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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 65 of 76 23 December 2013 at 12:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I cannot claim any credit for the following, but as I haven't written anything here
lately, I thought I would mention this: SSiW "Bootcamps" I haven't been on one (yet), but I've heard plenty about them. After the introductions, there is a strict "no English" rule. It's not a course exactly, but is about practising what you've already learned, and I'm sure people do also learn from each other and from the Welsh speakers they encounter during the week. 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 66 of 76 28 February 2014 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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The following is nothing to do with me really, except that it's about SSiW, whose
courses I am still following. This is actually a link to a recent post of mine on the Team Celt thread. SSiW Success A quick progress report from me: I'm on around Lesson 21 of SSiW Course 2 (Intermediate). 4 more lessons to go, plus 10 vocab sessions/lessons. I'm aiming to do one lesson per day, no less, but also no more. I've tried doing more than one lesson in a day before, and it's too much really. One has to let the brain relax and let things sink in. I also listen to Radio Cymru podcasts, and watch the occasional S4C programme via the internet, mostly "Rownd a Rownd", "Gwaith/Cartref", and "HWB" (a series for learners). BTW, tomorrow, Saturday 1st March is Dydd Gŵyl Dewi, the feast day of (Saint) David, or Dewi Sant. Edited by montmorency on 01 March 2014 at 2:02pm 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 67 of 76 07 May 2014 at 10:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Long time, no update, but that certainly does not mean I've given up Welsh or Say
Something in Welsh. In fact I've just been to a 7-day long "Bootcamp", in Tresaith, Ceredigion, west Wales, and a great, lovely, terrifying(!) :-) experience it was too. :-) The idea is that, after an introductory talk in English right at the beginning, to describe the outline of the coming week, the practical / logicstical issues, and to begin to get to know each other, the "English (k)not" rule then comes into effect - no English (or any other language except Welsh) is allowed! If I'm honest, I was at least as terrified by the idea of living communally with at least 9 other people for a week as I was by the prospect of no English for a week, but fortunately, that side of things worked very well. So, on to the language: The strict rule about Bootcamp is that you can't attend unless (if you were a beginner) until you have completed their Course 1 including the vocab. If you are already an experienced learner or returner, then you are encouraged to go through the last couple of lessons and vocab to make sure you are up to speed. In fact I'd done Course 1 and 2, and a bit of Course 3, but in one sense, it was not enough. There was certainly a lot of learning to be done, and I did learn a lot (although it is not a course ... it is a "holiday all in Welsh"(!). The interesting thing for me was that this was the Bootcamp for the Southern version of the course, and the variety of Welsh spoken in Ceredigion is closer to that of the South than that of the North. Was this a problem? No, not really. I already knew some differences, and learned a few more, and I'm sure there are many more to learn, but it's really not a problem. In some ways, more of a problem is that, unlike in say, France where you can expect 99% of people to speak French, or SPain or Germany, etc, only about 1/3 of people in Wales speak Welsh, so when you go out on the streets, you can't guarantee you'll get a Welsh response to a Welsh question. However, there is probably more Welsh spoken in Ceredigion than a lot of areas, so we were fortunate in that respect. And just about everyone we spoke to who could speak Welsh was kindness itself in responding, and seemed pleased to be able to help us. Long Story Short: If you want to learn Welsh, do seriously consider the SSiW courses (the first one is free), and do, do, consider attending one of the Bootcamps! BTW, SSiW have just launched a new version of their Course 1. It's not complete yet, and the Southern version is a little way behind, but it's coming. They seem to have introduced a lot of stuff from Course 2, and also some of Course 3, into the new Course 1, which is rather interesting. Specifically, for example, some "short forms" (inflected verbs) are introduced, which are usually left until very late on traditional courses, and were only in Course 3 in the old structure. Now they are there, as well as the continuous past (imperfect) tense, and no doubt much more (I'm only about 7 lessons in, so I have lot left to discover, but I'm quite positive about it so far). One decision I have made as a result of Bootcamp is that I will now proactively learn the Southern version as well, at least for listening comprehension. It was suggested to me that one way of going about this is just to do the weekly practices of the Southern Course. But it would also be good to do the southern version of the new Course 1, as it comes on stream. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 68 of 76 07 May 2014 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's great that you got to go to a bootcamp! How do you feel about your Welsh after 7 days living in the language?
I'm also curious where finishing all three courses will leave you in terms of actually being able to function in the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4092 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 69 of 76 08 May 2014 at 8:20am | IP Logged | ||
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That sounds awesome, and completely and utterly terrifying. How do you feel that it affected your overall ability to speak Welsh?
