Why did you decide to try SSiW?

[Toffidil]

Find someone who can talk Welsh, even if you’re used to talking English with them, and commit to a two hour conversation where neither of you will use any English.

Thanks Aran - what you suggest is obviously the right thing to do and something I’ve nearly done a few times and pulled back at the last minute. I have gone to a couple of pub meet-ups with other learners close to where I work and that isn’t a problem - there’s a solidarity in all learners together. Part of the problem where I live now, is that my wife told some of the neighbours and other parents that I spoke Welsh and I spent the next year telling them all I didn’t - (don’t ask why on earth I did that) - interestingly most of them still don’t believe me and are almost waiting for me to come out, so to speak.

I have another older neighbour across the road, who I think is also doing the same thing - he told me he started talking to a farmer in Welsh, just a bit oif a sut mae etc and the farmer replied to him in Welsh and now only speaks to him in Welsh. He is now avoiding getting caught in a conversation with him, because he doesn’t want him to cotton on now that he can’t speak Welsh (while in reality I suspect that he probably can).

I worked with someone who kept saying that he was about to say something to me in Welsh, but stopped himself and I used to do the same.

This is a bonkers, long standing thing - my mother and her family all speak or spoke Welsh, when they were alive and I always answered in English, apart from the odd incidental thing here and there - the odd Nos da, diolch, wela i di wedyn or da bo. It would be impossible for me to speak Welsh with my mother or that side of the family - it would be just way too odd. It’s almost like it’s become quite deeply engrained - something I’m not supposed to do!. I think that came from my father’s family who really didn’t like hearing Welsh. I think they gave my mother a hard time, when my older borther was given what to them was an unpronouncable welsh name and started saying things in welsh, before he spoke English. I get the impression they thought this might make hime a bit retarded and had strong views on it. I think I picked up on all these vibes at a young age - I have never had this issue with other languages, which I know a lot less well.

This is a problem of my making or my upbringing and it’s quite bizaare really - it should be funny, but I will make a resolution to do the two hour thing and soon.

[jasoncrow]

When I finally decided to learn Welsh (why I decided to learn Welsh being another topic entirely), I started looking for resources that were easily available and inexpensive (i.e. free). The first resources I came across were videos on YouTube of varying quality (and usefulness), and ‘teach yourself Welsh’ books at the library. With the possible exception of the “Now You’re Talking” series, most of the videos were minimally useful at best, and sitting down and working through a book was just not realistic. I then looked for resources through the Google Play store, and found SSIW. Again, probably the fact that it was free was why I initially decided to download and try it (yes, you can say that I’m thrifty). Once I started using it, that was when I knew it was going to work. First of all, I have very limited free time, most of it being during my morning and evening commute to and from work and then some time when I am walking the dog. Unlike other language learning programs, SSIW doesn’t require you to type or read anything (a major advantage when you’re driving!). I think the point has also been made that this is the closest thing to how we learn languages as children, and that is also a real help. The length of the lessons is good, as they can be fit into manageable chunks of time, and once you’ve completed either Course One or Level One, you realize how much you’ve learned and how valuable a resource this really is - which is to say that at this point I became a subscriber. Having the forum is also a big help, allowing people to connect, ask questions, and learn about other resources (e.g. S4c, Radio Cymru, Cymru FM, etc.). I hope this helps give you some insight Aran, a diolch yn fawr iawn am SSIW!

[jamesmahoney]

Wanted to learn Welsh, didn’t want to go to an evening class. Googled for “learn welsh online” (or similar) and SSiW was one of the first hits.

[pete]

Having read Howards attitude toward you and my own hatred of formal lessons of french i looked up accelerated language learning methods and i found a site which said ypu can become fluent in a language in 400 to 600 hours through intensive speaking that allows long term memory to build. Or something like that.

