Relative Newbie looking for Skype Partner

Hi everyone! I’m quite new to the ssiw forum and after speaking to Aran about looking for conversation practice he mentioned it might be worth asking if anyone is free for regular Skype (or in person if you’re around central London ever!) conversation practice? I’m just coming to the end of Level 1 and have been doing around a challenge a day for about a month and just love learning the language. Would love to hear from anyone interested. Diolch yn fawr iawn! Sean

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Haia! I’d be free for regular Skype chats (at least until I get drowned by homework again, but that should only last a few weeks). I’ll PM you my Skype contact details :slight_smile:

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Hi Sean,

Send me a message, I’m always happy - and funnily enough I work in Central London once or twice a month for a couple of days, so if you’re ever about that could work out.

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Hi Sean,
I’ve just found your thread by a circuitous route of seeing your original request on the ‘London events’ thread (which has just been added to) and then working through to this one!
You may well have enough Skype partners by now - but if not I’d be willing to give it a go. I’m at roughly the same level as you are, but have taken considerably longer to get there.
Send me a message if you wish to ‘siarad Cymraeg gyda fi’.
Alan.

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Aran - Thought you might like an update on this one. Had first Skype conversation with @seangittins a couple of evenings ago, and we chatted quite comfortably for 1 hr 20 mins on a range of topics. The first hour or so was based strongly on Cymraeg, interspersed with Saesneg only where necessary. Sean is another ‘natural’ who, though only learning the language for four months or so, with an upcoming visit to Bwtcamp I have absolutely no doubt will go on to become a fluent Welsh speaker in no time at all. As for me - well I shall plod on; but there’s no doubt that my recent Skype sessions are forcing me to actually put some of that Welsh learning into effect, constructing new sentences & so on - just as you’ve always said. Alan.

That is absolutely SUPERB work, Alan - HUGE congratulations - if you can keep going for an hour and more, you can pretty much keep going for ever (just running into occasional walls) - so that shows that you’d be fine if you were dropped somewhere people only spoke Welsh… :slight_smile:

I’m not ENTIRELY sure of that, Aran. Just the memory of 1 or 2 conversation sessions during the 5-day intensive of not knowing a simple word like brawd (simply 'cos I hadn’t got onto that lesson till the following morning), or confusing gwyliau with gwylio - and then the ensuing 5 minutes of miming and circuitous explanation because we weren’t allowed to be given the translation, could at times be morale-sapping. The point about the Skype sessions is that we can revert to English to translate and explain these little things where necessary, which keeps the whole thing relaxed and is (for me at least) confidence-building and actually makes me want to revert to the Welsh asap. Plus the fact we are speaking to each other relatively slowly and clearly, which is different to out in the wild. All of which is why I know I’d be no good at bwtcamp. But nevertheless I AM progressing…

Of course, only you can now how much/how long the lapses into English were - but it sounds to me as though you are much further along than you currently realise (which would make you like, oh, every other single learner I’ve ever met, pretty much… :wink: )… :slight_smile:

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Aran. Just re-reading my last post, it seems a little nitpicking given your preceding congrats. I should have at least prefaced it with a ‘diolch yn fawr iawn’ - so am making up now!! :slight_smile: I was of course just addressing (a little too seriously) that last bit about being dropped in a Welsh-only speaking community!! :wink: :smiley:

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No worries! But if you really were dropped in at the deep end, you’d surprise yourself… :slight_smile:

My parachute is on order… :wink::grinning:

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Hi Alan, thank you for the kind words and it was great to talk with you, and I definitely emphasise with as I thought you more than coped even if you have reservations about being parachutted into Wales! To be fair, I think we all would although maybe when SSiW gets to a certain level this could be the culmination of the course, being parachutted into some desolate area of the country and forced to use your skills?! Thoughts, Aran and Iestyn ;)? Also, although I’m flattered, I would definitely not consider myself a “natural” and this is the first time I’ve felt any sense of achievement or confidence in learning a second language and put it down to this fantastic method. I look forward to many more conversations :slight_smile:

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