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montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 17 of 76 04 September 2013 at 8:25pm | IP Logged |
Met up with a local SSiW Meetup group last night. 5 including me, but I gather there
are normally a few more. Very friendly group, but I didn't manage to say much Welsh. I
think they were all well into Course 2, or were generally much more advanced. I don't
mind that in principle, because I'd be happy to sit back and listen.
Another problem was the background noise in the pub. I've had that problem before in
the few language Meetups I've been to, so was a bit worried, especially as I have
hearing issues, and unfortunately, this was as bad from the noise point of view as I'd
expected. I'll have to see how it goes.
Maybe Skype or Google+ hangout would be a better option for me, as the volume is more
controllable and there should be no background noise.
On a slightly more positive note I've moved forward to lesson 10.
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 18 of 76 05 September 2013 at 1:33pm | IP Logged |
On lesson 12. Past tense, 3rd person (not that we use grammatical terms like that on
SSiW...:) ).
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 19 of 76 05 September 2013 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
Got to lesson 13. Hadn't planned to rush, but these seemed to come naturally. By
coincidence, discovered an article in the SSiW blog and related forum threads about
doing SSiW in large chunks, rather than a bit each day. Aran (SSiW CEO) seems to like
the idea.
I'll see how it goes anyway. I've taken the plunge and subscribed properly (for a very
modest monthly fee), so I can download the daily practice sessions (and later, much
later, Courses 2 and 3).
The procedure for subscribing worked smoothly and slickly: very professional. FX could
learn some lessons.....(no I still haven't heard from him about my Pro membership :-(
).
SSi are actually offering a whole bunch of languages, not just Welsh, although some
might still be in the early stages of development: Cornish, Latin, Spanish, and Dutch.
Would be cool if they could offer Danish...
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 20 of 76 07 September 2013 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
Got up to lesson 16, but have slowed down a bit again, for the moment.
I haven't given up the idea of doing it more intensively, by any means, but just feel,
physically, like a bit of a break for the moment.
Am relaxing by listening to some Radio Cymru podcasts, and programmes via iPlayer. I've
realised that even with this, rather than just listening to it as background "noise"
("aural wallpaper" as I've heard it described), I prefer to listen at least a bit more
consciously, and "intensively", but perhaps for slightly shorter periods.
It's only really "intensive" in the sense that I'll listen out for words I know, and
apart from that, listen out for starts and ends of words, which fortunately is usually
very easy in Welsh, at least in broadcast Welsh. Everybody on Radio Cymru (so far)
seems to speak beautifully clearly! Diolch yn fawr iawn pawb!
I was quite pleased to spot earlier an "i Lanelli", in which the "ll" of "Llanelli" was
mutated to "L" because of the "i". I've noticed a similar thing in the lessons, e.g.
"llefrith" (milk) getting mutated to "lefrith", although I have forgotten the reason
for mutation in that case, since it would not have been "i" (usually meaning "to").
("Llefrith" seems to be only a northern word for milk: "llaeth" seems to be preferred
in the south).
I'm aware of a few other situations that cause mutations, and I believe the full set of
rules is quite complicated, but I'm not going to make the slightest effort to discover,
read, or learn these rules, since that would be contrary to the principles of SSiW,
certainly at this stage.
...hmm...my R Cymru programme is now playing some quite punchy Welsh pop music as I
write this....often I find music a bit distracting, but this one's quite good. :-)
Don't ask me what it is though. :) It's mostly a speech programme, so there must be a
reason for the song...
...it's interesting: I've heard a great variety of accents on RC today, some of them
not sounding particularly Welsh to me at all. Wonder if some of them were 2nd-language
speakers? They were very fluent though.
4 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 21 of 76 07 September 2013 at 1:20am | IP Logged |
A re-post from SSiW:
Welsh rocks!
Breuddwyd Roc a Roll
(W/E subtitles)
1 person has 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 22 of 76 08 September 2013 at 1:24am | IP Logged |
Finished lesson 20. That's just over 10 hours (not counting any repeats or repetitions
with the lesson paused). 6 more lessons, plus 10 vocab sessions in course 1, not counting
the daily practice sessions (5 mins each of listening and speaking).
We've now done, present, simple past, perfect and future of I, you(singular), he/she, we,
you(plural). affirmative, negative, and question form. Not done "they". I'm guessing we
will do that before the end of Course 1.
I think there are some trickier verb forms coming in Course 2 as well.
Edited by montmorency on 08 September 2013 at 1:26am
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| Tahl Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4281 days ago 26 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh Studies: Spanish, Finnish
| Message 23 of 76 08 September 2013 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
montmorency wrote:
Not done "they". I'm guessing we
will do that before the end of Course 1.
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Actually, you won't . . . but there's a feature of Welsh that makes 'they' verb forms
less important! Look at the difference between (grammatical) English & Welsh:
English:
He goes
John goes
The dog goes
They go
The dog and John go
Welsh:
He goes
John goes
The dog goes
They go
The dog and John goes
Yep, that's right -- if you're using nouns rather than pronouns, in Welsh you use the
same verb form that you'd use with he/she/single noun. :-D
1 person has 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 24 of 76 08 September 2013 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
Tahl wrote:
Actually, you won't . . . but there's a feature of Welsh that makes 'they' verb forms
less important! Look at the difference between (grammatical) English & Welsh:
English:
He goes
John goes
The dog goes
They go
The dog and John go
Welsh:
He goes
John goes
The dog goes
They go
The dog and John goes
Yep, that's right -- if you're using nouns rather than pronouns, in Welsh you use the
same verb form that you'd use with he/she/single noun. :-D |
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Ddiddorol iawn, Tahl. Diolch.
Edited by montmorency on 08 September 2013 at 1:32pm
1 person has voted this message useful
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