Hello I tried to persevere with the listening practices but the go so fast at level to that 90% of it becomes just a flapping noise to me. I even tried to play it at half speed but unfortunately the result was not good as the sound was distorted.
I so need to do listening practice as my ability to speak is now quite reasonable. In fact a first language welsh speaker concluded that I was a full welsh speaker that had got rusty but I really can’t pick much out at all from these fast recordings. Would it be possible to post them at say double speed rather than triple speed, please. I can certainly pick out nearly all the words on the first course.
I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to understand it! Which sounds a bit contradictory, I know. I think the idea is that after you listen to this then normal speech sounds quite slow and much more understandable.
Hi @richard-waters, as @margaretnock said, the aim isn’t to understand, but to listen to get your neural networks readjusting, which they, amazingly, do. Somewhere on this forum the SSiW folk explain the process - search ‘listening exercises’ in all posts.
As said earlier, you are supposed to listen, without the stress of ‘needing’ to understand. If you now go back to Level 1’s first speeded up listening practice, you’ll be surprised of how much you’re understanding. Radio and S4C are good listening tools, even if still not as fast as normal chat can be. Good luck!
Unfortunately the problem is not that I am trying to understand it, but rather that most of the time all I can hear is a noise. I can make out the words on course 1 pretty well but on course 2, I can only make out about 5% of the words - the rest is just a fluttering sound to me , unfortunately…
With regard to S4C , I find I can generally get the gist of what is being said (provided the speakers are not from the north!) but of course that is hampered by vocab and tenses that I don’t know.
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough: do not try to understand what you’re hearing (in the speeded up 5-minute episodes). I ooccasionally recognise a word or two, for the rest of it I trust the approach. I’m a predominantly ‘visual’ learner, in that I rely on and find comfort in mainly the written word and gestures.
The SSiW process was an ear-opener for me. I had never learnt a language by speaking without a prior long, long learning period. In addition, I dislike wearing my hearing aid (early loss in one ear). The method, nevertheless, works.