Category: Roadmap

The new and improved Ymestyn is here!

Over the last couple of months, I have been beavering away moving the Ymestyn course over here from Payhip, which it had outgrown. I have also rearranged it into modules to make it easier for you to choose what you want to focus on.

What’s more, I’ve developed a Canolradd companion course to help you do you homework more easily. Suitable for everyone doing Canolradd 1 or Canolradd 1&2, it will add units as term goes on, so that you can catch up on missed lessons or improve your understanding of grammatical concepts you’ve covered in class.

Students on Canolradd 2 will be able to take this course from September 2027 at the latest.

Ymestyn also caters to independent learners and there are plenty of resources for you to expand your vocabulary and polish up your grammar.

If that sounds good to you, sign up now for just £10 per month!

If you subscribed to the Payhip version, you can log in here and will find instructions on how to switch to the new platform as a new lesson at the top of the course page. Every new subscriber here gets a week free, so you will have time to kick the tyres.

Roadmap

The new site is launching with the following modules:

• Canolradd — Homework support for Canolradd 1 and 1&2 students
  • Unit 1 — Revision unit using a variety of grammatical constructions and a wide range of vocabulary from the Sylfaen course.
  • Unit 2 – Byth ac Erioed
  • Unit 3 – Dw i’n meddwl bod…
• Auxiliary and Inflected Verbs — Learn the three patterns for creating auxiliary (helper or periphrastic) verbs and inflected verbs.
  • Stems — The different stems used for common auxiliary verbs.
  • Pattern 1 — Will, can, & the inflected future.
    • Talking about sports — Vocabulary builder & practicing will, can and the inflected future.
  • Pattern 2 — Was, could, would, would like, should/ought to, if (I) were to.
    • Things To Do In The Garden — Vocabulary builder & practicing was, could and would.
    • Things To Do Around The House — Vocabulary builder & practicing would like, should/ought to.
    • Things We Know Aren’t True — Vocabulary builder & practicing if (I) were to.
  • Pattern 3 — Simple past & have been to.
    • Talking About Travel — Vocabulary builder and practicing the simple past & have been to.
• Simple past tense of Mynd, Gwneud, Dod and Cael — Overview of how these verbnouns form the inflected past tense.
  • Simple past of Mynd — Practice, vocabulary, listening and reading.
  • Simple past of Dod — Practice, vocabulary, listening and reading.
  • Simple past of Gwneud — Three version of gwneud, practice, vocabulary, listening and reading.
  • Simple past of Cael — Three regional versions of cael, practice, vocabulary, listening and reading.
  • Simple past using Gwneud — How to use the inflected past of gwneud to create the simple past tense of other verbnouns.
  • Simple past using Ddaru — How to use ddaru to create the simple past of other verbnouns.
• Reading
  • Adar yr Ardd — Short articles about twelve common (and not so common) garden birds, with annotated illustrations and vocab list.
  • Mamaliaid Prydain (Reading) — Short articles about twelve British mammals, with annotated illustrations and vocab list.
  • Mae Rhiannon yn Mynd i Ynys y Barri — Vocabulary builder for the interactive fiction game.
• Video/Audio comprehension
  • S4C: Shop Lyfrau’r Gelli Gandryll — Vocabulary builder.
  • S4C: Matthew Rhys on Widow’s Bay — Vocabulary builder.
• This, That, These, Those — How to use the more formal hwn/hon/hyn system to say ‘this thing’, ‘that thing’, ‘these things’ and ‘those things’.
• Idioms 1 — Five idioms that people really use in everyday speech.

I still have a few modules to move over, or new ones to create, including:

• Modules to move:
  • Adar yr Ardd (Vocabulary) — Vocabulary builder for the Adar yr Ardd module, chapters 1-2.
  • Auxiliary Verb Pop Quiz — North and South.
• Modules under development:
  • Canolradd — Units 4 to 20.
  • Simple past using Ddaru — How to use ddaru to create the simple past of other verbnouns.
  • Adar yr Ardd (Vocabulary) — Chapters 3-12
  • Mamaliaid Prydain (Vocabulary) — Vocabulary builder for the Mamaliaid Pryain module.

