Thank you so much for your extremely kind words - and it’s wonderful watching you start to grow in confidence - you can do this!
I’m just telling you the truth, you know. For the first time in 100 years, I have the exciting feeling that I actually can do something…can do THIS (with your precious advise and help)!
It’s always the same with me. Since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to learn Celtic languages. It all begun with Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped”, as I fell in love with Alan Breck Stewart (I do always fall for the combination ‘fierce fighter (good kisser) and Gaelic (Welsh, Cornish, Irish…) speaker’). Aye, 'course I do love Captain Ross Poldark, too…and James Alexander Malcolm Fraser MacKenzie!
Until today, I’m oscillating between Welsh, Cornish, Scottish and Irish Gaelic, not being able to follow through with one language at the time and finally reach an acceptable level of fluency. In a way, this post doesn’t belong here, as I’m not frustrated…but I’m STILL a newb in all “my” languages, that’s for sure…
fierce fighter (good kisser) and Gaelic (Welsh, Cornish, Irish…) speaker
Hmm - let’s see if I qualify:-
“Welsh speaker” … check (thanks to SSiW)
“good kisser” … certainly
“fierce fighter” … ah well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Oh, but you are a fierce fighter…for the Welsh language and culture!
I’m experiencing right now, that a few minutes into the second Challenge (I’m doing two Challenges in a row), my brain goes on autopilot and just soldiers on. My brain certainly has to work hard, but it doesn’t feel like strain or a struggle anymore…in a way, it feels like being in a state of trance (no, no, I’m sober as a judge).
Keep at it. I know it sounds strange, but I found Level 1 to be the hardest level. Level 3 feels a bit more chilled. Like the lower 6th in school when you didn’t need to wear school uniform.
I am that person for whom witholding explanations is good! When I get grammar explanations in language learning, then everything I want to say I start second-guessing before I say it, like, “Okay, was that noun masculine or feminine?? Do I need to make the adjective agree? Aaah, how do I conjugate that verb?” If I’m learning from just being exposed to a lot of simple example sentences, I get a better sense of “sounds right” vs. “sounds wrong”, and then there is less thinking and I am less stressed.
But I think this is a very personal thing, and structured explanations suit many people a better.
This morning, after working the night shift, I did Challenge 13 of Level one. It left me feeling utterly lost, almost desperate. Honestly, I did just listen to the teachers half of the time, since my brain was unable to remember, let alone produce even halfway coherent answers.
Then, after a few hours of sleep, I did this Challenge again…and I couldn’t believe how much better it went! Sure, I had many memory lapses, made tons of mistakes and as always, I felt the time I had to create the answers was way too short. And still, with the occasional help of the pause button and the printouts (cheat slips in case of emergency) of the vocabularies of Challenge 12 and 13, I made it through and came up with an answer every time.
It seems my exhausted brain didn’t offer much resistance this morning after work, so the words and sentences sneaked in much easier, even though my conscious mind didn’t notice it at all. Learning seems like weight training…the very last movement you’re only barely able to do, the one that pains the most and leaves your muscles shaking and weak, is the most efficient one.
This song is on top of my workout music…
Being tired is not ideal - it doesn’t even have to be as obvious as just finishing a night shift - our energy levels always ebb and flow - so be kind to yourself when you’re tired and it feels tougher…
Thank you for your reply! You know, funnily enough, I learned more with a tired brain than I usually do well-rested an eager…
Could it be that, when rested and eager, you get too tense and wound up and that what you need is to be relaxed, so a bit of exercise - just something to get you out of breath, before SSiW might help? Because you’d just collapse into your chair and let it happen, instead of thinking too much about the learning process. I may be quite wrong, but it wouldn’t hurt to try it!
Claudia,
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done a lesson, felt totally overwhelmed, and then done it a day or two later and seen a massive improvement. Sounds quite normal to me. I suppose it’s just the way our brains work.
Pob lwc!
No, you’re not at all wrong, Henddraig, your assessment is spot on! I’m like one of these tiny rubber balls and relaxation and calmness of the mind aren’t easy for me to achieve. Yes, when I was exhausted, I put on the headphones, fell on the bed and just let it happend. When I’m passionate about something, I easily get overly eager and try to force my brain to perform well…which, of course, has the opposite effect. -.- You’ve had a great idea, I’m going to try it out and make 20 press-ups (nice and slowly), exercise with my skipping rope for 10 minutes, run up the stairs with the heavy laundry basket…etc, before SSIW. Diolch yn fawr for your input and advice, it helps me a lot!
Diolch yn fawr, Baruch, it’s a great relieve to hear that how my brain works is normal, and that other learners experience the same! I tend to think that my brain works much less efficiently and needs more time to learn than my fellow learner’s brains. These massive improvements, which seem to come out of nowhere a day or two later, are always huge positive surprises for me!
Claudia,
Of course, I can’t take responsibility for my comment above if it turns out that you and I both possess ABnormal brains (in my case, just ask my friends)…
In this case, your friends may sing the same song like my sons, after they had explained me the same computer stuff for the fourth time…“Mamma, really, you should take notes if you still cannot memorise the actions!” Maybe we do have abnormal brains, but once we’ve finally mastered something, we’re unstoppable, right?
I am feeling pretty overwhelmed by Challege 21. Just sticking with it.
When you say ‘sticking with it’, do you mean that you’re repeating it a lot?
It might be time for you to grit your teeth and go on to 22 - you don’t need to master every challenge to end up speaking the language…
No, the magic process is starting to work l think. I usually try to do one challenge a week, and over that period I do the challenge about five times.
This has stood me in good stead so far.
I am intending to do Challenge 21 another couple of times and then move on to Challenge 22.
I was finding the previous challenges a little easier, so this one gave me a bit of a jolt.
Thank you so much Arun for being so supportive.