The latest Beta test version of the Android app now displays the growth club lesson numbers, and makes them available for both North and South regions.
More info here:
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Fab, diolch o galon.
Very sorry to everyone for missing last week - not a matter of disorganisation, just plague - the kind of flu that is so genuinely bad that Catrin (who was suffering every bit as much) didnāt even get around to making any jokes about manflu (I think she was more concerned about making sure that my last will and testament was properly drawn up).
Weāre still pretty wobbly this week (as weak as kittens, and not eating much) but weāll definitely get this weekās Growth Club done, and weāll try and do an extra one to make up for last week. You might want to look up some words in advance, like pesychu, brifo, crio, isio marw, bron yn marw, gwres, crynu, hunllefā¦
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I was actually concerned for her as I didnāt know what she is more - ill or angry upon a flu. 
Yah, I know how it is. When I was ill last I couldnāt put myself together for almost 3 weeks. Nothing particular state it was just not feeling well and strong enough to do anything at all. So, ā¦ well patiently wait for whatever comes just donāt rush too much . Take your time. (and sorry if this sounds like a preaching because it is not ā¦ itās just pure concern from my heart).
Iāwonāt lie that Iām glad youāre back if even in āsmall dosesā
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Absolutely dont worry about doing an extra one. We all understand. You need to stay better and dont need any extra strain. But thanks for the thought!
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I was having a nice lazy time doing half of whatās left of Level 2 Challenge 20 knowing that I had just Challenge 21 left to do - and then like a bolt of lightening Challenges 22 and 23 arrive. Even a nasty case of the flu canāt stop the SSiW steamroller rolling out more Challenges. Iām going to have to pick up my socks to keep pace! Llongyfarchiadau on producing yet more wonderful dialogues - yes a giant Llongyfarchiadau to the whole team.
Justin
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So, weāre alive again, and you can feast your ears on the coughing and self-pity in the new Growth Club sessionā¦
Iām still planning to do an extra one to catch up, but since it turns out that weāre still mostly about as weak as kittens at the moment, it looks like being next week for thatā¦ 
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Any idea of what proportion of the High Frequency 1000 words or High Frequency 2000 words in particular are verbs? Is there a list of the first 100 or first 200 high frequency verbs.
I hate listing nouns. Iām not too keen on listing verbs either - but I less mind looking at an existing list of verbs in groups of say 50 and seeing which ones I donāt know.
Then Iāll try to put some sentences together that resemble a dialogue to memorise the verbs.
Actually, Iām kidding myself - I learn best from SSi ā so thatās eventually going to be my route.
But I would be interested in knowing the facts on verb frequency - if only to have a peak occasionally to get a sense of my āignorance indexā!!
Justin
Nope, not off the top of my head - but if you search for āBritish National Corpus onlineā or for āword frequency lists Englishā you should dig out some stuff that you could drill down intoā¦
But Iād be inclined to suggest that instead of a list approach, you think in terms of recording radio interviews, and gradually working your way through them in close detail (asking on here when you get stuck) - I would hazard a guess that half-a-dozen full interviews would give you a usefully high percentage of the most functional language you needā¦
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Hi Sara,
Iām being incredibly lazy here - but do you have a sense of what proportion of your list might be verbs? Not that Iām a great learner from lists myself. Iām going to take Aranās suggestion and try to analyse radio interviews. But I remain curious about what proportion of the top 1000 or top 2000 words are verbs;
Justin
Verb analysis: How about using the Growth Club conversations? For anyone who has access to the transcripts that would be relatively easy. Or you could use articles from Golwg360 or Cymru Fyw. I know the written language is not quite the same thing as the spoken language, but those sites are meant to be popular and fairly mainstream, so itās not like reading the proceedings of the Sennedd or something.
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Good question. When I get a moment Iāll have a whizz through and get a rough idea.
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I would hazard a guess that the proportion of verbs would vary from the first thousand to the second thousand. The first thousand must be loaded with the very high frequencies of everything that is a necessity to have a basic conversation (pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, nouns and verbs etc;). My guess is after that a slightly different pattern emerges. 
