Bore da pawb,
I think that we pick our course based on where we are geographically and I may be wrong but would guess the majority outside of Wales would do the North course as it’s (wait for it) 'proper Welsh"
Has anyone tried and successfully completed both? I’ve recently revisited lefel 1 and have now completed challenge 25 in both dialects. I think this extends your range and gives you a better chance of understanding speakers from differing areas.
There are also some bits of the south course that I have substituted a bit of the north course, for example;
I need - the south course teaches ‘Ma eisiau i fi’. I have never been able to take to this. When I was in school we used eisiau for want. Whilst my wife is unable to tell the difference between need and want I am. I use dw i angen.
About (as in an approximate point in time) - the south course teaches am biti mis (about a month). I’ve always been unsure about this as it sounds made up (I know It isn’t). so for this I use ‘am tua mis’ I feel it flows better.
And lastly;
A cuppa - the south course teaches ‘disgled o de’ (this is what they say on Pobol Y Cwm also) and the north ‘panad o de’ for ‘a cup of tea’. I have always as far as I can remover bought and drank ‘Paned Cymreig’ Welsh Brew Tea. As this is something thats familiar I tend to use paned/panad.
I’m not saying you should double your work load by trying to do both, it’ll do you in but for me there have been benefits to having a small understanding of both dialects and has made me feel more natural and confident (as @aran will tell you I suffer with confidence issues )
How you feel is important, if you feel good about your Welsh you’ll continually improve even if its just a word/sentence/structure/tense at a time.
Stick with it until we’re a million.
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Sori, I’m not sure why I selected this category…
Oh well, congratulations for completing both!
I think there is a conversation on this topic somewhere on the forum that might be interesting for you to read - I’ll edit in this post as soon as I find it.
I did the Southern course because I discovered Welsh through a band from Aberteifi and I love that accent!
I do agree on the fact it’s good to practice and understand both, but I find doing the northern Challenges very confusing.
I prefer to practice Northern accent by listening to the Advanced material, watching S4C and listening to the radio.
However I also feel free to use expressions I find easier or like best from other areas - like actually many Welsh native speakers do. I find angen easier than “ma eisiau i” myself - cause I don’t have to turn the whole sentence around and remember the mutation!
Or I just like the sound of mwynhau better than joio.
So I just use them!
p.s. I think you can change the category if you click on the pencil right next to the topic title
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I haven’t completed both levels just challenge 25 but have done the entire level in the south dialect.
Re mwynhau; again was taught this at school and hadn’t heard of joio until starting the course.
I tend to switch between the two but joio is shorter and easier and I’m all about the short sentences
When I’m telling someone to enjoy themselves however I tend to use mwynha/mwynhewch dy hun
It’s all very exciting
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And I’ve changed the topic diolch i ti
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Hi Neil. I completed both dialect courses - and also the old courses, but only because at the time, I was waiting for the new course to be completed.
It has given me a slightly mixed Welsh, but I don’t think any different to someone who has learnt through classroom or residential courses. Also, the evening classes that I attended before SSiW started were a sort of combined dialect approach.
The other side is that I can understand various regional dialects, and even have a go myself on the rare occasion that I’m (apparently) not making sense to someone. The same as in English, really.
However, if I was starting now, I’d probably just go straight through with one dialect and then onto the Advance Content and Slack speaking practice to widen my understanding.