Helo!
Brand new user here. Just moved to a lovely place in Gwynedd so plenty of friendly Welsh speakers around to talk to. Also taking WJEC Cwrs Mynediad lessons for two hours every week in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Apologies if I am asking a well worn question but I am confused. Aran, in his jokey and helpful emails, suggests rarely or never repeating lessons, just pushing on through them. However I have just struggled through lesson 3 and the suggestion made at the end is to go through it again if it is a little confusing - AND IT IS 
My great temptation is too go back even to Lesson 1 and repeat everything again until I feel a little more confident butIi do not want to get stuck in a repeat repeat cycle and make no progress.
Any advice. Believe me the level of confusion in this mixed up 64 year old brain is quite highā¦
Thanks
Helo and croeso:)
donāt know how right this is, but I would personally suggest doing at least one more lesson and then, if the level of discomfort is just too much for you, repeating some of the previous lessons. Slight discomfort and confusion is a perfectly normal feeling. Learning a foreign language is one of the most difficult things that our brain can do (really). When youāre just getting into it, you can experience anything from confusion to anxiety, really. (And depression, said I, looking guiltily at my Irish textbook) Thereās nothing to worry about. The lessons are also, as you know, structured so thereās continuous recirculation of words and patterns, so what you donāt learn at once, you will remember in the next sessions. (it took me 3 whole lessons to remember ācyfleā!)
Iām afraid my own process of learning has carried on since I recorded the intros/outros - the emails are much more recent - so I would incline to encourage you to try and get through to (say) 10 before you revisit - if you do, by that stage 1 should feel ridiculously easy.
But itās not the end of the world to repeat if you feel disheartened - as Stella says, itās very common to feel disheartened, and itās much better to repeat than to give up - but the further you can get before you give in to the urge, the betterā¦ 
Helo, croeso!
Thanks for the support, comments and welcome. Apologies but I have been away from the PC for a few days - which means no daily Welsh lessons!!! That is going to make it even more difficult 
But I will PUSH ON. No repeats and only a few pausesā¦
Croeso iār forumā¦and I envy your move!!
from an exile in Yr Alban!!
p.s. my brain is older than yours and I can sympathise, but go on, young friend, go onā¦ the method works!!
Diolch!!!
Croeso & Helo!
I have been learning since March, and I would say that some lessons went in (more or less) with just one listen. A good few lessons required two listensā¦and, on some devilishly hard (to me) lessons I did a third, maybe fourth, sometimes fifth listen AND moaned on forum about STILL not getting it and sluggish progressā¦at which point Aran would tell me to forget āgetting itā and move on! He has always been absolutely right, I have found that it really does fall into place over subsequent lessons. It is almost like when you are no longer āstressingā over it you can relax and absorb it? I am still guilty of forgetting this āgolden ruleā now and again, and obsessing over a difficult patch but deep down i know that the answer is to Move On!
Dal ati & pob lwc!
I just signed up this weekend. A trip to Wales for the World Cup reawakened something that has been at the back of my mind for years, and I am starting to learn Welsh for the first time since about 1990 when I did a correspondence course that I found at a booth in the Eisteddfod. That involved recording my lessons on a cassette tape, mailing it back to Wales, and then getting the cassette back by mail with the instructorās comments. I still have a Catchphrase textbook from that period.Now that seems as old fashioned as writing my lessons on clay tablets and sending it to my instructor on an ox-cart.
I think Iām going to enjoy this, but Iām confused about something. Lesson 1 encourages you to go back and repeat the lesson until you feel ready to go on to lesson 2. That makes sense. However, yesterday I got one of Aranās cheery emails telling me not to repeat any lessons. Qu-est-ce qui se passe?
Edmund
Understand your confusion. Read what Aran says earlier in this thread and all the other helpful comments given. My reading of the advice is PUSH ON as much as possible and it will all fall into place. I am still waiting for that to happen, and I have to admit that the silences in my lessons when I am supposed to be speaking Welsh are quite stressful at times. However now at Lesson 5 and things are starting to sound familiarā¦
Thanks. I should have checked a bit further back in the thread. Lesson 1 went pretty well actually and I was able to say about 2/3 of the phrases in time. I will push on for a few more lessons before I repeat.
Croeso iār Forum, Edmund! I adore your imagery! It shocks me a bit to realise just how recent those courses were! I do know the trouble I had communicating with a computer in London by 'phone from Gower in 1992, but one forgets that this was not actually in the days of Hywel Dda!!
Iām going to take a screenshot of that and email it to my motherā¦
The slow but steady march of time, sir!.. The ādonāt repeatā has been simmering away on the back burner for a few years, and only recently got the point where Iāve got no further doubts about it being a better approachā¦ [and those emails were written very recently!].
LOL@Aranā¦i like your style!
P.S. I ONLY meant right about how to learn Welsh ā¦other than that I expect your mother is right about everything else, if you know whatās good for you
Oh, no, Iām not copying that bit in for her. The last thing she needs is any encouragement in that directionā¦
No Mam needs it, bach, they all know they are right where their baban bach is concerned, never mind if heās 5, 55 or even older!! If I had a son, Iām sure Iād be the same!! 
Speaking of Hywel Dda, I had the pleasure of climbing up to the hill fort of Crug Hywel (sp?) for the second time this September. The first time was in 1990 or thereabouts. I was attending the Eisteddfod, which was being held at Crickhowell that year.
I am enjoying the lessons and I am following Aranās advice, but it is certainly different from the way I have learned languages in the past.At some point I will want to want to graduate to reading and writing. Should I wait until I have completed the entire course before taking on some other kind of instruction?
Shwmae, Edmund.
With regards to reading, I began to dip my toe into it after I completed course 1, starting with childrenās books and the like. Many people here use supplementary material, especially for learning to read and write. As long as you understand that while the Welsh alphabet looks like the English one, the letters often represent different sounds to what youāre used to, then you should be fine.
Diolch Karla. My old Catchphrase textbook is still on the shelf. I havenāt touched it in years, but I think I will be dusting it off at some point. I donāt learn well without some personal interaction, which is a big reason why I think I am going to like SSiW.