Justin
Sorry if you have already said this (Iām fighting a cold and am thinking even less clearly than usual), but why is the proportion of verbs important Justin? I can see it is interesting from a theoretical / academic point of view, but does it have a practical application?
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Why is the proportion of verbs important Justin?
Well, it might be unique to the way I learn. The SSi model is ideal for me. I just wish I had found it earlier. Now, to grow further with Welsh I can wait for the SSiW 2K or 4k project and then I will be the happiest man alive. Failing that and anyway, in the meantime, it would be good to boost my vocabulary.
Again this is related to my style only, but I do not like flash cards and lists. Passive styles of learning like reading and watching films I do do, but in my opinion they need to be boosted with some type of active process.
I relate to verbs better than nouns. So, my default process would go something like this:
Take a pair of interesting verbs and probably adverbs to go with them e;g; sing/loudly and shining/brightly. And with just one noun and a conjunction I can form:
The sun is shining brightly so I am singing loudly.
So if there are 200 verbs to learn that I can break down into 100 pairs - oh my goodness I am already demotivated and dying of boredom!!! But thatās my ātheoreticalā default method for adding vocabulary.
Aranās idea of working with Radio interview scripts is far more interesting and intelligent.
Now, if all else fails I could always provoke Eirwen - they say when people get angry they revert to their native tongue - in which case I am sure I will learn some colourful verbs, adverbs and adjectives fired in rapid succession. But am I that desperate to accelerate my Welsh?!!
Ymlaen SSiW 2k and 4k,
Justin
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Ohhh ā¦ Hereās rain but no matter: whenās the concert? Comming to listen. 
Phiew ā¦ I wouldnāt hazard with this too much!!!
[SIZE=9]UPS! Now Iām hazarding with being burnt ā¦ hehe[/size]
But now siriously, I find your method very good. Associating things is always good way of learning and I believe you need verbs the most then on you need all the rest.
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OK, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining so fully. And that does seem to fit quite well with the SSiW way of doing things, which is essentially teaching us āstructureā based on essential verbs, to which one can easily add nouns and adjectives/adverbs, e.g.
I am going (slowly, quickly, reluctantly) to the (shop, supermarket, market) in order to buy (potatoes, apples, bread, butter, salt, pepper, beer, wine, whiskyā¦ ). etc.
But if you have to transcribe them yourself, although it will be a fabulous exercise, it will take a long time (well,depending on the interview). Not necessarily a bad thing, but I got the impression you wanted to get on with this fairly quickly.
So Iām wondering if you could work with text that already exists. If you could find a Welsh book or books that contained plenty of dialogue (assuming you are interested in the spoken language), could you work from those? And if you are technical, or have a technical friend, and get e-book versions of them, you might be able to at least semi-automate this process.
I have another idea for source material, but first I need to check something. Will get back to you.
In the meantime, someone on forum.language-learners.org recently posted this link:
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/October2014/articles/nation.pdf
Reading in a Foreign Language October 2014, Volume 26, No. 2
ISSN 1539-0578 pp. 1ā16
How much input do you need to learn the most frequent 9,000 words?
Paul Nation
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
I have only skim-read it so far, so havenāt really absorbed it properly, but one thing I have picked up is that he reckons we need to read a word approximately 12 times in order to learn it.
(I suspect it need not be that many times if you were also hearing and speaking it, but thatās just my own guess).
See also:
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/April2006/pigada/pigada.pdf
Reading in a Foreign Language
Volume 18, No. 1, April 2006
ISSN 1539-0578
Vocabulary acquisition from extensive reading: A case study
Maria Pigada
and
Norbert Schmitt
University of Nottingham
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How on earth did you manage to get hold of a picture of ā¦ !!! I better not push my luck had I!!!
Justin
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Yup! Better be careful!
Well, arenāt we alike in mens eyes?
You said it Tatjana. I wouldnāt dare - but you did notice that I left the name blank!!!
Justin
So Iām wondering if you could work with text that already exists. If you could find a Welsh book or books that contained plenty of dialogue (assuming you are interested in the spoken language), could you work from those? And if you are technical, or have a technical friend, and get e-book versions of them, you might be able to at least semi-automate this process.
This Forum is so so great. And that is really helpful. Thank you,
Justin
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