Lorna's Speaking Practice Challenges Journey

Welsh Speaking Practice
#1

Thank you, @CatrinLliarJones - I did a soundcloud take of my brawddegau on the Slack platform back in 2018, but ‘twas such a ffaff from my iPhone, and this Forum felt alien, at the time, so, my head hurting, I dug my heels in, refused to do more… until now.
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Context: My (newly signed up for) Deep End dashboard has chased away my 6mws dashboard, unexpectedly, to me, and @Deborah-SSi is right (:wink::joy:) my dismay was mainly on an emotional level (losing “kiddie trainer wheels” from bike, ban on use of floats in the sea, etc).

Yet, on another level: I had wanted to work out how come so many people can follow the 6mws unaware that 6/6 Slack is available… They seem to lose awareness of it just before they hit a stony patch…

So I understand that this SSiW Forum is The Bigger Picture, on the way to The Biggest Picture(s). Yet, I’m sad if people leave or suffer in silence unaware that for 6 Month and 6 minutes a day course members, there are hangouts (group video sessions in English, to solve problems, and in Welsh for fun) & thus a pressure valve to help us cope, find speaking partners, etc…

Well, my 6mws finished, by rights, nearly 16 months ago, and here you are, by luck just as I move on officially from 6mws, easing my catch-up with the “badge gathering” I had dodged, I had judged counterproductive… I hope it won’t be that way now for me.

My 16 months (since finishing 6mws) of rejecting the invitation to post a voice file on the Forum, have not been unproductive. I know, because in mid-September 2018 at Machynlleth’s Gŵl Owain Glyndŵr fest the wonderful literary evening sailed elegantly over my head entirely. (No problems, though, with the small talk, the panad/gwin/sudd oren, teisen/cacen! nor with a fun board game thru which@nia.llywelyn can give a plug to the Eisteddfod, etc.) Five months later at the Gŵl Pethau Bychain Dewi Sant, 2019, a fantastic music offering, I could cope with transactions perhaps better, but had a huge struggle with content… the subject matter of much of what was being presented - though much was made accessible by performers, to anglophones and Welsh beginners. Diolch @nia.llywelyn trwy’r “emotional rollercoaster” … the 6mws needs its support mechanisms…

A year on: just 3 weeks to St David’s Day 2020 and today I am delighted that I’ve understood Radio Cymru’s Sunday pm offerings all through a mammoth listen while storms raged (when I wasn’t taking an unintended momentary nap).

In short, I feel ready and willing to jump through some “badge” hoops now, thank you Catrin for lining them up. I hope to get momentum up & sail through before performance anxiety/fuss/techno-faff waylay me.

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#2

This is a radical edit: I’ve tried to correct errors in the splurge above, and get to the point.

Both festivities in Machynlleth were a lot of fun, but immersion is not just in a new language: All the culture that is suddenly apparent and not just glimpsed on such occasions, as horizons open up where there was just a landscape that passed by (as seen from car or train window), was so infinitely more engaging/terrifyingly real than recording soundbites of my weird voice brain-riffing on starter phrases, that I’ve had to play hookey, till I got my head straight, and could face tasks again. So, yeah, I think the point is an apology for taking so long!

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#3

Dear Lorna, you are a fine example to us all because, despite personal difficulties, you have battled through and continue to do so. You seek knowledge and you share it with us. Now, you’re moving to the next level! What an achievement!
We have had great fun together.
I admire that you have had the courage to make this journey at entirely your own pace. Better that than to give up.
Never ever compare yourself to anyone else, praise yourself for what you have achieved. Be proud Lorna. I am proud of both of us and of everyone else that is learning/has learnt this amazingly expressive language. It means so very much to me as do the like-minded individuals I have met on my journey thus far.
Until we meet again my friend. :revolving_hearts:

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#4

Hi Alison! Diolch yn fawr iawn i chdi, ac i ti, hefyd :wink: !

I wish you a quiet nightshift, or sleep if you’re not on nights, while I catch some shut eye and dream of “Ar lan y mor” in the ukulele workshop, and all the lovely people & times in Caffi Alys… Ready to meet a Deep End e-bost yfory… email numero uno tomorrow!

