Wow - that is more than impressive. I love your description of using more Welsh than you’ve learnt - that’s priceless!
Have you seen that Challenge 17 is up? 18 and 19 are in the pipeliine as well.
A word of caution / warning / general "watch-outness. If you feel confused by the difference in material between old Course 2 and new level 1, don’t stress about it - t’s all part of becoming more flexible. If you use new material where we are using old, it doesn’t matter.
I’m saying that because I’ve heard about peopke getting disorientated when moving back and forth, and disorientation can knock your confidence, but it can also be hugely beneficial in the long run, as it allows you to get used to being disorientated by people using unfamiliar patterns / words and just moving on regardless.
You’re obviously enjoying the course immensely, so keep doing that, and you’ll just get more and more confident, and have more and more fun.
Thanks for the warning Iestyn. Luckily, I did a lot of hopping about between Course 1 and Level 1 and I keep trying to talk to my Mum, who says things ‘the proper way’, so I’ve gradually got used to there being different ways to say things. (And then there’s the Northern listening practices, of course!) In fact, that’s probably one of the best things that SSIW teaches: the confidence to try out different ways of saying things (even if some of the ones I try are nonsense!). After all, ‘nothing’, ‘nowt’, ‘zilch’ and ‘bugger all’ all amount to the same thing (or nothing) in the end, don’t they? If Welsh isn’t as least as rich and varied as English how can it be the language of poets and bards?
Ok. Mistake cake
I have to admit this wasn’t my first attempt: I thought it was important to have a recording with some Welsh in it rather than just ‘um… err…’ and the sound of sobbing. Then I couldn’t work out how to upload from my phone to Soundcloud, so I’ve re-recorded directly into Soundcloud, so this attempt 3. It’s still a big fat sticky cake full of mistakes though. Listening to the previous attempt I realised that I have a habit of saying ‘nade’ (is that how you spell it?) instead of ‘ddued’, which is really annoying. Amongst many, many other things… I don’t know how to say ‘at home’ and I keep saying come from Birmingham instead of I come to Birmingham. And can I even say ‘mae’n galed’ for ‘it’s hard’, or does that make no sense at all?
That sounds like the most true-to-life Mistake Cake so far…
Technically not ‘correct’, but you’ll hear people say it, and it’ll always, always be understood fine (most people probably wouldn’t really notice).
Anyway - you seem to have it set to ‘private’, which isn’t stopping me listening to it, but seems to be stopping me leaving a comment - which was:
‘Hollol wych! After just five months? That’s genuinely superb. And what a lovely natural accent you have :seren:’
You are clearly a functional Welsh speaker, and however limited you may still feel, I can guarantee you that you’d already be fine on Bootcamp. Apart from carrying on with the lessons, your next step is very, VERY much to get yourself a regular conversation partner - try and find someone you like enough to spend an hour a week drinking and chatting with them. It won’t take very long at all before you realise that you honestly have turned yourself into a Welsh speaker
Would you mind if I shared that Soundcloud link? I’m pretty proud that you can say so much, and sound so natural, after just five months
That’s lovely feedback, thank you so much! I suppose I have to let you share the link now… Seriously though, that’s fine.
And once again, thank you enormously for the challenges, prods and pep talks over the past 10 days. If anyone is reading this who hasn’t done a bobsled run, I highly recommend it. It’s actually going to be hard to take those 2 weeks off!
That sounds like the most true-to-life Mistake Cake so far…
