I’m a few months late but hopefully I can still help.
I wasn’t planning on actually learning Welsh when I first found out about SSiW in some youtube video’s comment section. I had just heard someone speak Welsh in some video for the first time and wanted to see how difficult it was to learn (the language sounds really good in my opinion), so I checked out the introduction and really liked it.
I tried the first lesson and it felt easy. Very different than learning a language at school (I’m unsuccessfully trying to learn Swedish). And (in the northern version, haven’t tried southern) I find the jokes Aran makes now and then really funny. The emails made me really excited about this as well and I was really sad when they stopped coming
Also I feel like I’ve learned more Welsh in these two months than I have Swedish in 5 years of learning it at school.
I’ve been trying to get everyone I know to try it, buy nobody seems interested yet… I’ll find someone to talk to eventually
I signed up to a ‘learn Welsh class’ in my area and the tutor mentioned this app. I learned to read and write some Welsh in secondary school but never learned to actually speak it. Your app is absolutely bonkers and brilliant! I’ll be 60 next year and have longed for years to be able to speak the first language of my ancestors. Thanks to your app, I feel I might actually succeed. Diolch.
Shmae @jennylloyd! Croeso! You will succeed if you want to! Where are you? There are lots of groups in Wales and some elsewhere set up by SSiWers to practice. Everyone on the Forum is very friendly and helpful, even when they seem scratchy and cross (she says ruefully - being infamous as a crotchety old ddraig! - dragon, female and nudging 75!)
If you are not yet on the SSiW Map, get @Sionned to pop you on!
Brecon isn’t the best place to find Welsh speakers, but I bet there are some!
You want the ‘Please put me on the map’ thread. Glad you like my truthful description of me! I am exiled in Yr Alban and lurk here to heal hiraeth and occasionally learn a bit more Welsh! To ask someone something quote their username with @ sign as I have sionned’s above! @tatjana is our helpful techno wizz! (She lives in Slovenia!) I bet you didn’t expect that sort of spread when you started on here! Oh. @Sionned is across the Atlantic!
I’m Tatjana - “techy wizz” whom @henddraig just can’t stop to sing hymns. (Thank you, thank you … ). Well, I’m not wizzard or something like this at all despite my name elswhere on the net is KnightGhost but I like to help people where and when I can and I’m quite familiar with computers, this forum software and quite some other (mostly graphic and animating) software aswell.
My Cymraeg? It’s not ode to be sung about my Cymraeg but I speak it and am not afraid to speak it in any circumstances all thanks to this magnificent site, forum, app, PEOPLE!
So welcome once again and if you tend to have some problems of any learning or techy kind just pop on here and put a question in and one would help you with that for sure.
According to my knowledge your feeling is 100 % correct.
Hi, just a quick response for now, which I hope will be helpful. I am fairly sure that I was led to SSiW via a large roadside poster advert somewhere near Nelson or Blackwood (South Wales). I am finding that the teaching approach really helps me, especially the mobile app. I do probably around 4 hrs a day of traffic jam driving in the South Wales and Bristol areas, so that is when most of my learning takes place. In many ways this course reminds me of my early learning of French and German in a pilot 70s comprehensive school, which was fitted out with a state of the art language lab.
I was looking to learn some Welsh as it has completely died out in our family since my Nan died. When I listened to the first lesson I realised that it was like the Michel Thomas method which I had found successful with French so I kept going.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Jenny, and a very warm welcome to the forum!
Keep us posted on how it goes for you…
Oh, how interesting! Not something I know anything about, but it would be fascinating to hear if anyone else has seen something like that…
That’s a common one!.. Thanks very much for the feedback - and good luck with bringing the language back into your family - a very powerful reason to learn (it was the same for me)…
I seem to recall that the poster was government based. I’m not sure how that led me to SSi. Possibly via an indirect route, such as an internet search on Gwenhwyseg, which in turn led me to this:
“Gwenhwyseg - Meetups/Events - SSi Forum”
There are lots of ‘free’ things on the internet but only some of them have any value!
In my case I think it was more that I could try it out before I had to commit to any payment. Of course, once I started I was hooked, because it works like nothing else!
All too common! It was banned from mine! Which of course is why I became an ardent Nationalist and leanred Welsh, back in the mists of time!! (I have never taken well to being told not to do something!)
Fair play! Even the various English dialects were dissuaded if not banned in some families. As a result, I have great difficulty in understanding some of my In-laws who were brought-up only a few miles away from me. Anyway, that’s all changed now and it turns out that most of these dialectical words (Geordie in my case), are in fact genuine Old/Middle English words, which have unfortunately disappeared in 21st century English.
Update:
The poster was related to a Welsh Language learning initiative. I think it had a website address on it, which I followed when I got home. Knowing me, I most likely then disappeared into deepest cyberspace for a few hours and resurfaced on the SSi website.
As it had a slightly BBC style look to it, I just clicked on Challenges and off I went.
@Toffidil
“It reminds me of the language labs as well”.
Unfortunately, some of my fellow schoolmates weren’t quite so state-of-the art as was the school. The language lab was an early casualty of this, so we had to revert to traditional learning, with the occasional slide show. On the plus side, they did ship in a nice Bavarian student for us to talk to on a one-to-one basis. Anyway, I digress
(Thank you, thank you … 
). Well, I’m not wizzard or something like this at all despite my name elswhere on the net is KnightGhost 