I’m very excited to be re-launching Ymestyn and developing a better and more usable Welsh language resource for you all!

New listening exercises

Over the last few weeks, I’ve focused on adding more audio to the site. The following sections now have audio exercises, where you listen to me saying a phrase and then pick the correct translation from the options.

• Talking About Sports
• Things We Know Aren’t True
• Talking About Travel
• Idioms 1

Audio is already a part of the Robin Goch and Titw Tomos Las sections and, over the next week or two, I’ll be recording the audio for the remaining sections.

Up next

I’ve been working on more video content for YouTube and Instagram, so hang tight for that! And I’m going to be adding more audio, a pop quiz to help you assess your progress, and more reading and listening.

Today’s Ymestyn roadmap update

I have upgraded the ‘Putting It All Together’ exercises by adding in ‘Type The Answer’ quizzes where you’re given an English phrase and have to type in the Welsh translation. This will help you with your recall and give you a sense of where you might need to go back and do a little more practice.

The sections on Gardening and Things To Do Around The House I have split into northern and southern versions so you can focus on your own dialect. Things We Know Aren’t True is split into taswn i and pe bawn i, so again, practice whichever version you would naturally use.

(If you’re wondering where tawn i went, I got feedback from one of my advisors that it’s rarely used so I removed it from the final exercise. I’ve kept it in the earlier exercises just so that you’re aware it exists.)

New section on idioms

I’ve added a new set of exercises looking at five common idioms:

• teimlo i’r byw — to feel deeply
• brifo i’r byw — to cut to the quick
• yn ôl traed — in the footsteps of
• o’r newydd — renewed, anew, once again, afresh
• i’r carn — to the core, through and through, fully

I love idioms. They are a great way to sound more fluent, but a lot of courses don’t teach them directly, so these sessions aim to fill that gap.

Ymestyn in the news again

Ymestyn featured on the Herald Wales website, in connection with the recent report from Welsh Language Commissioner Efa Gruffudd Jones. Although she said that more work needs to be done to support the Welsh language, the report seemed to largely ignore us adult learners!

Today’s Ymestyn roadmap update

Recent changes include:

• New section covering the simple past (aka inflected preterite or inflected past) tense of what I think of as the Big Four, mynd (go), gwneud (do/make), dod (come) and cael (get).
• Improvements to the Putting It All Together practice sections has begun. I’ve started to add ‘type the answer’ quizzes to each section, to provide a slightly more challenging way to practice which depends more on recall than recognition.

Ymestyn in the news

Ymestyn was also featured in Nation.Cymru where Jules Millward wrote about my plan to help learners become fluent by providing the kind of support that I’ve always been desperate for myself.

There is an almost endless supply of Welsh grammar and vocab to get through, so you can expect the Ymestyn program to take a while to be fully built out. The next round of development will include (in no particular order!): 

Grammar

• Irregular inflected preterites: mynd (went), dod (came), gwneud (did), cael (got)
• The preterite using gwneud and ddaru
• Irregular inflected futures: mynd (go), dod (come), gwneud (do), cael (get)
• Present and imperfect of gwybod (to know)
• Prepositions with personal endings
• Using fod wedi (have been) with auxiliary verbs
• Phrases using verbnouns and prepositions
• Verbnouns that don’t use i (to)
• Making comparisons: Equative, comparative and superlative forms
• Numbers: The vigesimal system and ordinals. 
• If
• This, that, the other.
• That (bod, mai, taw, etc)
• The passive voice
• Impersonal forms

Vocabulary

I have another eleven chapters of Adar yr Ardd to convert into exercises, and have nearly finished writing Mamaliaid Prydain which will provide another twelve sections on British mammals. These will all follow the same structure as the section on Robin Goch. 

I am also planning to create vocab exercises focused on a variety of hobbies, pastimes and interests, so that there’ll be something of interest to everyone. And once I have enough subscribers, I’ll be able to commission original content from native Welsh speakers to provide some variety.

Timing

I hope to be able to release at least one new exercise per week over the next few months, circumstances allowing. Though again, that pace will speed up if I have the resources to hire in some help.

If you want to be kept up to date with new section releases and news about Ymestyn in general, please do sign up to the newsletter.