I kept looking up the same words until I started writing these words down and then making Quizlet sets (it’s a tool that is a bit like Memrise, but I like it more, for some reason) and then playing with them as I would with the real flashcards: just shuffling and trying to remember the meaning to get the word into my passive vocabulary, to understand it in a text, and making up sentences and stories with them in a hope it might get them into my active vocabulary.
It helped a bit and last time I was talking with Karla I found myself using the new words from the first chapter of “Blasu”. But I’m very lazy, so sometimes when I’m reading Cymru Fyw I will just look the word and not write it down.
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Making up sentences and writing things using new words or words that refuse to stick does sound like the right thing to try. Mike has suggested this as well. So I think I’ll try it out.
It can be very fun, too:) I have long meaningful conversations with my imaginary Welsh friends about whatever new lexical set I am learning, and the nice thing is - they always agree with me and are very impressed by my opinions!
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(Just a reminder) Aran’s blog/booklet "THE 7 STAGES OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE talks exactly about this so … you might read this blog and go according to it.
I tend to do this when starting learning new language to really feel/see how it works. 
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Gareth King in his Comprehensive Grammar provides this list:
XLIV WORDS DIFFERING IN NORTH AND SOUTH WALES
The following at the main differences in vocabulary between the Norh and the South. Where one option is preferred over the other in the standard language, this is in italics.
North - South
allan - mas - out
agoriad - allwedd - key
bwrdd - bord - table
chdi - ti - you (sing.)
dallt - deall - understand
dos - cer - go (sing. command form)
dŵad - dod - come (VN)
’ddchi - chimod - y’know (pl.)
efo - gyda - with (See §§454, 457)
geneth - merch - girl
i fyny - lan - up
i ffwrdd - bant - away; off
isio - moyn - want (isio usually written eisiau)
llefrith - llaeth - milk
mai / na - taw - that (focused sentences - see §492)
nain - mam-gu - grandmother
o / fo - e / fe - he/him
pres - arian - money
rŵan - nawr - now
’sti - timod - y’know (sing.)
taid - tad-cu - grandfather
tyrd - dere - come (sing.command form)North and South also differ slightly in syntax, notably in the constructions with gan° (N) / gydaʰ (S) used to express possession – XXXV in this section.
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Thank you. This is very useful.
Diolch Tatjana,
I hadn’t read this and it is very interesting
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Here’s a word that seems to have a hundred different meanings - not sure what the N v S divide is like for this one:
Dwyn. Came across it today in the context of dwyn y label (bearing the label, or simply labelled)
Edit,
Just thinking about this one a bit more - this really is one that doesn’t translate readily. I think it is more like the word take which can mean everying from taking the name of, to actually stealing something or in expressions like dwyn effaith go iawn - taking real effect. Mae’n ddiddorol
Does he do one for west/east? The gog/de list proves I am one third gog and two thirds de!! So I wondered if it is a west/east thing???
No; it’s just the one “North/South” list. (And he doesn’t seem to mention West/East at all in terms of dialect or usage.)
Two quotes here that make me think that you are being too hard on yourself, Toffidil, It is beaten into us at school that we “must make an effort”, or “we will fail”, and so, when we become engaged in something, and enjoy it for its own sake, we feel that we “must try harder”.
Let’s ask: Why do you want to be able to read Welsh? I would guess that the answer is probably something like “because I enjoy Welsh, and want to use it more”.
So, why take the enjoyment out of it by making yourself work harder?
There’s a fair amount of evidence to show that we remember things better when we have forgotten them and been reminded, and that stress blocks the process. So, why not try something like this:
Read an article, using the vocab button as required. Do something else. Then read the article again, using the vocab button as required, but pausing before each use for a second or two - no more - to see if the word springs to mind. If not, don;t beat yourself up - you are reading an article in a language that you are learning as an adult. That should be seen as a pretty big achievement, even (especially) if you don’t understand all the vocab. Celebrate it!
When you remind yourself of the word that you’d forgotten, it will lodge a little deeper in your memory.
