I’ve just started the 6-month course but I was born and brought up in South Wales so even though I can’t understand Welsh yet I’ve been hearing and reading it all my life. I’ve opted for the South option but having gone through the very first challenge of the course, so much of what they’re teaching sounds wrong to me!! My step mum is first language Welsh, and my brother and sister are fluent so I swear I’m not just making this up. Firstly, the way they pronounce ‘sut’ sounds so wrong to me. Also the way they’re pronouncing ‘ma eisiau i fi’ doesn’t sound right, but also they’re saying it means ‘I need to’, whereas everyone else I ask says it means ‘I want to’. Apparently ‘dal’ means ‘still’ but my understanding is that ‘still’ is ‘o hyd’ in Welsh.
I’m just very concerned that I’ve signed up for a course that isn’t teaching things correctly - or do I need to switch to the North option?? (Everyone I’ve spoken to about these translations is South-based though…)
Hi Johanna,
From a strictly practical point of view, as a SSiW subscriber you can switch between South and North any time. If you don’t know how to do it, just tell us if you’re using a computer/laptop+browser, or IPhone/IPad app or Android app and someone sill certainly help you do the trick.
More in general, my impression as a learner from a different country is that Wales has quite a few similarities with dialects over here in my region in Italy for example: when languages and dialects developed, people didn’t go so much around, so there are about a million slightly different nuances in accent and words used to mean this or that.
When I started, my only previous knowledge was from a few records mixing South-West accent and words with a few more “neutral” or even literary words or pronunciation (sut was one of them, and also eisiau).
I had to pick one, and overall, Southern seemed easier and more anjoyable to me.
I guess the best way is probably try both version and see which one suits you best, being aware that’s probably quite hard to find the exact combination of vocabulary+sound you’re familiar with. Makes sense?
Pob lwc, in any case!
Hello Johanna, welcome to SSiW!
You say that the people you spoke to are all based in the South, but language variations aren’t always as clear-cut as that. Iestyn, who lends his voice to the Southern version is a native Welsh speaker from the South, so you can rest assured that you’d be learning Welsh that is actually spoken naturally.
There are of course always different ways to say the same things, and if you think that sut sounds wrong, then the people around you did learn a more northern form of speech, despite being based in the South. All the other observations you make fall into the same pattern, so I’d suggest you give the northern version a test drive, see if you feel more “at home” there 
Both dal and o hyd mean still, yes, that is just the magic of languages that you can’t always map one English word to one Welsh word and vice versa.
So instead of Dw i dal yn dysgu Cymraeg (I’m still learning Welsh) you can say Dw i’n dysgu Cymraeg o hyd.
Hi Johanna,
As Gisella said, dialects and nuances abound in Welsh and to be honest, there’s no avoiding them!
Perhaps if I go through and clarify a couple of things you’ve mentioned, it may help put your mind at ease.
Some people will pronounce “sut” as ‘sit’, others as ‘shwt’ - and others as somewhere between the two! They are all the same thing and all correct - just go with what feels natural for you.
“Eisiau” is one of the words with many pronounciations (and spellings!) … ay-shy, ee-sha, ish-oh, ish-ah… again, use the one you are sued to. Also, there is a slight difference in meaning between areas. A generalisation is that in the South, eisiau = ‘to need’ whereas in the North it means ‘to want’, but that’s not to say that you won’t hear it used as ‘to want’ in the South. It’s a subtle change in meaning and construction that you’ll get used to in time.
“Dal i” does mean ‘still’, as does “o hyd”, e.g. he is still here = mae e yma o hyd / mae e yn dal (i fod) yma (the “i fod” is often left out in speech). There is often more than one word for something!
Lastly,
Not the case at all! What you’ve done is signed up for a course that teaches spoken Welsh in a very different way to other courses - it purposely tries to introduce you to lots of different ways of saying the same thing (because that’s what you hear when people speak Welsh) rather than one set of words. This means you can recognise things when you hear them even if you yourself opt for a different word or construction, and it gets you speaking and hearing much more naturally.
You are right at the start, so you will come across lots of differences as you progress, but the big thing with this method is not to worry about them - take them as they come, embrace any mistakes you make, and let your brain be open to the magic! (and use this forum for help, support and encouragement whenever you need to of course!)
Edit: Ha - I see Hendrik beat me to answering with a much more succinct answer!
Thanks for your responses guys, this makes much more sense now and I can see this is a really valuable course. I’ll have a try of the North option because if it means a bit less self editing as I go along it might be less confusing.
Diolch!! 
On the subject of ‘eisiau’, the nearest equivalent in English I can think of that would illustrate the issue is when someone says ‘you want to watch out for that low beam or you might hit your head’. You could readily substitute ‘need’ for ‘want’ in that sentence. And in many other similar sentences. Why should it be any different in Welsh? 
I hope I’m not too late with this, but as a fellow S Wales learner, I would personally say try to stick with the Southern course. Just my humble opinion. There are probably only a few words that your friends and family use differently, and SSiW will be more than happy for you to use the alternative words in your responses. To be honest, I have found just as many differences in the N Walian dialects.
I live in Swansea and have found that SSiW Southern tends to tread a path somewhere between the ways that my various friends talk. Some of my friends are more formal and some are more dialecty. I have found that those who have taught or learnt in school tend to have both “registers” at their disposal. One friend uses “Sut” when teaching and “Shwd” when at home. It’s the same thing with “Edrych” and “Disgwl”.
Actually, two of my older friends are really quite formal in English and yet more dialecty than SSiW in their Welsh.
So, I’d say just enjoy your learning and feel free to play around with the variations. Everyone will understand you