I’ve been trying out the different options for a while now and I’m wondering if there are any outlines of what’s covered in each of the Level Challenges and Old courses anywhere? I’d love to be able to jump straight in on the constructions I need to work on and it would also be helpful to see what has been covered up to that point.
So far the Level 3 Challenges seem a bit confusing as a supersimple phrase is introduced and practised and then it’s followed a really long and fairly complex sentence that’s almost impossible to remember. The Old Course 3 makes more sense, but since I don’t know what’s been covered before it can be a bit jarring as I don’t know what you’re expected to know/not know.
One of the basic principles of SSi
is that they introduce a new bit of vocabulary and immediately ask you to come out (without a model to copy) with a sentence that integrates the new phrase into the context of stuff that you already know (stuff they’ve previously covered). So it builds up, cumulatively, and if the “new” stuff is super simple but the “old” stuff isn’t I’d honestly suggest backtracking a bit until you find it’s all genuinely doable, and then seeing how fast you can go from there.
Oh, I could do the long sentences that I came across (provided I could remember the whole thing!), but it just didn’t make sense that someone would have gotten to the point where they could trot out the answer to the long sentence and at the same time not know things like ar bwys, if you see what I mean.
In the one I tried today, they just introduced short form past tense (my preferred version) but clearly up until that point you were expected to use wnaeth + verbnoun (which I don’t use actively myself).
Basically, I feel like it would help me to know what you are supposed to know at each stage. My Welsh is fairly good, but I could do with drilling speaking a bit more, which is where I think SSiW will be perfect.
On the website the “vocabulary” button for the old course lesson includes the structures introduced, and because it is fairly methodical I think would provide what you asked for. While for the new course the button is also there, the pdfs floating about are a better guide. But I don’t think the new course is structured in a way that makes what you ask for possible really.
So far the Level 3 Challenges seem a bit confusing as a supersimple phrase is introduced and practised and then it’s followed a really long and fairly complex sentence that’s almost impossible to remember.
I plan on writing a longer post about my own experiences when I’m finished, but I stopped doing the level 3 challenges about a third of the way in and started again with the old course. I’m now coming to the end of course 2’s vocab lessons. I didn’t enjoy level 3 because it seemed chaotic with even less structure than the previous levels, and I was missing so many of what I think are fundamentals. I’ll reserve my full judgement for when I’ve finished old course 3 and then level 3 attempt number 2, but I think level 3 should have been level 4 and there is a whole level missing in between. The things I was learning no doubt made me sound far more native, but I lacked the fundamentals to actually express myself. I have further thoughts in this, but as said I’ll reserve them.
Thanks! I hadn’t thought to look at the vocab lists (as there were no words I didn’t know), but I’ll check them out.
Maybe I just need to jump around a bit between Old 2 and Old 3, to get a better feel for it.
I’ve tried automagic as well, but there’s only so much skip, skip, skip I can take in one sitting
Don’t get me wrong, the long sentences in the Level 3 challenges were great for not having any difficult components, but providing a challenge in having to put them all together quickly (and as a memory training exercise!). It just felt a bit odd to then have really short phrases thrown in the mix.
The Old Course 3 makes more sense, but since I don’t know what’s been covered before it can be a bit jarring as I don’t know what you’re expected to know/not know.