If the article is about something that interests you, then feel free to read it again tomorrow - bookmark it, or keep it some other way. If it’s a subject taht you’re not really interested in, then don;t bother, because who cares about that particular vocab? Find something more interesting to read!
There’s a good choice of articles in Welsh now, through BBC Cymru Fyw and Golwg, which both have vocab buttons.
One final thought. Would it help if you could also hear the word? I’m certainly better off hearing as well as seeing a new word, as I am more confident about using it then, which makes me more likely to remember it.
If so, keep Ivona.com open at the same time as you are reading. When you find an unfamiliar word, put it into the text to speech box, and voila! You can hear it as well. You may like to listen to a word you cant remember before clikcking the vcab button sometimes, but not too often. The idea of reading the article is to enjoy it, not to spend hours reading a 100 word article about the latest craze for crawling through broken glass!
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Many thanks. I just tried Ivona - both voices. I didn’t know about this, what a brilliant idea - listening to the words is so much better. I heard someone say Hyd yn oed at a birthday party the other day and that went straight into my ready to use in a conversation box, which I did with some other learners a few days later - one listen to some things and they are embedded for good, which is very odd)
I just compared Ivona to the robot on Google translate as well. I’ll try to be more relaxed and go for the longer process of mixing things up, coming back to them later and trying to hear the same articles on the radio and allowing them to sink in when they decide to - some words I first heard a long time ago and have taken an eternity to bed in (perhaps I was trying to hard with these) - sylw, cyhoeddu, cynnig and cyflwyno, pop up all the time in news articles, but are only now just starting to stick, after about a year of hearing them . The words I picked today on Cymru fyw are a bit extreme maybe for general speeech: addewid o gymorth, gweithgynhyrchu, buddsoddiad and ffefrir. (I know that I will have forgotten those by tomorrow, but maybe this time next year with the help of Ivona and the Radio they will be really familiar).
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Oh, oh … Not to neglect any producer of the software, but Google robot really doesn’t make the work done so I’d say stick to IVONA.
And one more tip … even today when I know a bit more of the language than I did when I used IVONA a lot more, I’d say use voice Gyneth (female) rader then Geraint (male) because it speaks/reads clearer and (at least for my ear) more accurate then male voice.
Not that I would praise myself, but I’m quite expert in using IVONA so that’s why I’m writing this down.
And for all the other IVONA users: use it as long as it’s still here on the net for free. The IVONA company got acquired by another company so it might be its reader and website would not be available for free for a long time. And, for the difference of IVONA reader which you’ve got with buying a language for free, the S2G (as is reader named now) is not for free anymore and you can not get it for free along with buying a language. So if there’s anyone owning IVONA reader (installed on your computer or tablet) don’t throw it away as you’d not get its replacement for free anymore.
Enjoy listening and learning and … go away from Google robot. … I tried to use it many times just for fun of it and established I can’t understand it even a tinny bit (or my ears are not trained enough???)
I just found out about the ‘oes’ answer with ‘wyt ti isio’ in my class on Friday. Diddorol iawn!!
thanks Tatjana.
I noticed that it was only a 250 character trial thing and wondered about whether it would be avilable for long. I like both voices, but surprisingly Geraint was my preferred option. The google robot is just a bit of fun. I imagine it is only a matter time of time, before we will be listening to everything on-line, in the language of our choice and perhaps having conversations. The technology has been developing for some time and has probably just reached a tipping point and is bound to improve very quickly from now on and start to become more natural and conversational.
If you’re not in a hurry, you can always send me a text for reading and I can record it into file for you to listen as I own both, IVONA and S2G (Speach 2 Go) reader. It’s a matter of minutes to convert written text into audio file with the reader so it would really not be any problem for me to do that.
And, yes, I agree with you about the technology, however with development of it it’s less and less of it for free of for reasonable price at least so not everyone can afford it.
In order to stay on topic I’ve continue the discussion with reviving IVONA text to speech topic.
I gather IVONA says what you type in. Is it available on line?
EDIT: Sorry, read your revival and found it!!
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