Or, of course, the system was broken (I know which I believe!)… 
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I had some free time whilst on erasmus in Spain over the summer. With my girlfriend being a first language speaker, I thought it would be a nice surprise to be able to speak some Welsh for when I returned.
The search for resources online was limited, the first that really seemed to have some good material was SSiW so I looked into it. I liked the sound of it and I gave it a go and instantly loved this way of learning a language by being able to form your own sentences to speak, not like the ‘backwards method’ of teaching reading and writing first in school. It seemed a novel approach, allowed the chance to try it properly before committing any money and most of all was supportive.
The other reason that SSiW appealed to me was that it had the options for both northern and southern dialect Welsh. I knew that there are differences from my girlfriend and welsh speaking friends and the other limited resources out there seemed to be more northern based, which for me was less useful for the reasons I started learning.
These were the reasons I started, but there are numerous reasons I continued which only became apparent over time (speaking like a speaker not like a phrase book, shortening of words i.e. yfory etc) and of course the huge success that this course seems to give to people if they are committed to doing a little as often as possible.
It has been one of the best things I have done in my University years without doubt.
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Really interesting, Greg - thank you very much indeed for your feedback 
I can’t actually remember when I started using SSIW I think it was somewhere around 2011 because I came to the third birthday party in 2012.
I can tell you though why I wanted to learn and why I find SSIW good. We moved to Wales in 2008 and a combination of being in Wales, Welsh heritage and i had decided I wanted our future kids to learn Welsh but I didn’t want them thinking they could get one over on me. So I thought an activity my hubby and me could do together was learn Welsh in the traditional lessons sense. Life got in the way and this didn’t happen so I went looking for a way to learn on my own and found SSIW.
I had done school German and had passed my exam but I couldn’t really have a conversation with anyone so when I found SSIW I liked that it started with something other than hello/ how are you/where are you from etc and actually looked at me being able to say conversational things. Not only that it was free for the first 25lessons. I started with course one and was learning as I drove to work but lesson 6.1/6.2 started building the brick wall and for some reason I would do a few stop go backwards try again and repeat and as a result only got to about lesson 9…
At a similar time I started going to the local meet up and I didn’t have the confidence to say much of anything I think I was a bit rabbit in the headlights if anyone spoke to me.
Then you brought out the new level one challenges and something with me clicked and I made progress and actually started feeling a bit more able to speak. I’m now on challenge 23/24.
My daughter was born in 2012 and when she went to Cylch in 2014 I started to do a Welsh for parents course and then switched to mynediad2. I do feel that SSIW has had a positive effect in my speaking in class and now attend a few different meet ups in the course of a month and can contribute. It also introduced me to all of you on the forum and the few I know in real life, always friendly always helpful no matter how dim or quirky I was being.
I just need to work on my accent being slightly less Midlands and increase my vocabulary. Especially as my daughter goes to school September and I think she is going to speed ahead of me.
As it happens hubby has still not learnt any Welsh, he says he wouldn’t have opportunity to use it although I’m not sure what that says about me and our daughter lol.
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Thank you so much for that, Theresa - helpful and inspiring - and huge congratulations to you! 
And thank you to all of you for the hard work you put in!
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I ended up in this thread to refresh my mind on finding it linked in to Samantha’s new one and found all these links I missed before! I hadn’t realised how much of the thread had gone before me!
Soon, I was left asking myself, “Who the hell is Howard Gunn?”.
I am an academic by background. If someone wants to treat me medically, I’d want them to be qualified, but you are not offering botox or psychiatric services. You could only do harm if you told people incorrect information and having @garethrking lurking on the forum shows you do not do that!!
- Who is Mr. Gunn?
- Have you debunked him?
- Do you want to set me on him?? Grrr…
Very much not! Let sleeping dogs lie and all that… 
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OK, I’ll be a good draig fach, but who is the man??? Did he pay an expert to teach his kids their mother tongue?? No, he realised that’s what a mother and sometimes a father, does!!! - With no qualifications except caring!
