I learnt Welsh through Cymraeg i Oedolion because at that time SSiW didn’t exist and it was the only course on offer. However, when I would chat to first-language friends they would often say (some not as gently as others) that it sounded too posh and that no-one actually spoke like that - and sometimes some wouldn’t understand some things at all because I was saying ‘by the book’ words that they always shortened and so took time to recognise the ‘proper’ form.
Although I haven’t done the SSiW course, I speak colloquially now because I’ve picked it up from living in a very Welsh-speaking area for 20 years.
The course I learnt from did get me through a degree in Welsh, including spoken tests, but it didn’t get me sounding like a natural speaker. I believe that is the main reasoning behind SSiW’s choice - to get people sounding like natural speakers first before the hunger for grammar and more formal Welsh sets in and therefore avoiding comments such as the ones I experienced potentially leading to discouragement.
I guess that maybe DysguCymraeg can be seen as the next step after SSiW? Maybe it helps to be a Welsh speaker before one starts learning grammar in earnest because one has more context for the rules?
If I may digress to provide an example. German is the last language I learned to fluency (so far) and I actually did it your way: I learned the grammar, I learned to read and to write. Already after 3-4 months after moving to Austria as adult I was more literate than some Austrians (some adult friends and I actually took a dictation, for fun). But it took me about 18 months (or even two years…) to start speaking, too. Now, many years later, I still speak high-register German I learned from books, and the locals I chat with 1) feel immediately that I’m “not really from this valley” and 2) some of them struggle to speak in the same register then get frustrated - because nobody speaks here like that.
But I am a functional speaker, I sat my exams and got my degree here. So my version of German is fine, even if it’s awkward for some locals. A tiny catch for me was that I understood some of the rules fully only after I started speaking the language.
I also observe the mirrored situation. Local kids learn the local dialect first (it differs in vocab and grammar). They are perfectly functional speakers before they go to school. Then in school they learn the formal register in addition to the local dialect.
The latter is maybe more of the SSiW approach - people can speak soon and can continue to learn more formally if they want. The former, my more traditional approach, is the way you went with Welsh. I think that both are fine, just provide different results at different stages…
For some reason, I find it kinds funny thinking of you speaking posh. Doesn’t quite seem your style! just like it’s not mine, but I might have spoken a bit queenish myself first time I went to England!)
This reminds me that the experience of learning a language at school can be very different - depending on the course/teacher/class style.
By the way I had the chance to participate to one Welsh language evening class in Cardigan (because I had been in touch with the teacher via internet). I actually enjoyed it!
It was way more lively, “practical” and colloquial-oriented than language lessons at school, even though of course it also included explanations of things like grammar, correct spelling etc.
Still, not having academic goals about Welsh, in general, I’m more proud of having first-language speaker (who can’t remember how to spell words himself) tell me that I must have Welsh ancestors to speak like this, and in a fairly short time!
And there, I think, is your answer: after six months of SSiW (preceded by 1 of Duolingo) I was chatting in Welsh to someone who asked when I had started learning - when I said “in March” I got the surprised reply “March this year!?” However, three years into the process, I still feel that I am catching up with grammar a bit.
So it’s (partly) a question of priorities: I’m enough of a grammar buff/linguistics nerd that it probably strikes people as one of my defining characteristics, but I have never, ever built conversational fluency in a language as quickly as in Welsh with SSiW - but I do still have gaps (some, perhaps, quite basic) in formal grammar.
Thanks Richard. I think you’ve pinpointed my present and future relationship with SSiW. If I lived in Wales, where I could constantly ask questions, SSiW would maybe suit me, but I’m not sure. I am one who can only learn with the formal method, needing the skeleton of grammar to support me. As DysguCymraeg is the language of exams, books, papers, Radio Cymru and most of S4C and also of most of the people I speak Welsh with, I’ll carry on without SSiW. But when I feel that I have enough fluency, I can come back to SSiW for a colloquial variation. My one month of going through Level 1 and into Level 2 was quite interesting. I still wish SSiW was based on ‘formal’ WJEC Welsh, but I do understand the rationale.
I, too, find I always need a skeleton of grammar but, like @RichardBuck, my fluency has come in with leaps and bounds since I started using SSiW in my second year of trying to learn Welsh. Hand in hand with SSiW I’ve used as my ‘bible’ @garethrking’s Modern Welsh: A Comprehensive Grammar which focuses almost entirely on spoken Welsh and which, for me, perfectly complements SSiW - if you haven’t seen it already, do try and get hold of a copy
Thanks John. I also use Gareth King, but it isn’t a link to SSiW. I’m happily working my way through his “Colloquial Welsh” Course, as it supports what I’m learning through DysguCymraeg. He incorporates both North and South, and I can easily select the southern version from his work. But SSiW (De) can be like a different language again sometimes. SSiW is good for ‘Pobl y Cwm’ - where in the South is Cwmderi supposed to be? Who speaks like that all the time? I’ll be controversial and ask if this is slang?
Cwmderi is set in Ceredigion. There are many, many people who speak like that all the time because that’s what their first language sounds like, and whilst the script does contain some slang (it wouldn’t be true to life if it didn’t), it is by no means all slang - just natural spoken Welsh.
Excellent - Aberystwyth is lovely in the summer (I went to Uni there). Do check out the town after classes for true ‘immersion’, there are enough cafes, pubs, and shops where people will be only too pleased to chat in Welsh, but also bear in mind you may come across a few Gog (North-Walian) accents as well as Hwntw (South-Walian) ones!
Thanks again Siaron, that was my experience of Aberystwyth last summer, an interesting melting pot and lots of friendly locals. Which is why I’m going again this year. Thank you to everyone that has joined in this conversation. I don’t think there’s much more to add, except that I will look out for Gareth King’s new book. Everything he does is brilliant.
Because that’s the natural spoken Welsh of Iestyn and Cat. In other words, how they actually have conversations and raise their children. They haven’t chosen a fabricated dialect invented for Pobl y Cwm, it’s the living language. It’s also how my teaching friends from West Wales speak and teach.
Say Something in Welsh? I think the clue is in the name!
I know that people can have different learning preferences, but SSIW has certainly worked for me.
I understand your frustration Megan. But, I ask you, have you ever had a conversation in English with someone speaking formal, grammatically correct English? I have with a Hindu, but never with a native English speaker …
