Hi. I’m Fran. I’ve been learning for about 3 months. I never enjoyed learning languages at school, but I’ve enjoyed ssi welsh a lot, much to my surprise. Today was my first big challenge -talking to a real welsh person! I was very nervous, but it was fun.
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Shwmae Fran, a chroeso i’r fforwm!
And well done to you for taking the plunge and speaking Welsh with someone after just 3 months. That takes huge courage, even after many lessons, to speak with someone for the very first time in your target language - da iawn ti!
May I ask where you’re to with your challenges? And whether you are doing the Northern (Aran and Catrin) or the Southern (Iestyn and Cat) course??
Gav
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Croeso ar y fforwm @franhunni.
I’m happy you’re doing so well. Congrats on the first conversation. Now to the next one. …
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I’m doing the northern course. I did level one and am now doing Course 1,
which I plan to do as quickly as possible. I’ve enjoyed Aran’s upbeat encouragement very much. Having learnt in the privacy of my own kitchen and car for 3 months it was very daunting speaking out loud to someone. I realise I have a huge amount to learn. I’m just hope I’m not put off now I know how bad my memory and pronunciation are in the real world!
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That’s a huge step - many congratulations for having taken it! And finding it fun is a great sign that you’re going to be very successful… 
Hi, just saying hello and Well Done!
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Croeso, Fran! Da iawn ti! Dal ati! 
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S’mae a chroeso Fran! Well done! I just finished course 2 of the northern version, but have yet to have a real live conversation in Welsh. Keep up the good work!
-Jason
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Hello Gav,
I’ve just started Course 1 because after Level 1 I don’t feel ready to move ‘up’. I’ve been reading in the other threads about vocab lists and need to look at these too. To be honest, I never thought I’d get as far as I have. I am now a total convert to the high intensity method and owe Aran and the team a big thank you for inspiring me to continue on, after a very hesitant start. I do feel quite bouyed up. In school, we tend to get categorised as ‘good at x’ and not good at ‘y’. For me the y was languages and I’ve been convinced I can’t do it. It was a bit of a personal challenge to give this a go - spurred on by my son living in North Wales.
I hope I don’t get discouraged when I discover I’m very poor at actually speaking to real people!
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Hello tatjana, nice to meet you.The next conversation will be interesting - I’m sure I used up all the words and phrases I know in the first one.
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Hello Aran. Thank you for all your encouragement. I honestly thought I couldn’t do this, so all credit to you. I’ve read the book too (High Intensity learning) and it makes sense. I think part of the reason I kept progressing was because it was just between me and the computer, and your encouraging words. I know if I’d been in a class I would quickly have been discouraged by other people going faster / better than me. I need to work hard at not getting discouraged now I’ve come out of the closet. It feels a bit exposed, now, and I don’t want that confidence to slip away.
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Thank you, a-jay.
Diolch, AnnaC. I will do my best to ‘dal ati’.
Hello Jason - wow1 well done, I daren’t start course 2 yet. My very, very first attempt at a live conversation was in a ball pool with my grandson. I trotted out ‘I’ve just started learning how to speak Welsh’ (in Cymraeg, of course, but I’ve no idea how to write the sentence in Welsh…) to a complete stranger, who gabbled on about colours and I had no idea what to say next. There was an awkward silence and in the time it took me to turn bright red and try to fish out something - anything - from my shallow pool of Welsh words - the woman and her baby had left the ball pool. Funny now, but mortifying at the time.
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This forum is the best place for that! Any time you feel discouraged or frustrated, come on here and share - there will always be people around who’ve been through what you’re going through - because the ebb and flow of language acquisition always figures out a way to trip you up sometimes…
Right now, though, I think you should have a careful think through moving on to Course 1 - it really isn’t a progression from Level 1 - and if you’ve done Level 1, however scary the thought of Level 2 might be, it will do you far, far more good than going through the older stuff, I promise…
Oh, and you won’t discover that you’re very poor at speaking to real people - the first time you do it, you’ll discover that it’s a skill you haven’t acquired yet - but your success with Level 1 shows that you have the neurological functioning you need to become a Welsh speaker - so once your brain has had enough of the right kind of exposure, you will be a Welsh speaker - even though each new step in the journey will always feel a bit tough at first!
Are you doing the daily listening exercises? Those will make a huge difference for when you’re ready to jump into the deep water with a live speaker…
I’ve not been doing the daily listening exercises. Are they the ones you pay for? I’ve been looking at the various payment options, but am not sure yet which I will go for. Any advice?
Sorry, bit misleading from me to call them ‘daily listening exercises’ when we already have some of those on the old courses - what I meant was the accelerated listening exercises that you’ve already had access to with Level 1 (but doing them, ideally, on a daily basis, since they’re just 5 minutes)…
Umm, payment options? I think we just have the monthly payment for Welsh, don’t we?..
@franhunni probably counted Growth Club in and/or monthly subscription for all languages, that’s why he mentioned “verious payment options”. At least this is what I can remember of with that.
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I have been doing the accelerated listening exercises - if they are the crazy fast ones!
Re Course One. Aran, you say it isn’t progression. I’m going through it with only one listen through per lesson. I’m at lesson 15 and I’ve learnt new structures and quite a lot of new vocabulary, so I feel it’s helpful -especially the he/she in different tenses. I got really stuck on my first (only) proper attempt at a conversation only knowing I and you.
I feel reluctant to launch straight into Level 2. It seems like a big leap.
I’d appreciate your thoughts.
They’re still the same…
Course 1 isn’t a progression from Level 1 - sure, there’s some different stuff in there, but it doesn’t build on or repeat (except at random) the material in Level 1, which is what Level 2 does.
Why does Level 2 seem like a big leap? It’s just the continuation of Level 1 - in fact, if we removed the names ‘Level 1’ and ‘Level 2’, we’d be left with a straightforward set of of lessons - you could easily say that the first lesson of Level 2 is just the 26th lesson of Level 1…
But if you’re enjoying going through Course 1, by all means continue. Just be aware that the extra gap you’re taking between Level 1 Challenge 25 and Level 2 Challenge 01 will make the first challenge of Level 2 feel a bit tougher when you reach it, because it will be more time since you had to produce those structures…
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