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I too am still struggling with being able to understand welsh when i hear it. I listen to radio cymru often and have just started course 3, though to heavy work commitments i have not spoken on skype recently. I think the listening part of learning must be the hardest part!
I was born in Cardiff and I can trace my entire family back over several generations to Cardiff too but my parents divorced and I was taken away to England at the age of six. I’ve always been proud of my Welsh heritage and always wanted to learn to speak Welsh but was never able to find any suitable resource.
Having passed the half century I decided I would search again, ostensibly to just learn a few phrases rather than learn to speak fluently. I found a few little bits here and there on YouTube and then came across DuoLingo but at that time they didn’t have a Welsh offering. I started to give Spanish a go but didn’t really think I was getting anywhere with it.
Then I came across a reference to Say Something In Welsh whilst looking for an ‘app’ I could use on my phone. I downloaded it back in November last year and began on Course1 and I was absolutely delighted with how quickly I could not only say the odd phrase but could construct whole sentences in a very short space of time.
I’ve since completed Course 1, then Level 1 and Level 2 (Southern) and I’m now working through the Course 1 vocab units.
I thoroughly enjoy the whole process and now listen to Radio Cymru each lunchtime. I don’t understand much of what’s said still but I find I can hear words I recognise more and more. I also use YouTube to watch “Now You’re Talking”, ‘Mynediad wlpan’ and the occasional episode of Pobl Y Cwm. I’ve also picked up with DuoLingo again now that they do Welsh and I now find it much easier and helps to extend my vocabulary.
At the moment I haven’t used my Welsh to speak to a real person but I think my dog is beginning to understand a few bits and pieces!
I would highly recommend the “Say Something In” approach to anyone because I’ve never come across a system that produces such positive results so quickly before. Well done to the whole team and, of course, to everyone on this forum.
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It definitely is one of the toughest parts to crack - which is why I strongly recommend people move over to the new Levels, so that they can access the accelerated listening exercises - which make a massive difference to your ability to understand at speed…
Delighted to hear it’s going so well for you, Adrian, and thank you so much for your extremely kind words
Cheers Aran, yep i am starting to plough through the lessons in the third course i am off work for the next week starting didd llun so hoping to talk to some people on skype to practice.
Still loving the course though, again great work!
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I suppose there are really two parts to this question - why learn Welsh and why SSiW?
For the first, I fell in love with Wales after reading Susan Cooper’s “Dark is Rising” sequence when I was 9 or 10. Then I fell in love with Wales all over again when studying Medieval Brittish history - the Welsh princes called to me much more strongly than the Plantagenets! I seriously considered doing graduate work in Wales but didn’t have the money to make that happen. So, I have decades of frustrated desire to visit Wales (well, the frustrated desire is to move to Wales, but visiting is the realistic option at this point).
I decided to give myself a trip to Wales for my 50th birthday - and at that point, I figured I should probably learn some Welsh. I am a planner, so the process started maybe 5 years ago or so. I tried several different language programs - from Rosetta Stone to “word of the day” type online resources. I dabbled for a number of years, then got serious about learning last winter when I started making serious plans for my trip. I stumbled on SSiW by accident - I don’t remember where I came across the link - but once I tried it, I found it was the “missing piece” in my language-learning puzzle.