Now at this point we had booked to go to germany at the end of july and i thought wouldnt it be nice if we could speak welsh. I think that gave me ten weeks. Now i cant do 400 hours in ten weeks can i…i mean that six hours a day but i now always try to text in welsh. I always try to see if what i said in english i could say in welsh. I estimate that in the past 25 days i have averaged three hours a day in total. So possibly in the next five and a half weeks i could do another 100 hours or so.

Next weekend we are going to eat in a welsh speaking restaurant so im going to try to order everything on welsh.

[ramblingjohn]

Having been to north wales , hearing the language and wondering if i could ever learn another language, i found various media on the web which is perhaps useful.
But the really lucky part was when say something in welsh appeared in a google search.
i went in , started lesson one and the real surprise was it did what it said on the tin.
I listened to a lesson, i could say something in welsh,
there were no flashing adverts, pop ups or other annoyances (just content)
That was nearly five years ago and i’m still here crawling forwards.
well done ssi,

Cheers J.P.

[steve_2]

I was enormously frustrated with the pace that my Adult Learning Course was progressing, and equally frustrated that work commitments meant I kept having to drop out of lessons. Alongside this was a growing sense that I really “needed” to learn Welsh both personally and professionally.

I’d registered for SSiW some time before but hadn’t really picked it up. When I decided to give it a proper go it was a massive release - here was a way of learning that I could see was going to get me where I wanted to be (using three tenses in the first lesson was pretty convincing), and that was available when I needed it (lunch breaks mostly). The quality of the forum was also decisive for me - I posted problems, people solved them - magic. So it was a case of right offer at the right moment.

(Having said that, I’m glad that no one told me at the time how long it was going to take me to get there - but then that’s more a reflection of my language learning abilities rather than SSiW )

[BronwenLewis]

My Welsh tutor recommended SSIW. Twice - I was paying attention the second time. I was hooked from the first lesson, because it was exactly what I wanted - an oral course which steered me away from needing to understand the grammar before I opened my mouth… And the level of difficulty (Cwrs 3 was on the distant horizon) was just right - challenging but giving a real sense of achievement and progress.

[tatjana]

You all know why I, the poor lonely Slovenian woman, started to learn Cymraeg. It was written elswhere and it surely will be in time again, hopefully that time in Cymraeg with as little mistakes as possible but how it all began with SSi???

Now …

I don’t exactly know why, but i didn’t even try to find free resources, not on the net not elswhere. It was probably so because it’s not many things for free in our country and especially language courses are almost as pricy as going to holidays (for 1 person). Yes one 70 hours course can cost you 150, 200 € or even more so I NEVER IN MY LIFE hoped I’d get something for free or for as small price as SSi course Cymraeg is, anywhere.

So I bought first course on Amazon - “Welcome to Welsh”. Interestingly enough I had to buy book and CD separately. Would I know and be a customer of Ylolfa that time I’d surely get everything in one set for lower price. Sadly enough i started to learn and ended the proces in short time because of various problems with the material.

Now the search began, but still not on the net. I went to search our library database to find out if there’s any Welsh course available in my country at all (going to a class would be a miracle as many people didn’t even hear about Welsh what to learn it) and miracleusly found one - Teach yourself Welsh. It had all - lessons, exercises and most important keys to them so I could check myself if doing them correctly or not BUT (yes my beloved “but” again) it didn’t have the most important thing - audio material - available, not for the book I’ve bought after I’ve seen it in the library (it’s old edition of it). And so, as many times before with many things not just with learning languages, I went into hardest work of all, providing audio material by myself with IVONA TTS and two Cymraeg voices I’ve bought just for this occassion - to learn Cymraeg.

I’ve eventually learnt something but more then that it helped to converse with the people on Twitter and Facebook in Cymraeg with that little what I knew. People noticed that I desperately want to put something in Cymraeg together and patiently helped me many times with the corrections and even tweeting, messaging me back in Cymraeg. Google Translate was my friend when needed to understand things and so it all went further.

