewhere, he says just trust the method and it will work for you, and most people seem to find that it does.

Hi 4rathomson. Sounds like you are doing great! Thought you may be interested in the Manchester monthly SSIW meetups as you are in Stockport. They are always the 3rd Saturday of each month so the next one will be Saturday 18th April 10.30 onwards Manchester Art Gallery Cafe. This is a friendly,very informal group with members at all different stages of learning and some older than yourself, including me! It would be lovely to see you there if ever you can make it. I won’t be at the April meet up as I am lucky enough to be in Pen Llyn that weekend.

Good luck and hope to see you soon. :slight_smile:

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Hi Jean, that’s really kind of you to invite me, thank you. I did notice your posts about this meet up earlier today, but I’m sadly working that Saturday so can’t make it. I do work a lot of Saturdays but would really love to join you all if I am off, added bonus it being at the Art Gallery as I so love the permanent collection there, some captivating paintings! Thanks again Jean and have a great time in Wales.
Ruth

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strong textThese are all really interesting answers and I just want to add my bit. What do you mean by ‘reasonably fluent’? As learners we tend to have really high expectations about what fluent is. If you lower your standards, you will get there, wherever there is, a bit quicker. I really feel that fluency is, for some people, perhaps too many people, an ever receding horizon and however much they have learned, whatever they can say, they beat themselves up for what they can’t say. Fluency is, I think, not knowledge or even ability, but confidence. What I have to say, in my target language, is important and I want you to understand me. It doesn’t matter that it’s not perfect. If you understand me, my language is good enough.

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So true, personally i will feel very happy when i can ask questions in the target language and understand the answer, if this includes learning new words (job done), It’s how my English is so
what is the difference, we are always learning.

Cheers J.P.

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Good point Margaret. For me I would very much stress the ‘reasonably’ bit, I have no expectation to ever be as fluent in Welsh as in English as I have been speaking English for 50yrs…so I think my question was really about starting to learn Welsh at my age - what other similar aged people had found it to be like? With regards to fluency I would be thrilled if I could get to a point where I can pick up a good amount of what somebody says in Welsh and find some kind of response! I tend to speak English quite fast so I think my frustration comes with actually having to speak so much slower as the cogs try their damnedest to process the conversation. It’s great to hear other learners my age and older are doing well with it and it gives me a lot of encouragement as it certainly isnt easy!

You’ll reach that point, Ruth, I’m sure…then move beyond that point.

Thanks for your kind encouragement, I will keep on keeping on!

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Thanks Ruth.

Yes there are some lovely paintings in the gallery aren’t there. The temporary exhibitions are often interesting too.

Look forward to meeting you soon :smile:

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Oooohh. I’m finding lesson 13 a bit of a stinker! Having said that, I was walking my Jack Russell, Bill, in gale force wind up fields…even with the earphones quite loud there was so much flapping wind noise I couldn’t hear it that well! I’ve only had one listen part way through as
I’m having a bit of trouble with ‘mewn’. When Aran first introduces it, it sounds kind of like(not exactly) the english ‘noun’ to me…but first letter is obviously an ‘m’, but in the following sentences it appears to sound like ‘ee voun’ when it is used. I’m not understanding? I do understand mutated m is v, but not understanding the ‘i’ bit in front? Also, I don’t understand why ‘It’s going to work out’ started with ‘Mae o’n’ ? I think I must need to revisit something somewhere. Sorry, i know it’s probs me being a bit thick?!

I can remember finding the pronunciation of “mewn” a bit tricky. All I can really say is keep listening. It comes naturally eventually.

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I had trouble with mewn initially, but for a different reason. When I was young my nain, who grew up near Amlwch, would say mewn minute (prounounced “miaown”) to mean do it now, immediately, with no messing about! Aran and Catrin pronounced the word differently and gave it a subtly different meaning, so I was left wondering whether there were two different words or was it just that my nain was using a local variant, in terms of both pronunciation and meaning. It’s far, far too late to ask her - has anyone else come across a different usage of this word?

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