Hi pawb - I have worked my way through Course 1 of south Welsh. (Haven’t got to grips with all of it, but making progress steadily.).
I have now noticed that there another set of challenges called "Level 1 (new!).
Two questions:
It mentions that there should be an intro, but there doesn’t seem to be one. The first audio is entitled Welsh C101s. In this Aran says “make sure you listen to the intro”…
What exactly are these lessons designed for? I have listened to the first one, and although it introduces great new words, it is also very basic.
The Northern intro by Aran is fine to listen to, as it has no Welsh content at all.
The Level 1 course is the replacement for Course 1, using Aran’s new and improved framework for teaching, based upon his experiences over the past few years and his observation of bootcampers and their levels of conversational ability. It aims to get people conversational much faster than the old course 1. It also has some challenging listening practices at lessons 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25. The last 4 are at double speed, and are designed to get your brain processing Welsh faster and faster. They are inspired and based on sound neuroscience, but quite hard to start of with (keep working at them, they really work!), and are dialogue-based, rather than random sentences.
Finished Course 1? You’re ready for Course 2. You may like to do the Vocab lessons for Course 1 if you haven’t done them yet. Whatever, you are ready to move on, do not hold back or procrastinate, thinking you are not - you really are!
Hwyl,
Stu
EDIT: Level 1 is well worth doing even if you have completed Course 1. It has new words, including some constructs only introduced in the current Course 3 (i.e some short forms), and is great revision. But don’t let it hold you back from starting on Course 2! The Agored assessments are also based on the new Level 1 course (and the new Levels 2 and 3 to come).
That’s a pretty comprehensive answer from Stu - diolch yn fawr!
I’ve just edited the name of the new course introduction so that it doesn’t say north - that should clear up a bit of confusion!
As Sru says - definitely move on to course 2 as soon as you’ve finished course 1, but remember to use the C1 practices to keep the material fresh, as you will not neccesarily use it all regularly during course 2.
The new course will be built up into a full course over the coming months (but a lot of months…), and eventually, I expect, the old course will be pensioned off, but bear in mind that there are a lot of Welsh speakers about who have got there through using the old course - it works, and it works well! So just go for it, make as many mistakes as possible (that’s the best way to learn)!
What Iestyn says about the “old” courses is spot on. I used them and they are fantastic! But I also use the new Level 1 as revision and enjoy that too.
Stu - diolch yn fawr. That is a fantastic set of answers. Thank you for clearing those things up.
Iestyn - many thanks also - and I will look forward to the new course as it comes out.
Just quickly if I may
I’ve been accessing SSiW solely from my iPhone. On my app, the New Level 1 (south Wales) only has 9 challenges/lessons (north Wales has 19). The website version has 25. I assume the missing lessons will be making their way to the app in due course, and that in the meantime I use the website for lessons 10-25? Am I also right in assuming that the 10 Vocab lessons in the old Course 1 are to be used for Level 1 New?
Many thanks,
jason
PS: Vocab lesson 10 was a killer! I marked myself as I went, and gave myself 116 correct and 24 incorrect. Lots to learn still…!
Croeso Jason. But I wouldn’t bother with the “marking yourself” stuff, its just another thing to beat yourself up with, which is counter-productive. You are not aiming for perfection and making mistakes in real conversations is a good thing. Are you speaking Welsh to others on any sort of regular basis yet?
WRT the vocab lessons, I don’t believe that there will be any for new level 1 (not sure about that) but they certainly contain useful stuff. The usual advice is not to get too hung up on them, but to push forwards. For level 1 South, there are 12 challenges on the website currently, with more due over course of the months to come. The Northern level 1 is complete however.
Many thanks, Stu. No, I’m not conversing yet with any other Welsh speaker/learners, but trying to arrange it at the moment. My cat is the only person who’s heard me in action
Jason - as a rule of thumb, you should be aiming to get around 80% of the material right before moving on. If you are getting much more than this, then you are going too slowly.
80% of 140 sentences os 112 correct, so unless you’ve found a particular pattern that you really don’t remember, or a whole tense that is causing you a headache, then it’s time to move on! (I doubt if you have found a particular pattern / tense that’s not working for you, or you wouldn;t have got such a high score!)
Remember that as you move through a course, you will be practicing the material from previous lessons in the subsequent lessons, so for little problems, you’ll get plenty of practice.
In the case of lesson 25, there are the 5 minute practices to keep those fresh, so keep doing them while you start with course 2!
Having finished the old Course 1, and whilst I wait for app access to Course 2, I have tried out the first couple of lessons on the New Course 1. It’s very different!
Would you recommend that I go through this course first? There’s a lot of material in there that isn’t covered on the old Course 1.
Honestly, I’d suggest doing both; perhaps alternate until you reach what’s currently done, and then stick to the older stuff until more new stuff comes out (it’s what I’m doing on course 3).
Chris: Honestly, I’d suggest doing both; perhaps alternate until you reach what’s currently done,
That’s just what I did and I’m glad I did. I did the (north) Level 1 as it came out, alternating with course 2. I found they really reinforced each other well. The timing was such that I finished them both about the same time. I suppose (hope ?) that the new Level 2 will come out as I’m in the beginning stages of Course 3 and that should be lots of fun.
In level 1, challenge 14 I am a little confused on sentence construction.
English sentence : “Your sister wanted to tell you last night”.
Welsh: “O’dd dy chwaer di yn moyn dweud wrtha i beth i wneud”
English: “A young man wanted to tell me what to do yesterday.”
Welsh: “O’dd dyn ifanc yn moyn dweud wrtha i beth i wneud ddoe.”
Not sure if it’s supposed to be O’dd i’r dyn ifanc…
English: “He wanted me to tell you something.”
Welsh: “O’dd fe’n moyn i fi ddweud rhywbeth wrtha ti.”
They seem pretty straight forward.
But,
English: “Someone who wanted to tell you”
Welsh: “Rhywun o’dd yn moyn dweud wrtha ti”
Why is it not “O’dd rhywun sy’n moyn dweud wrtha ti”?
Sorry to get bogged down in specifics but I’m starting to speak Welsh to others and knowing how to put different stuff together helps me a lot.
It’s probably because it’s “someone who wanted…” as in “I met someone who wanted…”, rather than “There was someone who wants”. It’s the same reason as you’d say “rhywun dywedodd wrtha i” for “someone who told me” rather than “Oedd rhwyun sy’n dweud wrtha i”, which would be closer to “There was someone who told me”.
This is a sentence fragment rather than a complete sentence, as Hector indicates, so its best written down as “… rhywun oedd yn moyn dweud wrthot ti…” Using it, you can now say things like:
Wnes i gwrdd a rhywun oedd yn moyn dweud wrthot ti sut i’w wneud o.