I stumbled upon SSi once checking what’s available for self-learning Cymraeg but I dismissed the idea because of seing those 25 lessons I thought it must cost a fortune. Yes, sorry but that’s how it was. I just was not prepared to believe it’s anything for free and I was afraid even to push “play” button on the lesson to try it at all. “I have to know how much does it cost and how I am able to pay this.” I thought but I’m not sure why I didn’t “want” to see that word “free” anywhere and I don’t know really why I wasn’t so “pushy” and ask since I am not afraid to ask anyone anything (almost) at all. Maybe I wanted so spare Aran of my annoying questions, who knows. - hehe

However you have to know I stumbled upon the very first pages where it didn’t everything looked so modern as it is now and it might also be that information about prices wasn’t too “visible” for such stubborn person as I am/was, just recovering from the hardest times of all in my life, living through the hard isues I had on and off Internet … It might be that disbelief about finding any good thing on the Internet was influencing on me quite strongly.

But twitter made miracles. I started to learn Cymraeg, tweeting shamlessly to people in what little Cymraeg I knew (even to BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio Wales) being corrected, getting messages back in Cymraeg, getting Cymraig followers who were thrilled and amazed with the fact that one lonely woman from little Slovenia even wants to give learning Cymraeg a try. It was so quite for a while and I’ve learnt quite some from that, gaining more firends until one day …

“Here’s a guide to help you out with writing things properly” has one of those friends/followers tweeted to me providing me the link to SSi Course 1 Guide which has @faithless78 (who I didn’t know that time yet) put so patiently together. and then that same friend tweeted “You could learn through this page. Try it it’s free.” (or it was more or less something like this) and as soon as I clicked on the link I rememberred I once already visited this site. I believe he mentioned it’s audio course so I finally gave the first lesson a listen. No, it was actually the introduction to the lessons and @Iestyn’s strict but yet kind voice, somehow inviting me to learn this way. Oh, and … “play” button didn’t bite me. - hehe I’m still alive!!!

When I tried the first lesson I was thrilled. “It’s finally the end of torturing myself with doing some rubish audio material which I even don’t know if it’s good enough at all!” I happily exclamed loudly. And that is how it all begun really - with something similar to "EURECA! I FOUND IT!"

Searching for more and more about SSi, how it all begun, reading that pice of writing about how @aran, @CatrinLliarJones, @anon86454181 and Iestyn started with the whole thing I staretd to work harder and more regularly and with kind of respect no matter how much I moaned when finally comming on here … (uh, this about comming on the forum is another “I’m afraid” story too .

Respect toward everything done here, and toward what was done for me and to me, drives me on. I came with respect determined to learn the language as good as possible proudly saying to everyone who wants to listen to me (or even who doesn’t want to) where I’m learning and how it all works …

It was strange that time comming here and starting to learn and when I finally started I at one point regreted I didn’t sign up for all languages because I love this method so much. I still write tweet, (I even “Clecked” for a while (ups I have to go there some time again)) but thanks to SSi - despite it’s audio course - with much more confidence and enthusiasm.

And I never dreamed of what more SSi is then just learning course and I never could imagine I would gain friens here, friends who are willing even to come and visit me in my little country like @margaretnock did 2 months ago … It was Cymraeg spoken on the streets of Ljubljana at least for a day and without SSi it wouldn’t be possible this to happen at all …

---

One little tip maybe: we’ve made the first introduction video to the course which you can read everything here about, but I don’t recall we ever mentioned it is (mainly) audio and not video (or written) course (for now). It might be useful to mention this somewhere somehow. And if we’d go into writing, we should offer something special and handy, might be not a “course” but rather little “guides” to it or some exercises which would acompanion the lessons rather then going separately into it.

Well just my thinking which might be totally wrong of course.

It’s a novel (sorry for that) but I hope it helps in a way … if not dismiss it with ease.

[Christopher_Cymru]

I have, along with many other Welsh people I’m sure, always felt very insecure about the fact that I could not speak Welsh. And the task almost seemed too big given previous experiences of both learning Welsh at secondary school and listening (helplessly) to first language speakers conversing.

