This response is much as mine was going to be. I know why we have day and night; it’s because of the rotation of the Earth. I don’t need to know why the Earth rotates to appreciate that at 5pm it’s starting to get dark. Likewise, I know mutations are there, but I don’t need to know the grammatical reason for it (the historic, grammatical reason for it), to recognise the patterns of when they occur.
It can be hard for some people to let go of having to know the reason behind everything, but I think learning Welsh is one of those times you just have to accept things. They start to become natural soon enough.
ah siaron that sounds like you had teachers who were not going at your pace. I would love to help you learn the guitar but I don’t know much theory, which has made me a good choice for some and a bad choice for others. I tend to see theory as the enemy of music and creativity, but not language for some reason, though all languages evolved without anyone actually writing a set of rules down for their evolotion… which is an interesting thought. The rules are descriptive of how the language fits together, etc and help you to build it up in blocks, but I can see that SSiW does a similar thing without explaining the rules, but still helps you to build things up in blocks. Hmmm. Lots of thought to do today.
Is this not the opposite of your problem with learning Welsh though? If you’re good at guitar but not good at the theory, can’t you take the same approach with Welsh and worry less about the theory behind some of the concepts?
You’re absolutely right, @Frances that the mutations aren’t just about how words flow from one to another. In fact they’re not really about that at all. They convey meaning and if you’re interested in grammar, you can read up about them. If you find grammar horrifying, you can just learn them until they start to “feel right”.
For example, in English we say something is “his” or “hers”. In Welsh that difference is shown by different mutations of the initial letter of the thing possessed. There’s no particular logic to why one language does it one way and Welsh does it another. It’s just how things have developed.
Regarding the class, it doesn’t sound like any beginner class I’ve ever been in or observed. What course are you following and whereabouts in Wales are you? Possibly the teaching style doesn’t suit you. It may be that the tutor’s attempts at humour aren’t working for you because you’re anxious to understand everything right away. Or it could be that you’re not in the right class for you. There are different classes working with different teaching materials.
Except it all depends on the initial letter of the thing possessed!
Ei chath
Ei gath
OK, that indicates who owns what… but what about:
Ei siop
Ei siop
What I’m getting at is that you can’t reliably use mutation of a means of knowing whether something is his or hers. The “flow” argument is more convincing from that point of view. But then why the mutation on feminine singular nouns following the definite article? That one’s never made sense to me. You can have a feeling of when something changes following “i” or “o” or “fy” but the feminine noun thing just doesn’t work the same way for me.
Mrgaret, can you recommend a good grammar book for beginners that would explain this to me? I’m not hung up on it as some may think, I do like to understand things and I had a suspicion this was about cases ie. posessive/genitive etc rather than just sounds. Diolch
Yes, you’re right. Out of context, you can’t always tell whether something is “his shop” or “her shop”, but, speaking personally, I’ve never really worried about why mutations occur in the way they do, I’ve always been happy to accept, “Because that’s how it works in Welsh,” as an answer.
We get pernickerty in English about double negatives and claim they make a positive, but is that actually right? Many dialects use “ain’t no” and similar constructions to convey a negative and other languages increase the strength of a negative statement by adding in more negatives. So in this regard, I’m with Nicky on the “just go with the flow” method of learning, especially if you want to sound like a normal person and not like a book speaking.
The real question is whether the class is going to help or hinder @Frances. I started learning Welsh many years ago and at the time classes were the only way of learning. A weekly class wasn’t really successful and I got more benefit from the more intensive weeks at Easter or in the summer. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I finally found a class that really worked to get me speaking because it used a method somewhat similar to SSiW and even more recently I’ve used SSiW to make the leap from a hesitant learner who knew masses of stuff but still couldn’t really speak the language to someone who is a reasonably confident and fluent speaker.
These days there are many ways to learn and I’m now beginning Spanish with SSiS, but one thing I have found classes useful for is connecting with other learners in the local area. Sometimes this leads to spin-off pub and cafe meetings for conversation practice.
If the class you’re attending doesn’t have a course book which includes helpful explanations, I can recommend the Gareth King books. I haven’t personally used any of these because the courses I’ve followed have included explanations in the course book, so perhaps someone else can recommend a good one to start with?
He’s written a lot of books including a very thick (but still readable) complete grammar, but also simpler intermediate and beginner grammars.
You don’t have to buy them from Amazon of course, but it’s a good place to see what’s available.
You can sometimes buy them cheaply second hand (I dont think he’ll mind my saying that)
Also, the complete grammar is on google books if you do a search. Not every page, but a lot of it.
