Hello, I’ve finally done it, i’ve finished the first course.
I wanted to post something as I was very bad when I did the bobsled and didn’t post anything and can I say what high I am on at the moment. I have been doing this course for a very long time and kept having breaks ie when I got to level 10 I stopped for a while as I just wasn’t taking anything and spent time practicing what I had learnt, I then started again going back to about lesson 8 and got up to lesson 16 before i felt really over my head again and wasn’t getting anything right so I practiced again and had a short break then got myself up to lesson 22 but again felt very overwhelmed and stopped for i would guess about 6-7 months then I went back to lesson 10 and was finding this ok but I’d forgot a bit.
This is when i signed up for the bobsled in my first email It said start a new lesson I will admit I cheated a bit but I jumped straight to lesson 16 (I know i’d already done it but I didn’t remember most of it. I then pushed on and completed the next lessons each day and the challenges that were set and i gained in confidence each day.
I carried on with a lesson a day in my car driving to and from work and like I said I am now finished all 25.
I would like to thank everyone that puts there time into this course and our learning, I am English and it is my first language but I’m not very good at it, and struggle to understand when I’m talking in different tense (even though I do it without thinking).
I am now looking forward to moving forward and starting my next stage of learning.
HUGE congratulations! Well done, Emma - fantastic determination to keep on coming back to it, and as Iestyn always says, as long as you keep moving you’ll get there - it doesn’t matter how fast you go, just that you don’t stay stopped when you have a break
You really have achieved a huge amount - if you were put under pressure and not allowed to speak any English now, you’d find that a few days would be enough to get you genuinely communicating with people in Welsh
Thanks Aran, if I could get time off work i’d be at your weeks camp in a flash but sadly thats not possible this year, maybe next
In the mean time i’ll just practice with who I can when I can (my dogs are getting quite good at it now too)
Where is best to go from here? on to course 2 or the vocab lessons? I looked at them once but decided i would just stick to the normal lessons at the time?
Very much personal choice - the vocab lessons make a useful difference for Bootcamp if you haven’t got a wider vocab already - but in many ways it might be easier to push on with Course 2 and tick off the vocabs later on…
I’ve listened to lesson 0 and 1 and think i’m going to go back to my tested method of giving it about a month and letting it all sink in then hitting lesson 1 again
Thanks for you replys
Having a long-ish break is fine, but when you come back from it, you should expect to find the revision a little tough - it might be better for you to repeat the last lesson you did the day afterwards, and/or to come back from the month off and move on to a new lesson
Going to try a slightly different approach this time, going sat a target of doing one lesson a week (right at the beginning if I can) then using the rest of the week to practice that and let it all stick where is should, that way I won’t forget more than I’ve learnt and have to revisit a lot. I also have a very patient welsh first language other half to practice on.