Then, a couple of snide, bigoted remarks from some English people here in Llundain later… I massively embraced my national identity and was determined more than ever to learn Cymraeg.

The main attractions for learning via SSiW were:

1. It was free to start (versus paying £250 for evening classes)
2. I could take the lessons when it was convenient for me (having to commit to specific class times is difficult)
3. I didn’t know what ‘Level’ I was at as I didn’t really want to risk paying all that money to revisit things I may already know
4. The ‘unconventional’ starting point of the SSiW challenges made me feel like I was learning something new straight away
5. The fact the challenges concentrate solely on listening and speaking makes the [intimidating to begin with] ‘visuals’ of Cymraeg seem less of a barrier to learning
6. The SSiW method instills confidence straight away and makes you feel like you are learning fast (i.e. your effort is almost instantly translated into results)

Hope this helps,
C

[Ar_Graig]

I had a go at the BBC online activities back in 2010. They didn’t really go in and the enthusiasm fell away. Last summer, a friend who learned Welsh at school gave me an old book, Cymraeg i Ddysgwyr. I had a go, wrote down some lists but realised it was just like the German text books I had at school and evening classes. I can get by in German, but my schoolbook German does leave me rather stranded when it comes holding a natural conversation (I feel a bit like Eliza Dolittle at the races - not the end bit.). Most of the time, I have sadly felt it more polite just to retreat back into English, as my friends and others I meet are really eager for any opportunity to practise their English. That’s why I was keen to give the SSiW approach a go when I found it during a Google search about Welsh. (The free entry level was important too.) The great thing is that I have stuck at SSiW unlike the BBC resources. I think the encouraging, humorous e-mails I received early on, kept me keen to press on, and the lessons are pitched at ordinary adults. Since then there have been lots of positive reasons to keep going with SSiW, so many thanks to all of the team for your hard work.

[tatjana]

I think the encouraging, humorous e-mails I received early on, kept me keen to press on

Oh, I wish I would get some when I started. Obviously I’ve still started too early for that.

[netmouse]

I had been disconsolately looking through the Welsh for Adults brochure and seen that it took about 8 years to get through their courses! And with two small kids, the youngest starting in Meithrin, I had no prospect of doing it any time soon either. I’d had a go at some of the BBC resources, but at that stage of life I just didn’t have the brain space to sit down and work through them after everything else in the evenings.

I was moaning about this to a colleague, who told me about SSIW. I wasn’t too hopeful - thought it would be some dubiously trendy elearning resource… Absolutely delighted to be proved wrong!

The huge advantage for me was that I could do it while commuting to work or doing housework, so it didn’t take any significant amount of time at all. And that it gets straight to the important stuff. With a bit of experience of language learning I could tell right away that this was going be one hell of a short cut! I still haven’t got the brain space to sit down and ‘work’ at learning Welsh, but after less than 3 years I can now speak and read fairly competently, as if by magic!

[netmouse]

What a hugely interesting, complicated and sad story, @Toffidil!
I’d be happy to talk to you on Skype or the phone sometime if you like - just message me. (But not for 2 hours!)

[yorkshireend]

My son-in-law is Welsh but regards the Welsh language as a waste of time and does not encourage the children to speak Welsh. Even so, they are picking up a few words from the times when they visit their other grandparents and their cousins.

My grandfather was Welsh and my mother learned some Welsh when she was evacuated to Holywell during the War so my attitude is rather different. I see the ability to understand the language as important in understanding the culture and decided to learn Welsh as part of passing on my grandchildren’s heritage.

So, I looked for a suitable course of study and found several but never really got going as they were only really appropriate for use in classrooms in Wales. Two years ago I had another look, found SSiW and tried it. It worked so I downloaded Course 1 and set to. Now I’m on Lesson 24 of Course 2. I know it’s not great progress but I’m happy and I’ve done lots of diversions in amongst the lessons so I actually have a broader vocabulary than just what is in the lessons.

