'Limiting' vocabulary content in SSIW Infinite Play?

Welsh General / Questions
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I’ve now completed Black Belt on the app and have for a couple of weeks been in Infinite Play, and enjoying it very much.

Just one frustration.

As I go on, it’s great that there is good evolution and varation in the sentences, in terms of tenses, subjects and objects. It’s great that I can perceive sentence evolution, keeping you on your toes, with subtle changes to make sure you’re listening carefully, practising new sentences, and avoiding too many sentences identical to those you’ve done before a number of times.

However, I am a little frustrated at the seemingly narrow vocabulary used, as you continue in this mode. The earlier belts, and indeed the Classic Challenges, contained overall a much wider vocabulary than seems to be being used in Infinite Play. I remember only too well on my multiple goes through both the Old and New courses getting to a Challenge that contained, for example, a whole host of new verbs, many of which I had ‘forgotten’ since I last went through that part of that course!

The verbs used in Infinite Play, as an excellent example, are a fraction of those contained in the two Classic courses. And so, whilst I know I am benefitting enormously from improvement in grammar, sentence construction, fluency in tense use etc, I don’t feel that I am learning a whole lot of new words to add to the personal vocabulary with which I’m really confident.

Does that make sense?

As I continue my journey as a really keen Welsh language learner, I feel my biggest challenge is continuing to develop that bank of words needed to speak more fluently. Not being exposed to them, in the platform on which I spend more time learning than any other, is slightly frustrating. I realise that there are only finite resources at SSI to continue to develop material for each language, but given that Welsh was the thing that started the whole thing off 17 years ago, I wondered if there was any likelihood of Welsh Infinite Play material being expanded?

Has anyone else found this to be something that has occurred to them during their Welsh learning?

Saying all of that, I remain a committed and dedicated SSIW learner and advocate. I just need you to help me to learn more Welsh words!

Ben :slightly_smiling_face:

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I agree. It would be nice to see further development of the course as we are paying a sub for it.

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This was Aran’s post from Dec 2025 in the Big News - Exciting Times thread:

With the Welsh, I’m keen to replace Level 3 entirely - I think we’ve got some much better stuff now - and then I’m hoping that our new approach to listening is going to help bridge exactly that gap to a more C1 level of comprehension :crossed_fingers::slightly_smiling_face:

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Just a thought - have you been through the Original Course material? There are some different words and structures there that you could incorporate into your practice with the new app, plus Vocab Units. They’re very much the older ‘drill’ style of learning, but still could be useful to you.

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Thanks, as ever, for your helpful reply Deborah.

Yes, I’ve done both the Old and New Courses several times, before the new app was created, and enjoyed them very much. I have downloaded lots of the challenges (the Old Course vocab units are particularly useful…), but the beauty of the new app and Infinite Play is that you feel you are ‘still progressing’ on a single platform that (when I have adequate reception here in the Black Mountains!) works well and is very easy to use - just start it off again, and off you go.

As I said, I can very much perceive how, as I continue, the complexity and variations in the sentences are developing, which I welcome. It’s just that the vocabulary content is a little ‘restrictive’ and seems not to employ many of the ‘actual words’ we encountered in the New (and Old…) Course challenges.

If, as you suggest, Aran is replacing Level 3, then hopefully that will bring with it new vocab material that will be incorporated into the app and Infinite Play.

I hope this feedback is helpful. I’m sure many, like me, love SSIW and want only to get better!

Take care

Ben

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Thanks Ben - yes, that is all very helpful, and thank you for taking the time to go into detail. We’ve got a lot of stuff coming down the pipes for this year - I’m particularly excited about our next set of solutions for listening work, but we will also be able to do a lot of stuff with wider vocabularies as well :slight_smile:

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Hi Aran and thanks for your reply.

That sounds great!

As I’ve said above, I really love being in Infinite Play and, alongside the dysgu.cymraeg Canolradd course and opther platforms, it forms an essential part of my learning.

Knowing that there are new features and content in development is great news.

Pob lwc gyda phopeth!

Ben :slightly_smiling_face:

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Diolch! :folded_hands: :heart:

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Having completed the SSIW course I’m now in the ‘infinite play’ section. As how been said previously I would really appreciate a much wider range of vocabulary. because I feel it would really assist more fluid conversation and less awkward pauses.

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I have to agree, @sally-19!

I’m just back from walking my dog and doing 1h20m of Infinite Play. I do love to practise, but I ‘know’ the relatively limited content of Infinite Play so well now, that I’m not sure I’m really learning that much more now. And I want to! Introduction of more variation, and inclusion of much more vocabulary from all the Old and New Course levels, combined with the grammatical and tense structures, would help us to develop better, I think.

Ben :slightly_smiling_face:

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Lots of new stuff coming before the end of this year :slight_smile:

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Brilliant news, @aran - can’t wait!

Ben :slightly_smiling_face:

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Likewise! [frets, chews fingernails] :wink: :joy:

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I agree. The Infinite play uses very litlle of the vocabulary from Level 3 and although I love it, I don’t feel that it is difficult enough.
Are the level 3 updates now in force? If so I will return to that course.
I still love the course though.

