What ONE thing would you like my help with for you to become a better Welsh speaker?

I’d like to help you (however long it takes me!).

I’m trying to collect all the different questions I run into. So I thought it might be helpful for some of you, as well as for me, if I did it in part by revisiting some of them… :wink:

So… if you could ask me to help you with ONE thing about learning Welsh, what would it be?

What is the single biggest challenge you’re facing right now with learning Welsh?

Acquiring enough vocabulary to read materials aimed at native speakers without constantly looking stuff up; maintaining momentum now I’ve done most of the (non-growth-club) SSiW materials. I guess that’s two…

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I need to be able to understand speech faster! I have learner lag - I’m just a bit behind where I want to be - not helped by having to tell myself not to panic as soon as someone opens their mouth! There’s a variety of stages on different days…
Very good day - Understand most of what is being said, sometimes miss a tense or a pronoun or two, definitely fall over on the idioms.
Good day - Get the gist of what’s being said, but not enough to confidently join in.
Pub day - Can pick out many of the individual words, but struggle with everything else.
Duvet day - Whaaaaat?
I’m hopeful that at least one of the latter two will become rare (although I’m certainly not writing off pubs or duvets), and exposure is key, I know, but it is speed of understanding that I want to be able to work on.
Hope you’ve got a pot of fairy dust @aran!

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I can get the understanding mostly but I’ve got learner lag articulation in replying. Are there any Welsh equivalents to “she sells sea shells on the sea shore”?
Also a magic fairy dusting to give me the self discipline to practice every single day?

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Roliodd Lowri lawr yr allt! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Diolch

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Please help me turn Cardiff into a Welsh speaking area :wink:

This is a great resource! There is so much I’d love to talk to you about, but I don’t know where to start…

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I’m in agreement about the vocabulary. Much more vocabulary, please. It is easier to speak where the situation restricts the vocabulary. So if the vocab lessons were organised by topic or situation, such as a train journey or a visit to a cinema, we would know where to go to try to make use of them.

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I probably need to give this a bit of thought to make sure I’m not just looking for a lazy way forward, but on the face of it; perhaps more living vocabulary or advanced patterns?

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Ww, thanks for all these, folks - plenty of work to get through here, and I’m off in the general direction of Oxford tomorrow - back on Tuesday night - so expect the beginnings of answers in here on Wednesday… :slight_smile:

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My advice for vocabulary - once you’re pronunciation is set, start reading.

Reading is how we build our vocabulary in English. Mainly because prose and non-fiction uses more of the available vocabulary in a language than speech.

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Pretty much what cat-1 said!!

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I think that more lessons or perhaps a level 4 would be great. I love that feeling of progress after doing new lessons and it becomes quite addictive and I always feel a difference after doing them . The thing that I would love more help with is understanding . I find some people easy to understand and others completely impossible but I’m not too sure how it would be possible to rectify that.

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Yes, thank you for that. A Welsh speaker has been providing me with paperback books at an appropriate level. I have a few that I bought but I haven’t got to them yet!
But I would still like some more vocab units and as I can only choose one thing the vocab units would be my choice.

Raymond

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Apologies if my post came across the wrong way :slight_smile:

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hi, I agree with John Young… e.g. we did gwitsiad, twtsiad, sciwsio and gwatsiad in my course today, so some practice putting these into practice would help. Also, I’ve just put cwrs 3 lessons 11-14 and look forward to working on these, but the more the better… having said that I go over lots of previous lessons and practice lessons and still learn loads, especially old course 3. I live in an area of N.E. Wales where there is almost no welsh, so SSIW is so helpful.

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Not at all; I agree with you. Reading has been of considerable help but I can obtain material for myself. Indeed I have recently graduated from Wcw to Lingo!
Raymond

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Oh brilliant news :smile:

Apparently Lingo have an app with recordings of the articles too (if you weren’t already aware :slight_smile:)

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Oh that’s good, because I was going to add to Anthony’s suggestion by asking if you could please make Rhydychen a Welsh-speaking area too!

But as to your visit, will that include Oxford itself, and will you have any free time there?

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I think this speaks to me, as well. More vocabulary is always useful, but we can do a lot there to help ourselves, e.g. @AnthonyCusack 's suggestion. What we need from Aran, I would think, is something that probably he uniquely can provide, i.e. the SSiW unique method, only more so.

We’ve talked about other things like transcripts of conversations and audiobooks (or at least, I have) elsewhere, so I won’t repeat that here. So what could a “Level 4” provide over and above Levels 1-3? Not sure, but maybe:

  • Advanced discussion techniques, arguing for and against a subject (like debating, but it doesn’t have to be formal debating).

  • Taking a subject and speaking about it for a given time (1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever): i.e. giving a presentation (again, it doesn’t have to be formal). Hints and tips thereto.

  • This is a bit like vocabulary, but more nuanced: Finding the exact Welsh word to fit a given situation, rather than the first word that comes into your head. You remember how we were told at school not to keep saying “nice” all the time. We had to find synonyms or near synonyms, and generally be a bit more imaginative. Well, the same sort of thing in Welsh. Welsh seems to be particularly rich in synonyms, and while many may seem to mean the same thing, I’m sure to a first-language speaker, they each have subtle differences. (Well, medru versus gallu is one we’ve sort of come across, for example).

Just some thoughts.

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