One of the residents at work speaks mainly Arabic so I am trying to learn a few words from her. She speaks a little English and is willing to teach, but there are so many forms of Arabic that when I try to look up a word she often has no idea what I mean. I do better learning the words from her directly. I don’t know much, but I can say “Hi, how are you?,” good morning, thank you, I love you, hug, and water. That’s pretty much it. But I have learned that people are tremendously happier with you if you even learn to just say good morning in their native language (which is why I can say good morning in eleven languages now – English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish, Estonian, Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, and Japanese.) Oh, that seems to be 12. Well, Estonian is the latest addition but I suspect I don’t usually count Italian because it doesn’t come up much. Oh, actually it’s 14; I can sign good morning in ASL and say it in Welsh, not that THAT will be much use, but it’s relevant to THIS goal. 1 month ago

that it’s just too weird to be true. :) 4 months ago

“Who knows, maybe you can find a book on speaking Welsh. To get you started though in case the weather is just too dreary to venture outdoors…. your first gift will be Welsh lessons online.”
Santa’s link: http://www.saysomethinginwelsh.com/home/
What I use: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh/bigwelshchallenge/ 5 months ago

Felt pretty good. Repeated a “Practice with tutor” video and remembered some words from last time that are not in the storyline videos.
I want to learn the rest of the story! I’m really working at Unit 4, and my Welsh isn’t good enough to follow past Unit 10, and it goes to 16. I don’t really want to just watch with subtitles. 7 months ago

last night I put on the videos and practiced. I still know the vocabulary from the little stories but the extras from the “practice with tutor” I had mostly forgotten. 7 months ago

I get words or phrases stuck in my head just like many people get songs stuck. Sometimes they are not in English, and I’ll go around for half an hour trying to remember what eira means (snow). The Big Welsh Challenge stuff really helps, because there’s a context: I remember the brother saying he likes that kind of weather while wearing a knitted hat and demanding a ski vacation. 13 months ago

I haf completed 2 years of welsh classes doing the wlpan course. Not fluet but understand a lot more of welsh. 17 months ago

from a Welsh speaker was to stick with one dialect to cut down confusion, so I have ditched the charming South Welsh podcasts and decided to stick with North for now. 20 months ago

Commuting by mass transit is very usable time, especially with language podcasts. Been using the two kinds in tandem. 22 months ago

I like these, I’ve only listened to the first few so far but they already have a slightly different set of vocabulary than the BBC ones. They also inspired some grand dreams. 22 months ago

I have the skits from the BBC Big Welsh Challenge on the iPod, so I’ve been trying to listen, especially to the middle unit ones. The first 3 or 4 units I know by heart, and the last 5 or 6 are beyond my vocabulary. I wish they had an mp3 of the Practice with Tutor part, that’s much more complex than the skits and duller, so less fun to do at home and better for dull moments waiting for the bus. 23 months ago