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Hi @aran

Any update on new material for the Welsh course? Once again I find myself having gone through Level 3 of both the Old and New courses, and whilst I enjoy them and always get ‘a little bit better’ each time, it is still going over material I’ve been through countless times since starting my SSiW journey!

I tend to go back to the old mp3’s more than use Infinite Play on the app, as the latter really is just too repetitive and lacking in variety.

Still a committed SSiW-er, alongside my other pathways of learning, but I am so keen now to develop my skills in the SSiW model, so I’m eagerly awaiting news of the next phase of the Welsh course’s evolution!

Take care

Ben :slightly_smiling_face:

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16

Hi Ben! This is one of the most painful questions you could have asked me today - a bit like asking someone ‘How’s the running going?’ just as they collapse ten metres short of the end of the marathon… :wink:

I spent the whole of today proofreading and setting up our recording structures (and my eyes are red raw). We have completed the build for the new speaking content - and it is a monster of a build - the final complete set will be about three times the size of the original 3 levels of SSiW!

Recording begins tomorrow - it’s going to take us a while with this brute, but we’re going to be releasing on a weekly schedule, starting in a couple of weeks from now (which is designed to give us enough breathing room to stay just ahead of you!).

We also have the new listening content ready for northern and recording for southern, so that will be available very soon. Probably next week, fingers crossed.

Once we’ve finished publishing all the new speaking content, it will be on to a new approach to advanced listening (well, it’s the same core approach as the first stage listening content which will weave into the speaking content, but that’s a new idea itself) - with the advanced, you’ll have to choose to go into listening mode, but then it should be (based on results so far) a really strong way to achieve significant mastery over fairly weighty blocks of content - which we think will be the shortest route we’ve found so far to getting to C1 :slight_smile:

Going to sleep now :wink:

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17

O Mam Bach!

I can’t tell you how happy I was to get and read your reply. I’m sure you know how many SSiW users just love the platform, and this will be cerddoriaeth at eu clustiau nhw!

I’m sure many use multiple resources to learn their Cymraeg - for me, I’m doing the Uwch course with dysgucymraeg, as well as DuoLingo (sorry!) for a second time, trying to listen to Radio Cymru, reading as much as I can etc. However, SSiW is, and has been, by far the most influential factor in getting me to where I am now as a siaradwr and user of the Welsh language. In fact, I tell people regularly that I see SSiW as the single most effective learning model I’ve ever known…and I went through medical school!

Thank you for your kind and detailed reply. Please know how appreciative we are of your efforts to continue to support our learning. I hope I never came across as critical or complaining. I just don’t want not to have SSiW as a continuing, major part of progress.

Good luck with everything as you roll out the new material. I know I’m not alone when I say that I just can’t wait to get going with it.

Diolch yn fawr iawn i ti a phawb yn SSiW.

Cysgwch yn dda, @aran!

Ben

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Ben, thank you for such a lovely message - it means much more than you probably imagine.

Frankly, it’s all felt pretty tough since the pandemic (perhaps exacerbated by going through the journey of having both children diagnosed with autism) and I have often found myself wishing there was a way I could pack it all in. Not have to worry about making payroll any more, not have to try to understand things that I’m just not interested in (like marketing!), just go and be a fairly useless bartender on a beach somewhere.

It’s messages like this which get me back on my feet and ready to carry on trying to make stuff better. I’ll probably spend a bit more time recording today (one of my least favourite tasks!) just because of your kindness :slight_smile:

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You are so consistently polite that it doesn’t usually come across how hard some of this must be for you.

FWIW Aran, you are one of my pedagogical heroes I look to when I think about how to improve my own (ESL) teaching. The people I most admire as educators (not all are/were teachers) would make very strange bedfellows and certainly wouldn’t agree on everything (nor do I agree with any of them-or rather you, as you are one of them- on everything); but they all did/do amazing things in helping people learn that I know are better than what I am currently capable of (though I try to learn from all of you to improve as much as possible).

One of the things I also admire is one I’ve seen you get flak for on multiple occasions since the launch of the AI courses: the courage to dive into the new technology to make what you do more scalable before all its bugs have been completely eliminated. I think you’re absolutely right to do that for the longevity of the SSi project.

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Oh, gosh, Martin, that’s so very kind of you. That made me quite emotional! And I appreciate it enormously.

I mean, I’m also very conscious that we’re extremely lucky to get to work on something that means a lot to us - that’s a remarkable gift - so I do always remember that when things feel a bit tough.

The AI stuff is all thanks to Tom - he’s been on an extraordinary journey over the last two years, frequently building frameworking tools to fix problems with Claude that Anthropic then build themselves a few months later - and he’s really been the source of the belief that it will get to a point where it really makes new and important things possible for smaller projects.

On the other hand, Angharad is a passionate AI-hater (mostly generative AI, I think) so she always keeps me on the straight and narrow as well! Which is why we’re now planning to keep on spending the money over the new few years to re-record as much as possible with human voices - but certainly the quality of most of the sample phrases we get now is genuinely good - the new Welsh stuff is going to be completely human recorded and closely human proofread, but even so the tripling in size of the course just wouldn’t have been possible without the AI input.

Diolch eto :slight_smile: :heart:

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