Hello everyone, Blwyddyn Newydd Dda. I’ve just started level 2 challenge 2 & have found it extremely difficult. Although level 1 wasn’t always easy, I seemed to be able to cope with it nicely & felt quite proud of what I had achieved by the time I got to the end. Now enter level 2 & I’m struggling 
I now feel that I’m never going to be able to do this & feel despondent. There seems to be so much more to learn in each challenge & my brain doesn’t remember much of it. I sit here trying to repeat the sentences without the pause button & find myself with my mouth open & next to nothing coming out. Has anyone else found this? & do you have any advice? I’ve also noticed that when I went back & practiced the last challenge of level 1 that I’d forgotten some of the stuff that I was previously fine with. I feel like I have so many words & phrases in my head I am getting mixed up now. Thanks in advance.
Don’t worry! This is perfectly normal. I definitely felt a bit of a gear change between levels.
Firstly, don’t be afraid to use the pause button.
Secondly, it’s ok to keep moving forward even if you think you haven’t got much of it. Everything is repeated over and over, so it will come up again.
I think the current advice is only to repeat sessions in blocks of 5. So try to work through all lessons up to 5 before repeating them. One strategy I have used is to work forwards through the lessons then backwards from harder to easier eg 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That way each one should get a bit easier before working back up and moving on.
But I will say I have repeated an individual lesson when I was starting to get really frustrated. I think this should be an exception rather than a rule, and I repeated only once. Don’t get stuck on repeating a single lesson infinitely until it’s perfect.
Hi Vanessa
I’m at the same stage as you, I’ve just finished Level 1 Challenge 1. I spent a lot of time with my mouth open and no sound coming out. Then I remembered from somewhere that we are learning if we just get the length or rhythm of a word or part of the sound right, so I kind of bub-ba-ba through the bits I don’t know.
Hope that helps. We’re not supposed to get it perfect - very counter intuitive isn’t it
The beginning of a new Level is always quite a jump (from my experience). But it all starts flowing better, at some point!
Things I tried and seemed to help:
- using pause button as much as I needed (actually since first challenge in Level 1 to tell the truth!).
- occasionally repeating a challenge id I felt really lost.
- Taking a break to let it all sink in (just listening to songs in Welsh, watching a bit of TV, taking it easy).
- Repeating the last 3-4 challenges from Level 1 once.
- Writing down the English sentences (especially the longer ones), so that I could remember what I was supposed to say in Welsh
p.s. look, it seems that someone else is going through this phase at the same time as you (and maybe you can find a few more tips there):
i’m feeling the same way, am currently on level 2 challenge 9 and am having to use the pause button all the time like at the start of level 1. the practice sentences seemed to be deliberately designed as tongue twisters with unfamiliar words and i’m not entirely convinced that this will help you learn the language quicker. and then at the end of it I hear Aran saying how brilliantly i’ve done and telling me to open a bottle of wine to congratulate myself when I’ve struggeld to complete or even remember the sentences being practiced.
The funny thing is, it will have gone in there and your brain will be working on it…(I speak as someone who initially thought the method was very bizarre but can vouch for the fact it works)…and the tongue twister sensation is your brain trying to work out where the edges of the jigsaw pieces are - based on what it already knows…sufficiently quickly to blurt them out within the time limit!
It is a strange sensation isn’t it - certainly akin to pain?! 
… especially the ouch you consciously feel when you get something wrong or can’t get it out in time…
…having finished the challenges a couple of years ago - I recently stumbled over Aran’s booklet on the method which I didn’t know existed - I was prompted by one of those pop ups on Kindle (it was a pound or similar)… I found the theory really interesting particularly having been through it…it’s well worth a short read.
Have you managed to have/ line up some conversations?..
Keep up the good work …if it’s hurting, it’s working! 
Rich 
Thanks for the feedback and good to hear from someone who has completed the course. Its difficult to reward yourself when you stutter half the sentence out in the time allocated during the lesson especially as I’d been making what felt like good progress towards the end of challenge 1… as for speaking practice thats another challenge in itself. I have been attending a group but have stopped going recently as it felt there was no structure to the meetings and like in any group dynamic there were members there who did lots of talking and others who sat listening