A new approach

Way back in 2008, Aran Jones (author of the SaySomethingin Method) began trying to build a new approach to language learning based on three different kinds of linguistic experience.

He’d taught English overseas (as a first and second language), he’d tried and failed to learn the local language in all the countries he’d lived and worked in, and then he’d managed to learn Welsh successfully.

Hands cup around a yellow flower.

The history of SaySomethingin

The combination of failure and success had given him the seed of an idea, and the more he read about how the brain deals with memory formation and language acquisition, the more he thought there might be room for a different (and perhaps faster) way to learn spoken Welsh.

The first SSiW lessons were recorded in 2009, in a small, damp recording studio, which had been lent to Aran and Catrin as a favour by a friend. Then in 2010, with the numbers of new learners increasing day by day, SaySomethingin officially formed as a company. By 2011 the interest and enthusiasm that SaySomethingin was generating was beyond anything they’d dreamt of, and by July of that year SSi won the Global Welsh category at the IWA awards in Cardiff.

The team was growing from founders and volunteers to members of staff, our community of learners was growing as well, and so was the number of languages which we provided.

A close up of a woman flicking through a lined note pad whilst sitting at a lake that is blurred in the distance.

After Welsh, Cornish was the next new language. We then began building our Spanish and Dutch courses, before the exciting opportunity arose to work with Culture Vannin (the Manx Heritage Foundation) on a Manx course.

We’re now a 10-strong team of language enthusiasts with 11 available language courses and others on their way. We’ve built an exciting partnership with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, have worked on projects with S4C and are currently in the middle of education pilot projects in Wales and Sri Lanka.

As a team, we hope to continue to revolutionise language learning across the globe; as we say in Welsh:

‘Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon’
(‘A nation without a language is a nation without a heart’)

A group of people lay their hands on top of each other in a circle in a 'hands in' action.