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Monty Says Something in Welsh | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 73 of 76 18 August 2014 at 5:31pm | IP Logged |
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FWIW, I've just exceeded the 1,500 level in my headlist words, more or less coinciding
with finishing the 3rd of the "Nofelau Nawr" series of readers I've been reading. Not all the words came from those books, but probably around 90%. I scanned the words on the 1st page of the next one I have lined up, and estimated that I didn't know or was doubtful about 2-3% of them, meaning I'm more or less at Professor Arguelles magic 98% comprehension level for them (although I think they vary slightly in difficulty level). At that rate, this next book will give me about 350 new words (it only has about 70 pages). If I was to continue reading a lot of these, I presumably would hit the "law" of diminishing returns before long. However, there aren't that many of them, and I think I might as well buy all the ones that I easily can, of those remaining, which I think is only 2 or 3. Someone on the SSiW forum suggested the "Stori Sydyn" series, which are not aimed at learners pe se, but people returning to reading in Welsh. They also seem to be quite short, about 70-80 pages. I tihnk I will try one or two, anyway. I also have on order "Y Llyfrgell" ("The Library") by Fflur Dafydd. This seems to be a futuristic popular novel, which people seem to either love or hate, but I thought I'd risk it, since I found a cheap 2nd hand edition. hmm 256 pages, so that will be more of a challenge, but it depends on the level of language used I guessed, and how "literary" it is The problem is always going to be, and I think this is a common problem across other languages, that there isn't a decent range of graded readers across a wide enough spectrum of difficulty, above a certain level, so learners who want to get to an advanced level of reading find themselves in a quandary. The readers available become too easy, but the "real books" are still a bit too difficult. This is where pop-up dictionaries come into their own of course. Sadly, as far as I can ascertain, there aren't any Welsh-English pop-up dictionaries. One could use browser plugins (or Readlang) that depend on google translate, which is certainly better than nothing, but not ideal. One of the difficulties with Welsh is always going to be mutations, and this also applies to using translations & parallel texts. If you are reading a translation, you are not always going to know whether the Welsh word being translated is in its radical form or a mutated form, and if it's in its mutated form, you won't necessarily be able to work out what the radical is. (Soft mutations are easy, but I still find nasal and aspirate ones challenging in that respect). So you are still going to have to do some dictionary lookup or other research, to be sure. Edited by montmorency on 18 August 2014 at 5:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 74 of 76 18 August 2014 at 5:44pm | IP Logged |
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Speaking of "Y llyfrgell", there is an article in FFlur Dafydd's blog about a film being
made from it: www.fflurdafydd.com (That's just a link to the home page. The article, which is currently at the top, is called "FFLUR DAFYDD’S FILM TO BE DIRECTED BY EUROS LYN". I can't see a way of linking to that specific article.) I can't see anything explicit about what language it will be made in: Welsh with English subtitles, I assume. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 75 of 76 18 August 2014 at 10:54pm | IP Logged |
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I have only realised today that the BBC Learn Welsh online dictionary (which was
actually developed by Bangor University) is able to 1. "un-mutate" words, i.e. you can type in a mutated form, and it will find the radical form and look it up for you 2.Interpret conjugated "short-forms" (or inflected) verbs. This is particularly important where the stem of the verb is not obvious from the verb-noun form (what is listed in the dictionary). Sometimes there is a vowel shift, or consonant shift, or both. A good example is "chwerthin", to laugh, whose stem is "chwardd-". Endings are added to the stem to form the inflected tenses (and I believe the passive voice). BBC Learn Welsh Dictionary Curiously, the BBC dictionary does not show the stem of verbs (at least not immediately obviously - you can find it if you click on one of the "conjugate" links, but it's a long- winded way of doing it. The dictionary at:- Trinity St Davids does show verb stems, although it cannot un-mutate words or handle conjugated verbs. It does have other handy features, such as being able to search for specifics like verbs or nouns, or beginnings or ending of words. So I find both useful in different ways. Edited by montmorency on 18 August 2014 at 10:55pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 76 of 76 19 August 2014 at 5:51pm | IP Logged |
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"Y Llyfergell" arrived today - excellent work by Better World Books of Dunfermline. And
although it was supposed to be 2nd hand, it looks new. It appears to be written in fairly colloquial Welsh and nothing obviously too "literary" about it (diolch byth - thank goodness). Definitely some dictionary work needed, but that's to be expected. The thing I will find different, and probably more difficult than the readers I've been using will be the length of sentences. I think I won't mind that once I get used to it. I remember that after a while, I really used to enjoy Theodor Fontane's paragraphathons. (Thomas Mann's - not so much). But I'll concentrate on my readers for the time being, before getting stuck into it. ... On the speaking front, I'm continuing with SSiW course 3, and the lesson I did today was fine. But then I did some of the speaking and listening practices for course 2, and got a git of a shock that I'd lost a lot of the spontaneity and automaticity that I used to have with them. Course 1 was better, but not as good as it could have been / should have been. I must admit, I'd not done any of those practices for ages, and was feeling guilty ....with good reason, it seems. I wasn't too worried, because I've been having masses of input lately (reading and listening), so I hoped it wouldn't be a problem. But that's something I've noticed in the past with German: masses of input does not necessarily lead to great output skills. Your head may be buzzing with language, but it may take a wrong turning on the way to your lips. Or to put it another way, if you get too passive, you get out of the way of being very active, at least that's how it seems to work with me. Edited by montmorency on 19 August 2014 at 5:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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