First post, so no doubt there is a better location for the topic - Mods, feel free to advise and move it!
I’ve obviously listened to Aran’s advice about trying to produce your response 80% of the time before they speak, and not aim for perfection. And, I’ve been astonished at how a Challenge that seems much incomprehensible on first listen, suddenly is SO much easier the next day.
So, how many times should I/do you do a Challenge before moving on?
I can’t monitor the 80% rule! For some challenges I have only listened once (not many!), others two and, increasingly with the rise in difficulty, three times.
Is that ok? I’d like to go ‘faster’, but don’t want to compromise adequate learning, albeit without trying to achieve perfection.
Don’t worry about the 80% - it’s old advice (it just hasn’t been updated in the audio). You will definitely find some challenges more difficult than others (especially the infamous #14 when you get to that!), so repeating two or three times is fine. As long as you don’t get bogged down going over and over something, feel free to repeat however many times feels comfortable for you, but yes, moving on sooner if you want to is also fine because there is repetition built into the course, so it’s not as if you only get one shot at any particular construction. Remember, you can always go back to any challenge you particularly struggle with once you’re further into the course, and many people find that in doing that, things that they were sure hadn’t sunk in at the time suddenly click into place.
And you’re spot on about not trying to achieve perfection - mistakes are simply extra learning tools!
Great advice (as always) from Siaron here. One thing to check, are you just listening to each challenge, or are you trying to speak the Welsh in the gaps given? The speaking is a really important part of how the process works, and I know that some people miss that bit and think that just listening to it will give them what they need (it won’t). You do feel like a bit of a wally, though, I’ll give you that! And it’s a good way of making sure that no one sits next to you on a busy train…
Thanks so much Siaron. We’re moving to Cymru in about a year and I am sooo determined to immerse us completely and be as competent in Welsh as possible. Absolutely loving it.
And, as a decent linguist in my youth, I have to tip my hat to the learning model of SSIW. It’s absolutely remarkable. I find myself laughing out loud after fluently speaking a long sentence that, the day before, I could barely decipher!!
Y Fenni area. Have started looking already, a year out from us leaving the NHS after 30+ years. We’re ready for a new adventure and cannot wait to become Welsh, if you’ll have us.
And I know that’s not the most dense area for Welsh speaking, but I will not be deterred. We intend to enjoy the whole of the country and I will be speaking Cymraeg whenever I can!
That’s my “technique” too although at some point I wasn’t managing anymore (although I’ve just started Level 3 and dare I say it feels much slower, perhaps easing in slowly?).
For what it is worth I almost never repeat a challenge. I do approximately one a night but had a few days break between levels. I only repeat one on nights where I am absolutely shattered and know I won’t be able to do a fill challenge, so repeat part of the previous.
Just to close the circle, and to say thanks again for all the lovely, helpful replies:
Today I did Challenge 13 (Level 1) for the third time, and found myself occasionally fist-pumping at being able to hear and say things sooo much better than yesterday and the day before!
I think I’ve found my sweet spot of three goes on a challenge that I find particularly tricky.
That’s brilliant advice…it’s the brain thing you were talking about Siaron in your advice to me…what an incredible organ the brain is. Especially the phrases that pop into my head at random moments😂
I’ve done it 5 times and am now ready to move on!!
“My mother told me that I shouldn’t…etc” is mind-blowingly complicated until that extraordinary thing that is the brain assimilates the information adequately to give it a go. But, after a few goes, like magic, it does!
