I’m curious. I’ve had a week without a great deal of welsh. A few bits of memrise Sunday/ Monday. The odd ten minutes of radio cymru. The first few page of my book. And 90 minutes on skype.
Is this too little/much?
i know it sounds like a lot, but for me it hasn’t been.
Do we need to rest our brains?
Short answer, no. Do you need to take days off from speaking English to rest your brains?
On the other hand, you shouldn’t worry (as many people often do) about ‘losing ground’ - that’s just a fleeting thing. Take a few weeks or months off, and your next Welsh conversation will feel a bit more difficult for the first five or ten minutes, and that’s about it.
My experience, yes. Not too much though but I believe at least being exposed to Cymraeg even if you do not do another stuff does the work. I’ve heard of some people taking the months break from learning, doing something in Welsh and it actually was useful.
From my experiences, if you’re not keen to do too many things regarding learning (like doing lessons or having too many talks) you can temporary stop from doing them and do some other thing like listening to radio, music etc, something what pleases you and is still related to the language. But it might be you’d need something to happen to give you a boost to continue with the enthusiasm which you did your learning before.
Maybe it is good you participate in the conversations like it was that one on Thursday. At one point you’d get the wish to learn/make more (like lessons etc) being a part of them.
But the deceision is yours, of course, what you’d do with your learning process. However, doing stullf you do not feel happy with at the particular moment doesn’t lead anywhere. I know that because I was at that point quite some times and I didn’t get too much out from such “forced” actions.
But I know you love Cymraeg all too much to stop for too long time so I do not worry about these little breaks of yours so shouldn’t you either.
Yes indeed i do. Its probably outside of children the most rewarding and valuable thing i have done.
From a personal point of view i feel i’ve achieved so much this last 8 months.
My version of taking a break was still a fair bit of welsh!!!
Felly amser i symud ymlaen. Dysgu mwy. Ymarfer mwy. Rhaid i mi gofio…dim ond swydd ydy o! Efallai, cyfle newydd yn y dyfodol!
I remember my first break from SSiW, which was about a week or so, after challenge 5 or thereabouts; I felt that the next one was more successful then the previous ones!
I think there’s something to be said for letting the material “settle”, let the brain process things, draw connections and so on, without being subjected to more stuff all the time.
Some say that this is part of what sleep is for – to let the brain get some peace and quiet in order to process the events of the day, form new memories, etc.
So my feeling is that it won’t hurt to do something similar on a bigger scale (a day or three off after several days on, rather than a few hours off after lots of hours on).
But I’ll defer to those who have studied the mental process of learning in greater detail…
My own personal expeience is that long breaks lead to forgetting. Short breaks - day or so - don’t hurt, but I can’t say I’ve noticed an improvement after one! It may be different if you are in a younger age group, but no German between age 5 and age 18 definitely was deadly to remembering any!
Pete,
Looking at the various answers here, I suspect that they’re all correct. Every one of us is different (otherwise the world would be a very boring place).
I’ve taken breaks for 1-2 weeks occasionally when I’ve felt swamped, and it really helps. Also, trying other Welsh resources on the Web helps - variety is always good. But I always come back to SSiW!
Do what you find best.