New level 1 Listening Practices

I’ve played them backwards getting an excellent recipe for cawl and rather dodgy directions to the undertaker in Nefyn. It’s hardly Black Sabbath is it?

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How are Iestyn and Cat getting on? The Gog new course 1 looks so interesting I’ll have to desert the South.

I was planning on listening to some of the old Northern practices before my first bootcamp in Sept to try and get familiar with some of the differences, but these new dialogue-based practices sound as though they’ll be even more useful! Diolch from a Hwntw on the verge of dipping his toes into Gogland! :slight_smile:

Mike said -“I then tried slowing down C1WelshListen02.mp3 (the 1st speeded up one), but of course that doesn’t help, because the distortion is already there, and slowing it down by any appreciable percentage just adds to the distortion.”

  • I tried that too. Usually I can get good results that way but like you said the distortion is already there.

I can understand the reasoning behind speeding it up but twice the speed is a bit too much I think. I couldn’t even understand English at that speed.

Brid Ellis Ni Fhlatharta: I can understand the reasoning behind speeding it up but twice the speed is a bit too much I think. I couldn’t even understand English at that speed.

S’mae Brid,

The Level 2 practices will be even faster! I routinely do the old listening practices at x3 (distortion and all - I sped my recordings up at home and I am no audio engineer), and they are hard at first, but you will be amazed at the results and what you brain can do. Its all about boosting the ability of your brain to process the Welsh faster and faster. Do I find these new practices easy? No, of course not! But I am feeling the benefits even after a short while. Stick with them, they are based upon some sound thinking and neuroscience.

Hwyl,

Stu

Hi,
I have been reading these posts and I am not sure if I understand exactly what I should be doing with listening and speaking practice. Also how often to listen?
I did the old course 1 only to lesson 6 and have listening & speaking practices for that.
I then abandoned that & switched to the new level 1. At challenge 5, I listened to the listening practice a few times, understanding about 70% of it.
I have completed challenge 6 & 7 and am about to start 8.
Does anyone know if I should be using the old practices too? Or… is there more listening & speaking practices somewhere for the new level 1 ? (southern)
I have downloaded level 1 listening practice 2 but don’t think I am supposed to use that until about challenge 10. Should I just keep listening to the practice introduced at challenge 5?
Sorry if I am being a bit dim but I would like to understand what I should be doing.
Diolch y fawr pawb

I’ve “cheated” when doing Level 1 Challenge 5 and listened to listening practice 2 and it did no harm. Actually I’ve found out I could pick up almost everything what said with (attention!) double speed even if it’s northern and I alaso am doing south course. Yes, this 2nd listening practice is at double speed and as far as I could understand things this listening practice is more to get your brain accelerated then to really understand what you hear.

So, if you ask me (but I’m not too relevant here anyway, just speaking from my experiences of material I’ve gone through and I’ve gone through a lot of it), whatever you listen is just fine.

For speaking practices I can not quite advise you because I’ve gone though whole Course 1, Level 1 to challenge 15 and finished with Course 2 Lesson 15 then I went back to the beginning for some measuring of acheavements so far and revision.

Um, well, and, if you’ payed the subscription for all courses, then all listening/speaking practices will be available for you but if not you’ll only have some of them for you to use anyway.

It’s not the speed that actually bothers me, but the distortion which I perceive, even if it doesn’t bother anyone else. Probably to do with my hearing impairment(s). But even so, I’d much rather listen to some rapid (but undistorted) speech on Radio Cymru, than artificially speeded up (sped up?) speech. Sorry for the heresy.

At this point, you should be carrying on with the first listening practice - the one on the challenge 5 download page - and I strongly recommend you listen to it once a day :sunny:

Once you get to Challenge 10, you’ll be ready to move on to the second listening practice - the first of the accelerated ones - which you should use once a day instead of the first one :sunny:

Oh I see. Thank you for the prompt reply and explanation. I will do as you say.
Should I not bother at all with the practices from the old course then?

I wouldn’t, if I were you - the new ones are much, much more efficient - the old ones were generated at random from the database, rather than following the flow of a conversation.

Brilliant, thank you Aran. I shall ditch them then.
Thank you for such a great course.

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I’ve just started listening to Listening Practice 1, and whilst I recognise all the words, I’m not understanding in time. By the time I’ve figured out what was said I’ve missed the start of the next sentence so can’t follow.

Would it be better to pause after each sentence for a few seconds for me to understand (and I really only need a few seconds because I am recognising the words) or to just power on and hope repetition helps?

I’m finding it quite discouraging to not be able to follow what is being said, but with only two weeks until my holiday in North Wales (and a potential visit to the other half’s grandparents who are worried about meeting me because they don’t speak English very well!) I really feel like I have to learn as much as possible!

You might find this helpful, Rachel:

The listening exercises aren’t tests - they’re opportunities for your brain to get used to processing faster - if you slow the process down, you’ll be minimising that opportunity. So stop trying to understand, and just let the language flow over you - if you want to try to accelerate the process, listen to the exercise more often :sunny:

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