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#5

Moved your messages to its own thread, @lornarhodes, so it gets the attention it deserves… :blush:

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#6

Diolch… @CatrinLliarJones
Mae safon y fforwm yn uchel iawn… Bydd rhaid i mi ddysgu canu fy mrawddegau, cwestiynau, atebion a phopeth arall yn y Gymraeg, a chwarae “ukelele” ar yr pryd, trafod am y rygbi am ddwy awr (heb sôn am Iwerddon), a dawnsio hefyd, mae’n debyg… Cyntaf: ffeindio fy ffôn i, rŵan…:grinning::sweat_smile::joy::rofl:

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#7

Dw i’n meddwl am sut medra i cofio be dw i angen dweud, ac hefyd: be dw i isio dweud, wrth bawb… Dw i’n ymarfer:

  • I want to
    Dw isio cadw’r brawddegau yn fy mhen, felly dw i’n mynd i siarad am be sy’n digwydd yn fy mywyd rŵan hyn.

  • I’m going to
    Dw i’n mynd i ddefnyddio’r syniad Brigitte, a dilyn hi gan siarad am be dw i’n coginio.

  • I can’t
    Fedra i ddim siarad am paratoi Lasagne achos does dim gen i ddigon o bres i brynu’r cynhwysion.

  • I need
    Dw i angen paratoi rhywbeth yn symlach, fel reis a chorbys.

  • What
    Be wnes i ffeindio mewn siop y p’nawn’ma - yn jyst heb ddal bws i’r archfarchnad - oedd puprynnau ffres, neu eitha ffres, - dau ohonyn nhw: un melyn, un gwyrdd.

  • But
    Ond dw i ddim yn siwr sut i greu bwyd blasus heb llawer o fwdan…

  • I wanted

  • I’ve just started

  • I’ve forgotten

  • I was trying

  • That I need

  • I must

  • I’d like to

#8

@sade Sâde, diolch am dy help efo fy ail “swop brawddegau” i, (diolch i chdi @GeraldPughroberts am dy amynedd ym mis Ebrill/Mai 2018 am fy “first attempt disastrous” efo chdi, hefyd!)

@aliC @Deborah-SSi @nia.llywelyn I’m trying to get neither ahead of myself, nor lag behind… I wonder should I do a candy striped set of sound recordings (alternating what I learnt at level 1 in North and South Walian Welsh?!) [@iaindavies3 diolch yn fawr iawn am dy understanding & facilitation! ]

For me, the Cwrs Chwe Mis, is not over!! Dim eto…

#9

The main purpose of the sound recordings is to push yourself a little beyond what you think you’re capable of and be nicely surprised :slight_smile:

As you’re officially onto Level 3 now, I would suggest that you pick any constructions that you found more difficult than others and create sentences using those - south and north if you wish. That will make the exercise doubly useful for you.

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#10

There @Deborah-SSi you put your finger exactly on what is going through my mind, and has been really since the tasks arrived in my inbox: and that is, namely, how am I going to be “me” and have a voice that feels like “mine” or something I’m happy to be allowing to issue from my mouth?! Who the hell am I to be speaking Welsh (or Irish for that matter) at all, and what’s determining my choice of words…?

At 15, in English, my “Derry Girls voice” had to get parked, because of what happened in a specific English context I’d arrived in… and that voice only emerged & still does, quite automatically, in company of the sibling nearest to me in age, wherever & whenever we are together…

My English voice on “group video sessions” sounds quite alien to me, as if my English-born, Kent-resident sister’s voice (a sibling more or most distant in age & experience as well as geography/culture) is talking for me through this “iPad electronic minder and one-stop-shop (FisherPrice?) bells & whistles activity centre”, and it sort of makes me cringe, much as I love my sis, because, it seems, we disagree on almost every aspect of existence (except of course for the sort of key values that seem so obviously “true” that they seem unquestionable, but even that common ground shrinks, it seems, as “politicians/authorities” seem to tell me I am to have “British” values or unless I’m raking in £35,000 p.a. I’m not valuable and should leave this island).

So how do I choose those things I have got some choice in? So even how things are being spelled/spelt begin to matter: Differences in Grammar/spelling between Welsh course and dictionaries

Or another SSiW beginner’s cry of temporary despair & confusion, and I start a reply and think better of it… And now [50+ results in Search on this forum for “need & want”] I cannot even find the thread quickly!

