Maybe I am missing something but I cannot find this information anywhere? I would like to sign up and subscribe, but having done pimsleur before I would much rather have predefined lesson lengths that I can see so I can plan it. I also don’t know how many lessons I would be paying for, and what will ultimately be covered? In terms of tenses and grammar etc. I also have no idea what this belt system is or what it’s supposed to mean in relation to real levels. Is black belt supposed to be C2?? It also seems when I am in the app it’s just a single stream of content, I cannot select lessons or even see a list. Am I missing something? Another reason I ask is because I am pretty much good with present tense, I would like to skip forward a bit. Diolch
Answer from a customer and fellow learner not connected to SSi in any way:
No, of course blackbelt is not C2, no course in the world can do that. In my opinion, finishing blackbelt will leave you at B1, but (and this is important) with all the structure needed to reach B2 very quickly (weeks not months) if you start talking to people. C1 is a long-term project whatever method you use.
If you think that this counts against the course, you need to think again about what C2 actually means. C2 is not a realistic goal for most people unless you want to make the language a major part of your life: moving to the country, marrying a speaker, having a lifelong love affair with the language, that kind of thing.
I lived in Spain for 2 years, I could already understand most things and make myself understood when I arrived and I spoke Spanish every day as often as I could. I’m confident I reached a B2 level in that 2 years, I might even have reached a C1 at that time (I’ll never know, as 9 years after leaving Spain and not having any oppurtunities to speak it, I’m certainly not C1 now). But in spite of all my hard work and 2 years living in the country and even having already had a basic, communicative level before I arrived, I’m absolutely certain I got nowhere near C2.
If the language you want to study isn’t Welsh, you can just ignore the following. If you are studying Welsh, I hope it is helpful 
FWIW, I just completed the North Welsh course on the app and it took me 62 hours and 43 minutes. The content was very similar to the previous (pre-app) version of the course, which consisted of 3 levels of 25 lessons each. Each lesson was similar in length to a Pimsleur lesson, so a quick and dirty estimate might be that it could be comparable to 2 and a half levels of Pimsleur.
However, the philosophy and pedagogical approach is quite different to Pimsleur and I think you will be pleasantly surprised what is covered.
Then there is the old course. It is less fun and less pedagogically sophisticated, but it is useable and covers more vocabulary than the newer courses and some more advanced grammar (e.g. negative definites with “mo” and more short form verbs) and more formal grammar (e.g. “fy mod i” instead of “bof i”). It can be a bit drilly, but it does make certain structures stick (e.g. it fixed a problem I had with negative forms of ‘bod’). I used Audacity to mix it up and make it less drilly.
Finally, there is the advanced content. It consists of monologues, stories and interviews and at least one diary. I think it’s quite good overall and (if I have understood correctly) is meant to serve as a bridge to understanding Welsh in real life and in the media. If I have one criticism, I think the jump from the main course to the advanced content is a bit challenging and there should be more of a bridge between the 2; but it’s doable.
Certainly, completing all the courses plus the advanced content will take months and will take you much further than 5 levels of a Pimsleur course could ever dream of taking you. Even just the courses without the advanced content will take you further IMO.
Helo @lukas-golino,
The SaySomethingin app gives you one long learning stream, that builds on what you’ve learnt so far and uses spaced repetition to give revision and keep you able to recall what you’ve learnt as you learn new material. So it doesn’t have the concept of distinct lessons. Everything is designed to keep you moving forward towards conversational competence.
The belt system is just a way of showing that you’re making progress and giving you a feel for how far you’ve come and what is still ahead of you. It doesn’t relate to the European Framework, but you can be confident that you’ll have good conversational skills by the end.
If it’s the Welsh course you’re doing, we have regularly had learners attend week-long residential immersion sessions in the past well before they’ve reached the end of the available material, spending the entire week speaking only Welsh, so that could give you an idea of the level of competency you will reach.
You’re able to use the ‘Skip’ button to move ahead one Introduction item at a time, but if you feel ready to skip to the next belt colour, you can do that in ‘Account’ ‘My Languages’, and you can always move back a bit if you feel you’ve skipped too far. Your speed of learning is very much under your control.
It’s designed as a single stream, yes. If you want to skip ahead until it gets more challenging, that’s what the skip button is for. You can plan ahead to do X minutes a day, and it will remember where you are. The app also shows how far through each belt you are and I think an estimate of how long it will take you to reach the next belt.
You don’t say which language you’re trying to learn, but since you ended with “Diolch” I’ll assume it’s Welsh. There are older mp3 lessons you can download, each about 30 mins. Start with the “Challenges” although it sounds like you may want to skip through the earliest ones. There are 3 Levels, each with 25 challenges of roughly 30 mins each. The there is the Old Course, which is a similar format but a bit more rigid and drill based. There is a bit of overlap, but the older lessons use a few different grammar forms and vocabulary that is all useful. Again there are 3 courses/levels each with 25 half-hour-ish lessons, but additionally around 20 vocab files. There are lists of what is introduced in each lesson.
There are also some mp3 files for Spanish although not as many. If you choose a newer language such as Japanese or German, the app is the only option.
I think everyone would appreciate greater clarity as to how long it takes to complete the belts, and how they correspond to other standards of language level. But the main thing is, if you complete any SSI course, you will be able to have real conversations, and could conceivably move to a Welsh-speaking area and cope without any English because you will have all the tools and basic understanding to pick up more Welsh, filling in the gaps with whatever particular vocabulary you need in your own daily life.