SSiW is still the basis of my activities in Welsh and I’m very grateful for it. The reason I chose it was just that those first half a dozen lessons worked for me.

[lynne_freudigmann]

I was looking for a site to teach me to speak welsh but most of them were just giving common phases and had no continuity. The fact that the first course/level was free was a big hook and I started with course 1 as I didn’t understand that level 1 replaces course 1. I did the first three lessons and to my delight found that I could actually make simple sentences that made sense. I was in Wales at the time and about to leave and I remember saying to my brother that dwi ddim’n moyn mynd, dwi’n moyn aros. I had a lot of trouble with ddim in the sentence and had to press the pause button to get it out. In those last few days I was glued to SSIW and practised on my brother even though he is not welsh speaking. I’ve been glued to SSIW ever since and I’m saying much bigger words now, like gymgymeriad etc. I’ve looked online a few times since and there is nothing like SSIW which gives you a free head start, ridiculously cheap subsequent lessons, great support via the forum and extension through Bootcamp. The secret of ssiw’s success is that following the lessons actually turns the learner into a real welsh speaker. I will be at Bootcamp in July and am expecting to be able to converse solely In welsh for a whole week. That’s amazing considering I am in Australia and don’t know any other welsh speakers. I am absolutely certain that without SSIW I would have had no hope of learning welsh being so far away.

[sue1]

The key is – ““It’s the nearest thing to learning to speak as a child that I can imagine.””
Someone said that the problem is you speak English whereas kids start from scratch. So SSiW is more like starting a child.

[sue1]

I guess that some language courses it is as someone said earlier about topics. So if I am in a coffee shop I can order. SSiW offers transferable language which works in every situation and what I need as an adult to have a chance of conversing.
Sure I have hit roadblocks, developed my methods of getting round them but most of all the support of everyone and poor Aran has the patience of a saint-
Frankly without SSiW I would have given up years ago…
This week I had a 2 hour conversation yn Cymraeg - woo hoo – going to the Eisteddfod and will not siarad Saesneg pob dydd or posib pob wythnos

[hectorgrey]

I first came across this when a friend of mine was moving to Newport, and I was looking for a free resource for learning Welsh (because money was an issue). I found this website and pointed him at it. He didn’t end up learning the language (turns out that the part of Newport he lives in isn’t that heavily Welsh speaking, and the language barely gets used at all in the Intellectual Property Office where he works), but I remembered this site when I later met my Welsh speaking (ex) girlfriend. After a relatively short while, the results spoke for themselves.

[tatjana]

There was a debate somewhere online between you and someone who was rubbishing your work. He was going on about the fact that you had no formal qualifications or something like that - I found his criticism of you to be very harsh and thought that if the technique had worked for others it could work for me.

Found it

And after @Aran’s reply there was no Howard’s answer anymore … and thankfully it was 4 years ago. If Howard would know how happy I am with SSiW!!!

[owainlurch]

I’d been interested in learning Welsh from an early age- since I can’t remember times! On and off, I’d been trying through teach yourself Welsh books, watching series on television and trying bits of Welsh with people I knew. It didn’t come to anything impressive!

Then. I fell in love with someone who wanted to learn Welsh too and it gave us both a boost and encouragement. We started with Welsh evening classes locally, and were lucky enough to have a series of good teachers who were enthusiastic and effective in teaching Welsh as it is spoken in the area (so different from the Welsh lessons in school we remembered from our youth!). Returning to the books with renewed enthusiasm, I found them far more effective (especially various tomes by Gareth King, amongst others!). Amongst other resources suggested in the course, we found SSiW. SSiW helped marvellously to bring that knowledge into use when talking to Welsh speaking friends, and I would say that SSiW was amongst the most important and effective part of the process of turning me into someone who could enjoy a night out in Welsh. It is a marvellous “brick in the wall” for anyone learning Welsh in any way through any medium!

I will always be thankful for the way that SSiW has helped me in this, and always continue to recommend it as a marvellous resource.