Helo pawb! It’s Beca Brown here - I’m still finding my way around the site so apologies if I’m a bit slow on responding or respond in the wrong place! Many thanks for the croeso - I’m very much looking forward to joining you all at SSIW - exciting times!
Aran has told you a bit about me, but to add to that it may be of interest to you that my parents moved to Wales from Derbyshire and Birmingham respectively, and although I was born and raised in Wales I was brought up in English and my parents learned Welsh from scratch and chose a Welsh-medium education for me. So I have watched both my parents learn Welsh as adults and have at least some knowledge of what it’s like! They are now both fluent, incidentally. Looking forward to getting to know you all! Hwyl!
Croeso. I’m looking forward to eavesdropping on your conversations. 
( You’re in good company - my wife is a Derbyshire lass who has moved to Wales )
Wha-hey, an official ‘croeso mawr’ i Beca to the forum!
I’m pretty certain she’s going to become one of your favourite people, as we gradually manage to set her content-creating skills more and more free…
Croeso mawr, Beca! Nice to “meet” you! I’m a learner in the US. I’m really pleased that you are joining SSiW and I’m excited about the new content
Croeso iawn, Beca.
A Welsh learner from England here. I’m not one of the first contingent of SSiW learners, but I’m probably from the 2nd or 3rd year. I know that I was probably well into Course 2 of the original SSiW just as the Fab Four were completing Course 3, so I’ve worked through both versions of the courses/levels.
One thing I was disappointed about Welsh (not with SSiW of course, because its strength was always in the speaking and listening) was the lack (compared to several other languages I’ve learned / tried to learn, such as German and the Scandinavian languages) was the lack of audiobooks and English translations of books originally written in Welsh. In the other languages mentioned, one thing I’d done a fair bit of was something called listen-read, where you listen to the audiobook (full not abridged) and read either the translation or the original at the same time. It’s a great technique actually. But not possible if you don’t have the material.
With listening-reading (or L-R), parallel texts make it even better, although they are not essential, so long as you have a good translation (and preferably a fairly literal translation, rather than a “literary” one). Well, the parallel-Cymru website has marvellously filled a gap by providing parallel texts, but what you are about to do with Aran / SSiW goes one step even better, by providing audio, transcripts, and translations. Believe me, that’s language learner’s heaven, at least if you want to read the language properly, as well as speak and understand the conversational language.
I think contemporary conversational spoken language is vitally important, but so is the ability to read and understand a reasonable level of the written language, and also the spoken version of that written language, or the written version of any given chunk of the spoken language … whatever. Anyway, I look forward to what you and Aran come up with with fascinated anticipation and interest. Pob lwc!
Hwyl am y tro,
Mike
Croeso Becca. Looking forward to the new content. 
Thanks so much fot rhis very timely information. We are prepping for our move to Wlaes in the next few weeks and my SSiW learning has taken a back seat with all the other jobs we are doing. I’ve finished level 1 and have been oputting off investing in the level 2 subscription until things were more settled. This announcement has kick-started me into doing it sooner!
@aran Swno wych! Looks like I’m going to be re-subscribing after just a couple of months’ break. Well done and penblwydd hapus hefyd!
I really like the sound of this!! And I’m happy to see that transcripts will be available. I’m sure I once saw that a certain type of membership gave you access to lesson transcripts? Or perhaps I imagined that. I’m currently working through the vocabulary in old courses 2 and 3 and seeing things written down would be so helpful to me. If I’m struggling with a sentence I often need to listen to it repeatedly and try to write what I’m hearing, this is when I notice the patterns and slight changes in sounds and find little tricks to remind myself how it works. So a long way of asking do transcripts for the lessons exist?
There aren’t transcripts for the lessons but there are vocabulary lists. If you go here and scroll down to “Where can I find the lesson guides and how should I use them?”, you will find the vocabulary lists as PDF files for the old Courses.
I don’t know if this will appeal, but one thing I’ve found useful is using beibl.net as it is a welsh translation of the bible in more modern Welsh as well as audio, so you can listen as you read in Welsh.
To complement this I also use step bible as you can create an interlinear text (select interleave in the settings) using whichever sources you want. So for example you could read one of the psalms using a beibl.net translation along with an English Standard Version text and even add other languages (German, etc )in as well.
Here is an example using beibl.net, ESV, KJV and German Schlachter bible of Psalm 23
Very exciting news, as are the plans to add Italian - something I have been keeping my fingers crossed for. I shall be switching to Polyglot mode as soon as I can figure out how!
Thank you to all the team for continuing to build on and improve this incredible resource.
I know beibl.net, and agree it’s a fabulous resource. Had no idea about “step bible” though.
Sounds fascinating. I must indeed investigate.
Diolch unwaith eto.
I tried it out on my smartphone in church this morning, but to be fair, my IT skills were struggling a bit. Also I was worried that it looked as if I was on Facebook 
Oh, I absolutely share your concern! The shame! 
Ha ha. I think I mentioned before that Mike Leach, who designed the Beibl.net site also plays drums in the Church. So I feel safer getting away with that one 
Fair play to him (and his co-workers; presumably he must have had some). It must have taken a huge amount of effort to put it all together.
It’s taken me a week to brace myself, so a belated welcome to this news and to @beca-brown also!
I was thrilled at your claim that this new material will ‘condense… months or years of listening to Radio Cymru’ because I still haven’t disciplined myself to having Radio Cymru on for at least an hour a day, as advised. It’s homework, whereas listening to the radio in English is pleasure. And as a result my listening skills are really lagging behind.
At one time @Isata and I were using articles from parallel.cymru as a basis for our weekly chats. I set off with the best of intentions to listen first, then read the article in Welsh, then listen again, and only then check any words or passages I couldn’t grasp at all in the parallel English version. It was time-consuming, and the more interesting the article was (and the nearer the deadline to our chat) the more likely my eyes were to flick across to the English translation… and soon the idea petered out altogether.
I want to make a fresh start with Beca a’i Phobl. How do you advise using the new material, to get maximum value from it?
Aran, what will happen if I take out the polyglot subscription i.e. will that also stay at the same price or change in the future?
Steve
That’s staying the same, so you get grandfathered in if you change now.