Hi there
I normally have to do a Challenge 6 times or so before I get to 80% correct. I will often repeat a 5 minute chunk if its particularly tricky. This means I do a challenge about every 2.5 weeks - approx 20 mins a day on weekdays. If I had more time I could probably do it in a shorter time period but it’s the 6 or so repetitions that are vital to me. I also started with lessons 1-6.2 on the old course which I found more immediately approachable. It’s quite encouraging when a word from the old course pops up in the challenges and I think “I know that already!”.
This forum is so encouraging too.!
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Progress Log - Challenge 4
I prepared for this. Hard. I read throgh the texts of some of my most trusted philosophers and sages (‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius, ‘Tao Te Ching’ by Lao-Tzu, and ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ by P. G. Wodehouse) to get to a state of serenity and calm. I also concentrated on one of the ideas that @aran tried so patiently to get into my thick skull: that my brain is very poor at judging its own state, so I can not properly estimate myself how much progress I really made.
In short, I let go of all my expectations and just went for the ride. It made quite a lot of difference.
The feelings of frustration and my own inadequacy went away (or better, went down to their usual levels). Not that the scores became better (see below), but going through the lesson was a much more pleasant experience, and I was not distracted by thoughts like ‘why don’t you know this by now?’ or ‘you really should have gotten that’.
My stats where
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34 hits - things I got more or less right
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31 errors - not enough time or wrong word
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67 misses - not remembering parts at all
The challenge went pretty much as before, anything polysyllabic did not seem to transition to long term memory. However, I did not let it bother me this time.
Cheers, Michael
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Do you mean you find it hard to remember words like llongyfarchiadau (congratulations) and Eisteddfod?
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I understand how hard it is to let go of one’s expectations, and I can be pretty hard on myself about a lot of things. Being able to be kind to yourself and let go of the self-criticism is so important - well done! If you can enjoy the lessons, I think you’ll find that things will begin to stick better. And don’t worry about the longer words - it all gets better with time and repetition, as you will find as you go along. Dal ati (keep at it) and keep us posted - we are all here to help and cheer you on! 
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This sounds like Progress! Brilliant:-)
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So, in essence, you were kind to yourself. It makes a huge difference. Just a few days ago you were convinced this wasn’t working for you. SSIW lessons haven’t changed. You have. Dal ati!
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O, yes … I needed much more time … and many people almost loosing their patience and nervs.
Da iawn ti! Dal ati @Eigentime! (Keep going!) You know now, you can do it!
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That’s a hugely significant success… 
And particularly interesting that your stats for 4 were pretty similar to your stats for 3 - which wouldn’t be possible unless one or two of the new bits from 3 had already ‘surfaced’ for you…
Looking forward to hearing how 5 goes for you…
Howard, this sounds as though some of our (now very old) old advice about aiming for 80% is tripping you up - we’ve moved on a long way from that, as you can see in this thread! I think it would be a very, very good idea for you to do a run of 10 sessions without repetition (you can always go back to multiple repetitions if necessary) - and see then how you feel about the first of those 10 sessions when you revisit it…
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Interesting @aran! I will give that a go as an experiment. I have just begun Challenge 18 so I will go through to 25 without stopping. Should I use the pause button do you think?
I have been very, very pleased with my progress up til now and certainly wasn’t reporting any problem or feeling “tripped up” in any way. In fact my progress has been meteoric with SSIW compared to previous attempts.
It will be interesting to see how I do with this. I am someone who can be cautious and likes to be sure of my ground before proceeding and also someone who needs teaching something 3 times or so before I “get it” (this applies to many areas). I will find out whether this need for surety through repetition is actual or psychological - at least when it comes to learning Welsh. I will have a look through the thread as I’ve just scanned it so far.
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Progress Log - Challenge 5
Let me start by thanking everyone in this forum for their kind words and encouragements. It really is a great community you have here. You helped me warding off a potential relapse to utter frustration, because this challenge did not go well at all.
My stats where
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21 hits - things I got more or less right
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26 errors - not enough time or wrong word
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83 misses - not remembering parts at all
As usual, I was struggling to remember the longer words and phrases, and there was the increasing volume of words from the previous lessons which I can’t recall at all. The struggle with the complex sentences sometimes even made me forget the current ‘hot’ word after a few sentences.
It will be interesting to see how low those stats can go…
Cheers, Michael
@Howard, I took Aran up on this challenge earlier this year (using the new course, not the old) and it’s a roller-coaster of a ride, but worth it. It’s a surprise how much you retain even though at the time it can feel like drowning in treacle, but all good fun!
