Learning Welsh

[watervole]

Duolingo is not going to be updating it's Welsh course any more.

 

Clozemaster will be adding a new collection of 10,000 additional Welsh sentences in the near future.

 

I know Clozemaster isn't very useful for total beginners at a language, but the 'explain' feature does mean you can work out what each word in a sentence means both as a word, and as part of the sentence structure.

 

And I know some of you love your Welsh..

 

I've decided I prefer the 500 most common words collection to the Fast Fluency.  The most common words collections have several examples of each word, and I find that gives me a better understanding of it's meaning.

Comments

[vera_j]

Thank you very much for this info. I do know where to go IF the need is, hahaha, A BIG IF, mind you. :-)

[galadhir]

Oh no, this reminds me that I haven't been on it for days!

[watervole]

I've now got a 64 day streak - which amazes me. Can't recall when I last kept up something for that long...

[galadhir]

Do you feel like you're beginning to get the hang of the language (at least on a very basic level?)

[watervole]

Yes. I'm a lot more confident on cases, and I'm getting a much better understanding of sentence structure. If you're on the paid version, you also get access to the support community, and one of them was really helpful on modal verbs in sentences with two clauses.

Also, I find I can understand most of the sentences I am looking at with only a brief glance at the English version (and sometimes without it).

Ich meine dass ich verstehe ein bisschen Deutsch. (and google translate says I got that correct, without having to look any of it up)

I've a long way to go, obviously, but some of the tenses are beginning to make sense as well. I still find it difficult to memorise genders, but a few stick here and there.

[galadhir]

Ich auch verstehe ein bisschen Deutsch, aba ich kann es nicht schreiben. I have enough problems spelling my own language! I do like this new way of learning a language, though. Nothing ever stuck for me in French in school, but I listened to two or three audiobooks on beginner's German and can now order a meal and ask for the bill at least :) It makes sense to learn language more like we do naturally - by hearing and repeating it many times - rather than as if it was some kind of engine that you had to build from cogs.

[watervole]

'aba' is a new word for me, but I guessed correctly what it meant.

Have you watched 'Barbarians' on Netflix? I freely admit to only understanding past of the German dialogue, but I had English subtitles to help.

[galadhir]

I've probably spelled it wrong - it's probably 'aber'. Yes, I've just checked and it's aber so I was not wrong about being very bad at spelling German. That's what I get from learning it by ear :)

I haven't heard of that. What is it about?

[watervole]

About the Roman legions and the Germanic tribes. Very bloody, but well written. The buildings looked very true to the period.

[galadhir]

I'll definitely put that one on the list. I like the idea of being able to listen along with something that has subtitles.

Do you know of the audiobooks by Andre Klein, starting with Cafe in Berlin? They're little stories that follow the escapades of a young Sicilian man looking for work in Germany. They start off really simple and slow and then each new book is a little faster and more complex. I found them fantastic for listening along to.

[watervole]

Oooh, it's on You Tube, with German subtitles! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUXcYTjINtI

Thanks, I shall try that.