I am starting a new thread for this in the hope of raising people’s interest. I am having a Skype interview for Dysgwr o flwyddyn in June. I am in complete ignorance of the process. Can anyone who has applied in the past please give me some insight in how the situation works? Do the judges ask questions based on your written application? Or do they ask a standard set of questions in the same order to every learner? What is the tone? Are there introductions at the beginning etc. etc. etc.
I have no hope of going onto the next round but I would like to get through the interview without totally stuffing it up. If anyone has any previous experience of Dysgwr y flwyddyn, would they consider sharing it? Think of the things people told you before hand - even the silly little ones - and remember I am in Australia. I have no knowledge of the judges. No real experience of eisteddfod competitions. A huge gap in my cultural experience and no one to tell me anything.
Thanks for the link Louis. I will try to relax and smile. I will do heaps of preparation. In the end, it’s all a gamble. I’d still like to know whether they use set questions? Or pick them out from the written application? Aran? Dee? Cat? You have all been part of this process, what can you tell me?
My experience was that they asked a few general questions and then moved on to a couple of points arising from my submitted statement - that I’d done voluntary work in order to improve my Welsh and that I followed the Welsh music scene. The great thing about this is that it keeps you in your comfort zone and allows you to talk fluently without struggling for unfamiliar vocabulary.
I really hope I haven’t made light of your request for help, Elizabeth.
What I was clumsily trying to say is that you’re in a no-lose situation. Your entry into the competition alone is admirable and your commitment to preparation is all the more so. I hope this puts my not-very-helpful remarks into context.
Paid â becso Hewrop. I didn’t think anything of it. I agree, I need to relax and I will. But I was brought up on ‘if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’. I suspect students in Welsh courses in Wales will have their tutors giving them advice about the process. I don’t have that advantage. But I do have this forum.
I gather that answering the questions in the most interesting way possible is the key to success. I am just trying to get my head around how the interview migh pan out. Is there small talk? Introductions? What question do they tend to start with?
Oh, and here is a really dense grammar question. How do I say I have got four children. I would generally have said: Mae pedwar plant gyda fi. But I notice, when I did my Bore Cothi interview, Sian Cothi corrected me. She said pedwar o blant. That got me thinking. Should it be Mae pedwar o blant sydd gyda fi? And why am I using the plural plant rather than plentyn when I am using an number?
Finally, Robert Bruce, can I pick your music industry brains? I purchased Plu’s album because I heard you talking about it. The sound is divine. Do you have any other recommendations?
if you use the number directly followed by the noun, you use the singular of the noun, so “mae pedwar plentyn gyda fi”
if you use the number, followed by ‘o’, followed by the noun, you use the plural, so “mae pedawr of blant gyda fi”
nobody is exactly sure when to use either of the above, “sounds right” was the argument I read on Facebook this morning, supported by none other than Iestyn certainly, for larger numbers, you would use the “o” construct
Sian obviously knew exactly what you meant, when she corrected you
Except with the special case of children when you always use “o”.
Un plentyn
Dau o blant
Tri o blant
etc.
This is one of those ‘polishing’ things that, if you can get it right, will make your Welsh sound really natural and accomplished, but if you don’t, well, meh, people will understand you anyway.
If it’s contemporary takes on the folk tradition you’re after then the last decade has been particularly fertile. If you’re not familiar with them, you should be checking out the work of:
9Bach
The Gentle Good
Alun Tan Lan
Chris Jones
Siddi
to name but a few.
In addition, I’ll get in trouble with @CatrinLliarJones if I don’t mention Blodau Gwylltion and her sister Lleuwen Steffan!
I’ve been trying to remember what they asked when I entered Dysgwr y Flwyddyn a few years back, but I was in such a state of nerves at the time that if you’d asked me immediately afterwards I couldn’t have told you and I still can’t remember.
I’ve actually entered again, just because I’ve moved on a lot from where I was and I think I might actually relax and enjoy it this time. Plus they kept sending reminders saying they didn’t have many entries, but they may have had a rush at the end. I’ll have to read my entry again to see what I actually said and try to think of other things to say in the interview. And then somehow I want to try and get out what I want to say instead of just responding to questions. That did throw me a bit last time - they asked something that I didn’t think was a very interesting question and I had to think so much how to answer it that I didn’t get to say some things that I really wanted to. I need to learn the interview skills of a politican - answer the question that I want to be asked rather than what they actually ask
That’s the horror of an interview. It is so organic. Your Welsh is amazing, Dee. I would imagine you will be able to say plenty of interesting things. I’m sure you did last time too. Even if you can’t remember them.
It sounds like a fun day. That would be part of the appeal for me if I was living in Wales. Do you know what time you are one. My interview is at 10.45 pm. I’lol be yawning my head off and then I won’t be able to sleep afterwards.
There were a couple of threads on the old forum which had a list of interview questions for Dysgwr y Flwyddyn and accounts of interview experiences from past competitors. @aran Can we still access specific threads on the old forum?
I’ve been through the first 25 pages of results for Dysgwr y Flwyddyn on the old forum, and these are the threads. I’m afraid I’m running out of steam now - were any of these what you wanted?
From your search results, this is the thread from 2013 I was thinking of. Both @tahl and I posted a list of questions in that thread, and its full of experiences and tips from SSiWers who have been interviewed for DyF.
Is this a rule? I’ve been thinking about the numbers thing since the Facebook conversation that louis mentions above, and I’ve thouroughly confused myself now…
I guess “use the o for more than ten” morphs into “always use o with kids” because however maany there are, it always seems like there’s more than ten…
If anyone has any previous experience of Dysgwr y flwyddyn, would they consider sharing it? Think of the things people told you before hand - even the silly little ones - and remember I am in Australia. I have no knowledge of the judges. No real experience of eisteddfod competitions. A huge gap in my cultural experience and no one to tell me anything. 