Obviously, what works for one learner doesn’t necessarily work for everyone, so what works for me may not help at all. But I was serious about my being someone who sits down and recreationally reads grammars of dead languages: I’ve done some EFL, and I actively like grammar. The best descriptive grammar of the modern spoken language is almost certainly going to be @garethrking’s ‘Modern Welsh’ published by Routledge – it’s quite expensive in the hard-copy version of the latest edition, but I bought an e-book of the previous edition for considerably less.
However – I bought it after I’d done quite a lot of SSiW, to satisfy some niggles and a need for explanations, and by the time I bought it I found I could understand most of the examples he uses to illustrate his points. I think if I’d bought it sooner, it would have been a lot less useful/meaningful to me. Now, I can pretty much just open it to look things up, in the way that you’d turn to Michael Swan or David Crystal when you want to explain something you can’t quite put your finger on to a student: too early, and I think I’d have found it a bit of a slog.
My suggestion, if you can bear it, would be to stick with the Level 1 for now, and go for a grammar later on. But if you really want something right now, Gareth does have other, more beginner-friendly books out there – I’m afraid I haven’t tried them to be able to make recommendations, though.
@Frances I’m sorry you are having such a bad experience. I know you must be overwhelmed by all the posts in this thread, but hopefully you are overwhelmed by the support, too!
I just want to echo Nicky’s experience…I started with the old SSiW Courses, and in there are some lessons toward the end of the second course that are meant to practice lots of mutations. (Not to worry, nothing like that in the new Levels!) I was really discouraged by those and thought I’d have to repeat them a million times to get it right. But I didn’t do that - I only did them a couple of times and then just kept going. And then I did the new Levels, listened to Radio Cymru, and watched S4C (I’m in America so there’s no local exposure for me). And you know what? Without even really trying, I know what the mutations are. I just know what sounds right, like Nicky said. And when I get them wrong, I don’t worry, because I’ve learned from people on this forum that even native speakers don’t get them right all the time. I’m a perfectionist, I like to get everything right all the time, but I let that go and you know what? I can communicate in Welsh, and it’s a great feeling, and it doesn’t matter one bit if it’s not perfect.
I see you asked about grammar books. I’d recommend not worrying and just going with SSiW for a while, but I also understand the need to know what’s going on “underneath”. I heartily recommend Gareth King’s books, as others have said. I was a little confused as to which I should get in the beginning, so here’s a bit of help. I started with his excellent dictionary which contains much more than just words and translations - there are lots of usage notes which are very helpful. It’s the Modern Welsh Dictionary. When I felt like I wanted more, I got the “simpler” version of Gareth King’s grammar - Colloquial Welsh: The Complete Course for Beginners. It’s plenty of detail and you may never need more than that. The “very comprehensive” version is Modern Welsh: A Comprehensive Grammar. I would have been overwhelmed had I bought that one first It is unfortunately a bit pricey, no fault of Gareth’s!
Best of luck on your Welsh journey. Please don’t feel like a dunce, everyone learns differently and at their own pace. We are here to support you all the way!
That advice is really helpful. Yes I’m a perfectionist and I think it’s that that stops me moving forward sometimes. I have finally finished lesson 4 of challenge one. I’m rather amused I can throw myself into a welsh conversation at this point… apparently… lol. I don’t think I can! Well, I don’t have anyone to speak with currently but I’m working on that, there must be some people near me that would like to meet up for a coffee. anyone in somerset?
It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? It only keeps getting better
Hopefully you can find some people to chat with face to face. There is an online group (that uses a platform called Slack) called Welsh Speaking Practice where you can practice speaking in groups or one on one with someone. It’s very easy to use, and there are designated groups for beginners, where you can even just listen if you want - no pressure! It’s private, so if you’re interested you can send an email to admin@saysomethingin.com - with ‘WSP’ in the title, and your name in the body of the email and you’ll be sent an invitation.
I’m just a bit sick of doing everything online. I find that I get ill on the computer for too long. Its better to get out and about. Thanks for the suggestion though. That’s why I tried the evening course because I thought it would be more interactive and I’d be able to ask questions and it wouldn’t hurt my eyes and stop me going out in the lovely fresh air. I expect I can find a few people here to practice with. If not, I’ll find another way
I don’t know if it may be a bit far for you to travel (depending which end of Somerset you are), but there is definitely a good, regular (real life, not online!) chat group in Thornbury.
I would love to help you learn the guitar but I don’t know much theory, which has made me a good choice for some and a bad choice for others. I tend to see theory as the enemy of music and creativity, but not language for some reason, though all languages evolved without anyone actually writing a set of rules down for their evolotion… which is an interesting thought. The rules are descriptive of how the language fits together, etc and help you to build it up in blocks, but I can see that SSiW does a similar thing without explaining the rules, but still helps you to build things up in blocks. Hmmm. Lots of thought to do today.
It is unfortunately a bit pricey, no fault of Gareth’s!