I like SSiW for a number of reasons. One is that I can download it onto my iPod and listen as I walk my dogs. And with three dogs who enjoy alone time with me, I spend a LOT of time walking my dogs! I like that I can go at my own pace. One thing that has surprised me as an “older” language learner is that it is much more difficult for me to pick up languages than I expected. When I was in school, I picked up languages easily - and did well with a traditional school approach to learning. That is no longer the case for me, and I really needed something that didn’t just deliver vocabulary in isolation or focus on written language (especially with the differences between how Welsh and English pronounce many letters!). I like the constant revision that is part of SSiW, and the way grammar is gently inserted into the lessons, so that I’m learning verbs by using them in real phrases, not by memorizing lists of conjugations or verb endings. I don’t really have to think about grammar the way I did when learning other languages, I am just learning to use words properly without having to worry about the rules. And I like that I get to choose between North and South versions. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending a lot of time learning a language only to end up trying to use it in a region that has a different dialect - and the mistakes that happen when the vocabulary you learned doesn’t match the vocabulary people around you are using! So, knowing that I wanted to visit northwest Wales, I was really happy to find that I could focus on the North dialect.
My only complaint is that I didn’t find SSiW soon enough - when I took my trip to Wales at the beginning of the summer, I wasn’t confident enough in my Welsh to actually use it, and totally forgot most of what I thought I’d learned. Though this may be a blessing in disguise, since it means I’m determined to return so that I will have the opportunity to use my Welsh!
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Cheers, Leighton - and good luck with the intensive week!
Thank you for such an interesting response - and that sounds like a great attitude - be sure to call by for a panad the next time you’re over!
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Well, why Welsh should be the first question. I am not particularly connected to Wales in a sense. I am American, from a long line of other Americans. Though i guess my grandfather being a Jones might give me some ancestral tie to that patch of soil, but I am mostly Scottish in ancestry. But none of that is why I picked Welsh to study.
First, I got some familiarity with Welsh in my studies. I am a History major and a focus heavily on the British Isles before 1066 AD. One area I have really studied is the borderland states that emerged in that period, places like the Kingdom of Strathclyde and Rheged that form y Hen Ogledd. It is so fascinating I try to write about it any any class. In general I have an interest in Celtic languages, and well, Welsh just seems like a nice fit to give a try.
But more than that, Welsh has a lot of speakers, it seems relatively easy. I know everyone and their mother says its the hardest thing, like programming a space station with a rock and some gum level hard, but while the sounds are a bit odd, its not that much harder than anything else. And even if my pronunciations suck, who cares? I live in California, not like anyone is going to judge me for speaking Welsh badly. Hell I’ve mangled English a ton and nobody gets pissy about that.
Why this course? Well its one of the few mostly free ones available. Plus everyone says its the right one to try.
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Its the simplicity of SSIW that made it so successful for me
Ten years ago I tried day school (weekends ) but sitting in class is not for me.
Then I joined a welsh speaking group in Monmouth which was great help and a social event.
However eventually the conversation always comes back to how well people are doing in their welsh examinations.- but its odd because I speak as much welsh as they do.! without the certificates.
.
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You might find the odd welsh person like myself on here asking you questions about yr hen gogledd etc
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It is clear you are outside Wales. Are you on the SSiW Map? Have you found S4C TV in Welsh? I’ll send you an invite to sign a petition for decent funding for the channel!
Oh and Croeso and Lwc dda i ti!
I am fascinated by the same period, and folk … well I was going to say ‘up here in Scotland’… but I must be fair! (Some are now wondering why I am changing the habits of a lifetime by being fair!)…
Anyway, I actually live in mid-Argyl practically on top of the hill fort with ‘footprint’ supposedly where the ancient kings of the Dalriada were crowned! So it is not surprising that the people here, solidly descended, no doubt from the Irish invaders, are not interested in what, from here, is not gogledd, old or otherwise!!
So, no one here is interested. Everyone seems to see the Picts as a strange ancient lot and no one seems to agree with me that they were/are just British, original British, same folk as were everywhere else in Britain when the second and successful Roman invasion happened! (Oh, OK, the far north had Norse already, probably, although I presume Skara Brae on Orkney was British, it’s just like any equivalent place in, say, Cymru, but stone due to lack of wood!!
Do you write books? Should I have heard of you?
Thanks very much for the input, and welcome to the forum!
Thank you, Brian, really appreciate that