Just so that we don’t all think Aran created this brilliant way of learning Welsh, please have a look for the above book in Google Books. It is available for free and, while it may not help any of us a lot, the method will be very familiar and even some of the sentences will sound fairly modern (other, not so much).
In the introduction he, basically, says “The lessons should be practices frequently for a few minutes at convenient intervals until the learner is able to give the Welsh at once on seeing or hearing the English”
He gives over 100 sentences that include a very complex sentence and the main parts (all useful in themselves) that build up to it. It’s a very interesting book that holds up remarkably well 125 years after it was published!
Just for clarity’s sake, I’ve never previously heard of the interesting-sounding William Spurrell.
There have been a number of courses over the years that have focused (to greater or lesser extent) on producing phrases in the target language after a stimulus in the understood language - Pimsleur was one of the first widely used courses to include an element of spoken production of this nature, and Michel Thomas made even more extensive use of it.
Nonetheless, the spoken production is only a part of the SSi method (albeit the most obvious part). Equally important is the SSi use of interval learning to strengthen memory, interleaving to improve acquisition, and listening exercises using only learnt material (both unaccelerated and accelerated).
In writing the courses, I have drawn on a range of theories, several dozen different approaches of which I have personal experience, and some of my own ideas, and I do (in line with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) assert my moral right to be identified as author of these courses.
Hey, Aran
I certainly didn’t mean to suggest your course isn’t original and yours. I was just really, really surprised that something so colloquial existed as a learning method for Welsh at the end of the 19th century. I think you would be very interested in the book and Spurrell’s approach. It has a lot in common with the new Level 1 in that the main sentence and all the little sentences that make it up are based on common conversation. Probably not the 4000 most common Welsh words today, but still quite conversational.
I’m happy to chalk it down to the law of unintended consequences, but I think if you look again at the first sentence there, you’ll realise that most people who read it would indeed interpret it as a suggestion that the course isn’t original/by me - so of course I need to set that straight.
Yes, I’m sure I would, and I’ll look forward to doing so
