A new course for learning Welsh, www.SaySomethingInWelsh.com, gets rid of time wasted on reading and writing in order to help people learn to speak and understand Welsh far more quickly than is possible with traditional methods. It is based on the latest research in language learning, it is available in handy MP3 files which can be downloaded and played whenever you want, and best of all it is available entirely for free.

Course creators Iestyn ap Dafydd and Aran Jones describe themselves as ‘serial language learners’ who wanted to make sure that cutting edge approaches were available in Welsh. ‘I can’t think of a time when I haven’t been trying to learn one language or another,’ says Aran Jones, ‘and to be honest I’m pretty bad at learning languages! But I’ve been surprised to see how much difference some of the techniques developed in the last ten years have made – I can actually just about manage to speak Spanish now, thanks to some excellent new courses – and Iestyn and I agreed that it would be great if it was much easier for people to learn Welsh as well.’

The course is free because it is possible to distribute electronic files for very close to zero cost. ‘We realised early on that the work involved in putting the course together, the writing and recording, was something we were happy to do as volunteers just to make sure that this kind of material is available in Welsh,’ says Iestyn ap Dafydd. ‘It costs us virtually nothing to distribute the course, so we thought it would be a boost to Welsh learners, and to the language itself, if we offered it for free.’

The course is available in southern and northern versions of Welsh, in order to make it accessible for as many Welsh learners as possible. The recordings were made with a mixture of first and second language speakers, because many learners find it a little easier to understand other learners at first – but it is important that they quickly become familiar with hearing and understanding first language speakers.

Early users of the course have been delighted with its new approach. ‘As someone who has been struggling to learn the language for several years, I found that even the first few lessons helped to correct some basic mistakes,’ says Carrie Harper from Wrecsam. ‘The main difference I have found with this course is the speed at which I am absorbing new words and phrases. I also now feel a lot more confident in using my Welsh and am looking forward to the next stages of this course.’

‘SaySomethingInWelsh forces you to speak, and you have to anticipate the correct answer, so there’s no ‘parroting’, no passive repetition,’ says Dave Morgan from Edern in Gwynedd. ‘Because the course is a spoken course, not a ‘grammar’ course, you end up speaking confidently and people respond to that. As a result, I find I’m using Welsh much more often, in situations where I might have chickened out before.’

The course has already proved a real hit on the social networking site Facebook (see www.SaySomethingInWelsh.com/Facebook), gathering almost 200 members in the first two days, and the enthusiastic comments from early users have made it clear how much demand there is for a genuinely easy and convenient way to learn Welsh.