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It’s worth being cautious here, because feeling happy about your progress is HUGELY important, and we don’t want to risk that just for the sake of going faster…
Maybe think of it in terms of doing 18 to 25 six times each, but as a group instead of individually - so, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and then 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 again and so on… and see at what stage you start to feel that you don’t need to revisit 18 and 19…
Well done, Michael - that’s clearly into genuinely frustrating territory for you, and you’re doing brilliantly to keep on pushing on with it.
There are all sorts of variables in this kind of performance activity - but once we have a set of stats for you first run through to 10, we’ve got a hugely valuable baseline…
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Will definitely be interesting to compare the two ways of doing it and I’ll be delighted if I go even faster yet! I very much doubt I’ll be put off…I’ve come too far amd learned too much. Will report back. 
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Progress Log - Challenge 6
I had the impression, that this started out as one of the easier challenges. Still my stats went down, as expected.
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27 hits - things I got more or less right
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13 errors - not enough time or wrong word
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93 misses - not remembering parts at all
I did the listening practice yesterday too. The words seemed familiar, but I did not have the time to understand them.
Well, I’ll battle on to Challenge 10, but the challenges are an unpleasant daily chore instead of fun. I’m not sure what is supposed to happen to change that.
Cheers, Michael
You haven’t revisited 3 yet, have you? When you’ve done 10, if you do another run at 3 you should get some clear evidence that the process is working for you…
With the listening practice - no, you shouldn’t have time to ‘understand’ at this stage - but do keep playing them once a day to give your brain the exposure it needs.
One question about the 93 in this challenge - when you say you didn’t remember anything - when you hear the Welsh, does it sound completely strange, like something you’ve never heard before, or do you have a sense of recognising it?
We’ll see where we are by the time you’ve done 10 and revisited 3 - but if it still feels like an unpleasant chore after that, then it might be better for you to look for a different approach - you’ll be more likely to keep going with something you enjoy more.
The Welsh sounds almost always quite familiar. I remember having heard it before, but with the more complex phrases I have no (conscious) connection between the Welsh and the English translation.
Indeed, I struggle to see the advantage of this approach to the more traditional approaches for me, as I seem to do poorly on all measurable indicators. But I won’t pass a final judgement until I have revisited a challenge or two. No matter what, it is still an interesting experiment.
Cheers, Michael
That tells me that the learning process is working - that sense of familiarity wouldn’t be possible otherwise. The only identifiable parts of the process from exposure->mastery are the initial sense of familiarity, and the later sense of pain when you can’t quite get it ready in time.
No, you don’t - you’re not doing poorly - you’re just finding it an unpleasant process, which isn’t the same thing. You’re not finding it easy (and there are people who find it easy), but that is not the same as doing poorly. As it happens, your results so far are better than a number of our other learners who have gone on to good conversational ability…
It’s quite rare for people who don’t enjoy the process to be willing to run the experiment, so thank you very much for the opportunity to watch it unfolding…
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Sorry Aran, contentious post coming up. I guess this thread is giving you food for thought anyway, so here we go. It highlights what I remember trying, rather unsuccessfully, to formulate and articulate to you at one point in Caernarfon. (While trying to justify that I’d never managed to listen to the accelerated listening exercises.)
It worries me that, although the current model makes the process even more accelerated for a lot of people, it may be at the cost of making it more uncomfortable and less enjoyable. It would be a real shame for that to affect retention levels. With the original model, you already had an idea that was proven to work, and was significantly accelerated compared to traditional methods.
Of course I’ve witnessed some people’s meteoric success with the current method, which seems to work even better than the Courses if you’re cut out for it. (I would hate to use the term ‘learning styles’ as I don’t believe in them either…)
I was quite a traditional language learner, and tootled through the Courses in about a year with multiple repetitions and use of the pause button, as per the advice at the time. It was an entirely pleasurable and satisfying experience - after which I could basically talk Welsh, which was wonderful.
I don’t know how many other people have experienced the same kind of reaction as @Eigentime, and if they may have been better off with the original kind of approach. It would be interesting to know about retention levels for both - I guess it would be difficult to get any kind of reliable statistics. But as I said earlier in this thread, I’m not too confident I would personally have been able to stick at the Challenges in current form, without any prior background.
I don’t know the answer, am just being devil’s advocate. (Will now go and hide under a rock.)
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I feel that there is some component missing that gives you some kind of reward every now and then. I am not sure what that could be; maybe some kind of test that would show you that you actually made progress, or maybe some kind of gamefication of the system that awards you points for the effort you put in.
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