23 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2024
  2. Nov 2023
  3. Oct 2023
    1. duolingo poll .t3_17h6wfs._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; }

      I was a subscriber of Duolingo specifically for Cymraeg until about a year ago. Updates, while they seemed nice, seemed to keep putting me farther back than my previous level, and spending 20 to 30 minutes a day didn't seem to be getting me anywhere. Ultimately I gave up on Duolingo in favor of Say Something in Welsh which seemed to be a bit more challenging and improved my spoken grasp of the language. Now I need to spend some more time with some of the finer points of the grammar, but Duolingo really isn't the best place for that either.

      Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of the movement on some languages on Duolingo was taking advantage of free labor of volunteers. Duolingo seemed to be getting a lot of help on the Cymraeg front which they may not be getting now and this may be a play for financial support that they probably don't really need given the usage they're seeing. Given my experience with the app and where they've placed their resources in the past, I'm actively suspicious of their motivations.

  4. Apr 2023
  5. Mar 2023
    1. Slow learner

      reply to jo-king

      https://en.forum.saysomethingin.com/t/slow-learner/38360/8

      I don't do it as much as I did when I started out, but I would put the audio files into a podcatcher that allowed me to speed up or slow down the audio. The first time through I would slow the audio down to 75% of full speed so I didn't need to fiddle so much with the pause button (especially when I was listening while commuting or doing other household chores). Then I'd speed it up a bit each time until I was able to do 1.10 or 1.25x speed at which point the pauses weren't long enough to get a word in edgewise. At this point I move on to the next. Be careful here though as on some of the longer sentences at the ends of some lessons, if you play them too slowly, you'll forget what the beginning of the sentence was by the time they get to the end.

      Based on a trick in my daughter's dual immersion Japanese class which used the word "wakanai" (Japanese for "I don't know"), I also formed the practice of saying "ddim gwybod" in place of words I couldn't immediately remember so that I could focus on the ones I did know instead of getting too tripped up on the ones I didn't. Eventually on repetition and revision they would slowly seep into my brain. Fortunately the kind and patient instructors on the tape never made fun of me or judged me for my mistakes and that made it much easier to eventually pick things up.

      Sticking with it has become quite fun and it definitely gets easier with time. pob lwc!

  6. Feb 2023
    1. Yma o Hyd Course - SaySomethingin

      Can't wait for the audio files for this to pop up!

      Until then: YouTube video with consecutive Welsh/English subtitles<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkBQAvAFjus

      YouTube video from FA Wales with Dafydd Iwan and the Red Wall<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Fag8ZQcz4

    2. ‘Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg’, we say in Welsh – ‘persistent knocking will break the stone’. In other words, perseverance pays in the end.
    1. Methu â gweld y coed gan brennau

      Failing to see the forest for the trees (or the wood for trees).

      Wood = Pren<br /> Trees = Coed<br /> Forest = Coedwig

    2. R.E Jones in his book Idiomau Cymraeg
  7. Jan 2023
  8. Jul 2022
  9. Sep 2020
    1. Cymraeg Byw was promoted with the intention of facilitating thelearning of Welsh particularly among adults, and providing a stable ‘plat-form’ from which they could progress to fluency – and inevitably, as withLiterary Welsh, the loser once again was the native speech of ordinaryWelsh speakers, dismissed by implication as irrelevant. The counter argu-ment, now all the stronger for hindsight, must be that, as with all languages,the aim of the serious learner is competence in the living language; if thatmeans coping with dialect variation, then so be it – it has to be faced sooneror later, and it may as well be sooner.