I’ve been working through the Old Course after I got stuck on Level 3 of the New Course.
I’ve just done Lesson 24 of Level 2 and it mentions at the end that we should keep doing the lesson till we can say the sentences before the first narrator. Is that still current advice for the Old Course (I know “current” and “Old Course” are opposites, but…).
I’ve been finding it very tough going with the speed, which creates stress, which stops me from thinking and instead makes me blank-out and say nothing. Even after pausing I take a while to think of a tentative answer.
If there’s anyone still around who has done the Old Course, is this normal? Should I move on anyway?
Yes, very much this. The methodology has been refined over time, and the latest approach is more or less “try to say something in the gap” – that is usually enough to activate the appropriate regions of your brain. If what you say is not complete, don’t worry, and if you make a mistake, don’t worry, either. Over time, your synapses will rewire themselves. And if you feel overwhelmed, just take a step back and redo an earlier lesson.
OK, thanks that’s good to know. I almost always manage to say the phrase before the second narrator but I think I am focusing too much on making sure what I’m saying is correct instead of just saying something
@Snufkinsbf Many of us have a very high opinion of both the old Courses and the new Levels, because they complement each other with both vocabulary and grammar. Flying in the face of “official” SSiW policy, it appears that the Old Courses are held in higher esteem by many of us than by Aran who created them. (Similarly, I can’t help but smile when I read about John Lennon speaking modestly of his own contributions to The Beatles.)
With all that, I would definitely not recommend doing both the Old Courses and the New Levels at the same time.
You’ve managed to get to the end of Level 2, even though you find it difficult. I would suggest that you carry on to the end of Level 3. Follow Hendrick’s good advice above and move on with it. Remember - however hard you found it, you did manage to complete two levels. When you finish Level 3, then you may want to consider doing the Old Courses with their own wealth of material.
It’s not clear to me from your posting if you have switched to the Old Courses in the hope that they are easier than the New Levels. If so, I would say that they are both as easy/difficult as each other, and that you will most likely gain far more by sticking to the one before switching to the other.
Whatever you choose, remember that learning Welsh is meant to be fun and is not an exercise in perfection. Best of luck!
I honestly think that (pedagogically), the old course and the new course are night and day. The new course is an amazingly well-designed thing of beauty. However, even apart from the extra vocabulary in the old course, I found that the new course didn’t give me personally enough practice of certain points, such as “mae” versus “ydy” and “dydy”.
The old course tends to teach point in chunks (so lots of “mae o” together in one chunk and then lots of “ydy o” together in another chunk), whereas I wanted to review them in a more mingled fashion to force my brain to choose like it has to in the new course. So, I used audacity to cut the chunks into individual “prompt/response” pairs. By putting these into an album or playlist and playing it on shuffle on an mp3 player, I was able to make a drill that helped me a lot with certain points.
It’s fairly easy to do, but time-consuming (so I only did it for a few points rather than the whole course!). I don’t know if I still have the files I made; but if I do, I would be willing to share them if Aran and the guys were to give permission.