This is a slightly tricky one. I am very lucky to have a first language Welsh Mamgu who is very lovely and supportive. However I am so scared of speaking Welsh with her in case I can’t understand anything she says!
I am on level 1, challenge 21 and absolutely LOVING the course. I did GCSE German and hated it and @aran has created something amazing: so different to normal language courses!
I have asked to join the Slack group to try and get over my fear of speaking Welsh with other people face to face. I don’t know why it makes me so scared! I think I’m just worried I’ll mess it up.
Hi Lucy. SSIW is an amazing course, and it teaches you the eaay bit first, the Say, bit of the Welsh language. The understand bit is a different, and going, always, to be harder. But you want to talk to Mamgu, who will be thrilled at how well you are doing. Ask her to go slowly with you, if necessary (yn araf plis), to repeat herself (eto, plis), and learn to accept that understanding comes much later in the process. Good luck. Come back to the forum and tell us how it goes.
Hi Lucy.
We are all going there or have been there. Getting your brain used to hearing people speak is a whole new challenge and it takes time and practice to get to 100% understanding. I’m not at 100% myself yet. There will be things you won’t understand her say for quite a long time, however over time you will understand more and more first time.
Listening to Radio Cymru helps. you get used to the presenters voices and feel you understand a lot, then when listening to a different presenter, you understand less. It all takes time and don’t worry about it. The Slack group is good, as is your mam-gu. Don’t expect to run whilst you’re still learning to walk.
What I found works, is find a programme you like and stick with it for a while to get used to their voice and then challenge yourself with a different presenter. Some have excellent clear “Radio Welsh”, other are more idiosyncratic.
Do come and ‘mess it up’ with me on Slack soon, Lucy! I’ve had chats with people where we’ve both ended up crying with laughing at our mistakes, but nevertheless understanding each other perfectly.
A lot more fun than GCSE German, I promise.
Sounds to me, @lucy-bradburn and @Kayleigh, as if your next step is to link up with each other on Skype. Think how much better you’ll feel after boosting each other’s confidence!
Great advice you’ve already had in here - I’d add that if you perhaps think in terms of doing a ‘single sentence swap’ first of all - so you hop on a call with someone else (in Slack or here) and instead of ‘having a conversation’, you just agree that you’ll both say one sentence each, and then that’s it for that day… and then try and make that a regular thing… and then switch up to 2 sentences… and then let it grow naturally until it feels like a comfortable thing to be doing…
And then, when you’ve done plenty of practice with someone else, you’ll be ready for your mamgu…
You are, indeed, very lucky to have such a Mamgu. And if I know anything about Mamgus, she will be delighted to have you speak to her in Welsh, mistakes and all. She will quite understand that you are taking steps to learn her language (and yours!), but perhaps explain your worry to her first and ask her to speak as slowly and clearly as possible in the beginning. I wish I had such a Mamgu, but at 71 years old, that’s hardly likely!
The suggestions and support are so very heartening. I’ve more or less gotten over my fear of conversation, but I still find it exhausting to listen and miss so many words. Sometimes I make myself stop trying and just listen to the music of the language, and to my surprise, many words jump out at me of their own accord.
Perhaps your Mamgu will be so impressed and interested in the process of “learning to understand on first exposure” that she’ll allow you to record your conversations, those you have together… Then @aran may be able to get his magic speedy-up-and-turn-you-into-chipmunks machine to work on those recordings and they will be turned at the wave of a wand into the Lefel 3 & Advanced Content chipmunk listening practices of the future…
My homegrown paranoia suspects that the get-a-new-colour-of-badge scheme on this forum, is also about feeding the chipmunk-machines of the future… What Welsh do people really want to learn? Well the words to understand their friends, relatives and heroes, of course.
Sadly, my best friend relative and hero is Gareth Yr Orangutan from Hansh, and his hardest-to-understand quips, mutterings and other non-sentences need no speeding up…
@lucy-bradburn you are definitely not alone in being scared to speak out loud to another person! I don’t have the benefit of anyone to speak to in Welsh who is related to me but I have the fantastic SSiW community I can jump on video hangouts with. But I don’t mind admitting it took me TEN MONTHS of doing SSiW before I plucked up the courage to go on one! It was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences I’d had for years. And it was all in my head; I was the one making myself unnecessarily nervous! I think it took me 4 or 5 goes before my nerves started to subside, but the people on SSiW are so nice and patient that there was really no need for me to be nervous at all. But I can understand why others find the experience scary. I think many of us are like that! With hindsight the only way to conquer it is to jump in and do it! A bit like picking up a spider (which, by the way, I still can’t do! Lol)
Just in case @lucy-bradburn is too modest to mention it, I’ve talked to her online, and she did really well. Not long now, Lucy, until you have that chat with your Mamgu, and we’d love to hear how it goes!
