I have just gone through week 22, challenge 21 and my head is completely mashed.
I normally practice by going through the full lesson without the pause button. I will do this as many times as is needed, until i know roughly 80% plus of the lesson.
My struggle is the length of sentence, coupled with the new variations of words.
Upto now i have managed to get myself through it. However, i feel the lack of welsh speakers around me means my confidence is taking a battering.
This is the first time in ages i am feeling that its getting too complicated.
I have had that happen at certain times through the process. I have recently completed level 2 and I am getting ready to take on level 3. This happened most recently on Challenge 24 of level 2. I was absolutely overwhelmed and was losing confidence in my ability to pull this off. I had never before repeated a challenge no matter how much I thought I had retained. I repeated this one and still was struggling. I posted a few of my questions on the forum and the answers provided were of more use than me going back and repeating the challenge. Challenge 25 was a nice review of Level 2 and I found that even though I made mistakes I knew where I went wrong. Midway through level 1 , I started doing the challenges in roughly 10 minute blocks. Sometimes two blocks in a day and other days just 1 block. I have continued in that manner since then, and for me, it works better than doing the whole session at once. Sometimes, I randomly pick a previous challenge from level one and find that I can fairly easily do the whole challenge in one sitting, and this also serves as a refresher for words or phrases that I have forgotten as I haven’t heard them for some time. I think most of us have had the same experience as you, or worse, but keep plugging away. It won’t get easier but if you go back and redo a few of the earlier challenges, it will boost your confidence a little.
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Many thanks for taking the time to reply. Its appreciated. I have always struggled wgen it comes to learning and i am also a perfectionist, which when its not going the right way i feel my anxieties kicking in.
Your right, i will keep plugging anf maybe set my expectations a little lower. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
I feel your pain @stephen-wilding-hewi. I think we all do at some point(s) in the process. I’ve come to the thinking that I can understand and speak a hell of a lot more than I could six months ago (I’m just finishing L1) and there are moments of sheer joy when it flows out of my mouth without my brain getting in the way and then there are the moments where confidence disappears at the end of a tough challenge and re-doing the challenge just doesn’t help at times. I have been doing what @robert-ridenhour suggests though and going back and re-doing a previous challenge from a few weeks back and so far it’s always worked out as a massive confidence booster because, to my surprise, it has stuck and I know more than I thought I did. So when this happens now I leave the tough challenge for a day or two and re-do a previous one, somehow that gets me over the sticking point.
It is a case of hanging in there, keep plugging away and the journey will be worth it. I’ve been thinking in the last couple of days that in six months I’ve learnt so much I will finally be able to call myself a Welsh speaker in around another 6 to 12 months and that’s something I never thought would/could happen but I know it can and will happen.
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Many thanks for the reply. I have decided to keep going and i have also asked a friend in the village to help me with my ‘siared’ i think it just got too much anf i needed the break.
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It definitely sounds as though you are doing far, far better than you realise - perfectionism is a real challenge for language learning - if you think of the exercises as if they were part of a circuit training set up, it may help - you’re not meant to get everything right, and you don’t need to get everything right to improve - you just need to keep on making the effort to speak and then listening carefully to the model sentences, and that will give your brain the exposure it needs…
But also, it’s always fine to take a break! And some days are just tougher than others… but with the long sentences, it’s absolutely fine just to get bits of them - the exposure to that length of sentence encourages your brain to ‘chunk’ words into phrases, and when it’s finished, they’ll suddenly start to seem possible. But you really, really don’t need to get to 80% correct - that’s old advice, and we really need to change that recording! Sorry! 
@aran Could you please let me know if Level 3 is the same as the deep end? And can you sign up to get emails as I’m subscribed but as I’ve come to the end of Level 2 I’m not getting an encouraging email now:)
Also a native North Walian(here in the South) told me this week that it’s enough to try and understand spoken Welsh but a bit pointless learning to speak it as everyone can speak English! I didn’t hit her I promise.
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I’m at the head mashed stage at the moment and on a pause while I catch up. I’m also doing the Dysgu Cymraeg course, just finished mynediad and started sylfaen, all in a bit of a hurry. I have my speaking test next month and it’s all too much.
I’m not overly concerned, I know I’ll find my mojo again but right now, I need to give my head a rest and find the pleasure in learning again.
Happens to us all at some point but don’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes the best thing to do is just move on, there is enough repetition to pick up on the bits you’re stuck on (it was challenge 14 for me) Pob lwc!
Level 3 is the same as the deep end. I finished it about six months ago and learned so much. I wish there was another deeper end to move on to!
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I think everyone gets that ‘head mashed’ feeling now and then, and some of the challenges are definitely notorious for it. If you’ve got a friend who can help you practise, that’s great. Also the Welsh speaking practice on Slack is a really good way to learn - everyone is very friendly and it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand something or if you just want to listen in and not speak.
@robert-ridenhour, I also chunk down the weekly lessons into 10-12 minute segments, Mon-Wed. After I’ve finished the whole lesson, I take a break from it for a day, then repeat the entire challenge on Fri. If I still feel like I’m missing too much, I repeat it once more on Sun. I haven’t had to repeat it a second time since the middle of level 1, so that method works for me.
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