After struggling through Course 3 for about a month (white waiting for the Southern Level 3), I’ve been reviewing vocab lessons, which I still find difficult. But today I breezed through Course 2, Lessons 15-18 (all in one afternoon) and was amazed at how much I got right! Also picked up a lot of fogotten vocabulary, although I fear I will never learn some of the words from late in various lessons–like “proud of yourself.” Still, it was gratifying, and a fun Saturday occupation.
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Da iawn Violet! You will remember vocabulary that you use. In fact, more accurately, you will remember all the vocabulary, but you will be able to easily recall the vocab that you use regularly.
So, if there’s stuff that you feel you would want to use in regular conversations, make up sentences yourself using those phrases on a fairly regular basis, and you will improve your recall of it.
On the other hand, if you don’t think you’ll use the vocab in question, then don’t worry at all that you can’t recall it!
But most importantly, do what you did - celebrate the stuff that worked, and see that for the positive that it is. And yes, dylet ti fod yn falch ohonot ti dy hunan!
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I have to confess that I have not been having conversations, since I live in the US, and it’s hard to find opportunities. I won’t give you my list of excuses for not trying Skype. I did have two real conversations in Wales last summer. And I’m taking a week-long course in upstate New York this July, which I’m counting on to give me practice. My life is a bit hectic at the moment, so Welsh conversation has fallen to the back burner. But I still do a lesson nearly every day.
PS I had to look that up, since it looks nothing like it sounds. (I thought maybe it had something to do with Chinese cuisine from Hunan. No, not really, but it crossed my mind.) How helpful to see the letters! The sounds just weren’t making it into my head. So “I’m proud of you” would be “Dw in falch i ti”? I know that orthography is probably wrong.
It’s actually “dw i’n falch ohonot ti” but you are very close, well done for your progress this far.
Dan ni i gyd yn falch ohonot ti. 
We are all proud of you.
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Thanks, Gruntius!
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This is why we encourage people not to look at writing until they are comfortable with the sounds. In this case, it actually looks almost exactly as it sounds, except that you have to know the pronunciation rules. If you are comfortable with the sounds already, then the rules are easy to learn / use, but if you are trying to pronounce with an English (or any other language for that matter) understanding of the reading rules, then you will not only get the pronunciation wrong, but worse still, you’re brain will tend to believe your (incorrect) eye-led pronunciation over the (correct) ear-led pronunciation, and you will need a lot of work to overcome that.
As for the i’s and the ohonot’s (sorry for the gorcers’ apostrophes), one of the most difficult things about learning a new language is those pesky for, to, on, in, over etcs. In writing, getting them wrong is stark, but in speech, context will almost always smoothe over the errors as you get used to what works where.
Trying, inovating, and gradually using more and more of the boring same-as-everyone-else patterns is what learning a language is all about, so yes, Dwi’n falch iawn ohonot ti. Da iawn ti!
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I agree that not looking at the written words is a good strategy. I have studied the pronunciation rules over and over, but the "u’ and “y” are still hard for me to absorb. I think it will be a long time before I learn how to read.
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