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 70 of 76 19 May 2014 at 1:01am | IP Logged | ||
Pretty good "structurally", but it has to be admitted that vocabulary-wise, this approach does not directly equip you with a vast amount. For that, I think you have to use one or some of the many methods experienced HTLAL-ers regularly use. The difference is (I hope) that SSiW learners will be able to slot them into well-known constructions easily and fluidly, although there still might be the odd glitch with mutations, especially since SSiW doesn't really make a big deal of gender, which is one of the triggers for mutation. It's also important to notice that SSiW emphasises from a very early point, that one should try to get stuck into real Welsh conversations as soon, and as much as possible. I found that fairly difficult, to be honest, not least because I have a hearing impairment, but also, lack of vocabulary was an issue. But I don't live in Wales, and can't often get to meet "real" Welsh speakers. I have a couple of G+ hangout partners, which is great, but they are learners, like me. But there is no substitute for speaking with a native or very experienced speaker. One thing I can do is listen to Radio Cymru and watch S4C on the internet, and I do try to do both. It's great to spot words and sometimes phrases you've learned in lessons being used for real. Even better when you can work out a new or newish word from context. That's much rarer, but it happens. 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 71 of 76 19 May 2014 at 1:09am | IP Logged | ||
Sorry for the delay in replying. See my reply to Crush. Overall though, it made an incredible difference, both to my ability, and also to my confidence. I couldn't wait to get back and have another go. As luck would have it, on my return I found an invitation in my email to a Welsh- English lunchtime garden party, organised by a member of the local uni Welsh society. I'm not part of that or the uni, but I know this person in another context, and he happened to find out I was learning, so he kindly invited me. That was another great experience, and there's the chance that I'll get one or two regular speaking partners out of it, who are "real" Welsh speakers. Not 100% sure about that though. I learned that the person who'd invited me, speaks not only English, Welsh and German, which I knew, but French, Hungarian and Russian as well (possibly others that I've missed), and had lectured in several of them. Clever chap! 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 72 of 76 14 August 2014 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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It's been a while since the last update, but I'm happy to say I'we been doing at least
some Welsh every day, most days since then. One other quite exciting thing I did was take part as a member of the studio audience for an S4C TV show, called Cariad@iaith, which was about a group of celebs who have been learning Welsh not quite from scratch, but anyway, fairly intensively over a shortish period. The show I went to was the last in the series, basically a party / celebration of the success of those involved. It was held in the grounds on Nant Gortheyrn, which is a language centre in a stunning part of Pen Llŷn, North Wales, fortunately on a stunning day for weather also. I met a lot of fellow Welsh learners, and generally had a lot of fun. ... Other than that, SSiW are gradually issuing new versions of their courses, and I've recently done the new version of Course 1, which they refer to as Level 1. It's rather interesting as it introduces a lot of thing things on the old Courses 2 and 3, most strikingly the so-called short-forms of the verbs, which are actually inflected verbs, as opposed to using periphrastic tenses (mostly using forms of the verb "to be" ("bod"). Now I've finished that, I've returned to the (original) Course 3, which I did zip through once before, but I really didn't do it justice, and this time, I'm aiming to do it properly. Just one lesson a day, or maybe two sometimes, but no more. There are 25 lessons, so maybe I'll be finished in about 3 weeks or so. The other main thing I've been doing is working to improve my vocabulary fairly dramatically. I decided to use the Goldlist method to actually "learn" the vocabulary (something I've been aiming to do for a long time in Welsh, but I wanted to wait until definitely Course 1 and probably Course 2 was out of the way, since the way SSiW works means you don't actually read or write anything, and it can actually be a bit counterproductive to do so. However, I now feel I'm ready to read and have been doing so quite a bit, but mainly learner's novels, which are really graded readers, in the "Nofelau Nawr" series. I got some of these quite a while back, but decided to put them on hold until I thought I was ready. I'm now using them as the basis for my vocabulary learning for the time being anyway, and I've just managed to exceed 1,000 words in my Goldlist headlists, in a bit under 3 weeks, and this is mostly from 2 of these graded readers. The other words come from random sources like Radio Cymru, S4C TV, the SSiW forum, or just from dictionaries if I feel like looking up a random word. I'm really enjoying this way of growing my vocabulary, because it's fairly painless and mostly pleasurable ("pleserus"). Not sure what I will do when I run out of "Nofelau Nawr"'s though, as there aren't all that many of them. I don't plan to report in too great a detail on my Goldlisting, because I feel that might be a form of self-pressure, which is rather contrary to the spirit of Goldlisting, which is meant to be relaxed, and low-stress. But I thought it was worth reporting passing the 1,000 word headlist milestone. That does not of course mean 1,000 words actually "learned". It means 1,000 words on the way to being learned. :-) But it's a start. ... Since we have been discussing comprehension levels (here and also on Polydog), I might start to note privately, how much on average of each page of these graded readers I can understand. The way they work is that they have footnotes including vocabulary. Some pages have a lot; others hardly any. I often find I know quite a few of the given words, but rarely all of them. In addition, I usually find there are at least 2 or 3 words on the page I don't know and have to either work out by context or look up. I try to work them out by context whenever possible. These readers are aimed at people with about 1-2 year's experience, which is about right for me. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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