I know what is, to me, the reason why “eisiau” is at once “want”, and “need” - how want meaning real “lack” of something essential to survival, comes nowadays to mean “felt lack: a perception you desire to fill a gap in yourself or your possessions”. (What would Alexa understand, though?)

I know that in 1951 an anti-poverty charity/campaign called “War on Want” aimed to meet need and help people to get what they needed to “provide for themselves”. My parents considered all my essential needs met, so would not tolerate any of us saying “I want” as children: (‘“I want” never gets’ was what they would reply), children were to be seen, at mealtimes, on time and clean, but otherwise heard expressing desires, making requests, only through “May I… please?” [Ga i…, plîs, os gwelwch yn dda, etc].

I can explain all that in English, and refer to other languages I’ve lived through, but quite how a Welsh person in their particular geographical, or family, social, community context, understands “isio” “mae isie fi” “moyn” “angen”…(?) [mofyn - fetch?]

I see a connection between need/necessity/necessary/unnecessary.

I know how “essence” can mean “being, existing, living” for which you need ‘what is “essential”…’ (i.e. necessary, a requirement, and NOT: a mere passing desire, fad, fancy, “a notion taken”).

When to use “byw” and when “bodoli”?

All of this is about differentiation, and distinguishing one thing from another, making distinctions between apparently similar yet culturally significantly different things, discriminating…

So is there a root connection between “eisiau” and “eisoes” and “eistedd” and “eisteddfod”… and then one, a connection (a separate connection?) between “er”, “ers”, “erioed” etc?

Byd, bywyd, byth - connected but different… (?)

#11

@lornarhodes, there’s a lovely, out of print but probably available second hand book called Roots and Branches, Gwreiddiaur Gymraeg, which looks at how words are related and which came from what. It’s at home and I’m in hospital waiting for surgery so I can’t look up your specifics, but it’s a book to go on your wish list.

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#12

Oh, @margaretnock thank you very much for the recommendation, because -yep! - that sort of book is right up my street!

You have my thoughts and best wishes for your stay & procedure… I hope all goes smoothly, for you, and that the atmo where you are is the right sort of attentive, and the right sort of relaxed!

#13

What an interesting post, Lorna, on so many levels. Welcome to the Deep End - and though I’m ahead of you in Lefel 3, you’re WAY ahead of me in fluency, vocabulary and general communication in Welsh. And I’ll happily accept that as inspiration, thank you!

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#14

Thank you for being so supportive, @JaneParry because right now my brain seems to be a complete fog, and even though I am coping ok with the actual challenges, my brain keeps going into blank mode when I speak at the moment. I’m trying not to blame it on the tasks, though for this week and last it was Twitter activation, and it is not the first time I have tried to get on with such stuff and failed. I tried Twt which is somehow connected. Twitter worries me excessively and I am trying to give up social media - not do more! I grant you it is interesting to compare what “the Stars” put on Twitter as opposed to Facebook, but I have not found the “filter out everything but Welsh” option - well not one that works…

I am trying to keep saying to myself that everything suggested on the Deep End is voluntary, and I must prioritise. So, to quote The Fast Show character: “this week I ‘a’ mostly been eating Panto on WSP and Zoom on 6/6 support, and not forgetting but revising the first 40 pages of Sgwp”…

but I’m aware I want to find a way to progress through badges and sneak in a unpressured Sunday sgwrs group into a cafe in Dudley [Churchill Shopping Centre] to see how it goes… oh, yes and attempt an application for some paid work, too!

I wonder whether the Alps help to keep everyone calm by sheer force of their size and the weight of the weather they hold up… Greetings from The Black Country and Brum.

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#15

Much the same as you, I am doing the challenges, but I haven’t had the time (and in some cases, such as Twitter, the inclination!) to do much or any of the rest. I reckon it’s still much better than I would have done without the weekly emails to spur me on. As for twitter, I don’t have an account and I don’t intend to get one. I see quite a lot of posts in Welsh on facebook, so I think that’s good enough for me.
As for the Alps - I don’t know, but I DO know that getting out in all that nature, or even just looking at it through the window, is good for my state of mind. So much in the world that could lead to deep and debilitating depression, so each of us has to find what it is that can protect us.

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