University Responses

Thank you! You'll likely get Cardiff tomorrow or the day after, it was the last to send me one too But the second to give me an offer. People are already getting offers from Birmingham and I've got a postcard from Swansea saying 'you'll hear back from us soon'... 3 weeks after the initial email which I thought a little odd...

I hope so! Yeah, I read people are already getting offers from Birmingham, but no one has gotten an offer for the course I want. A part of me wants to hear back soon so I can know, but another part of me doesn't want to know lol. Even if Swansea takes a while, at least you already have a firm and insurance

Let me know if you get an offer, seeing as we're looking at similar courses?
Swansea was just a backup really. In case I didn't get Cardiff it would be my insurance and Aber my firm. If I got Cardiff but not Aber it would also have been my insurance. I'm very curious to see if Birmingham likes me though! Even though in the end I'm going to decline it...

Of course! Is there any particular reason you applied to so many Welsh universities?

I love Wales far too much even though I don't live there and I would like to learn Welsh whilst at University - it's such a fascinating language!

I live in Wales (about half an hour from Cardiff), so if either of you have any questions, I'll try to answer them for you! I'm not sure how much help I'd be, though, especially if you've been there before.

I'm also doing A Level Welsh, so if you have any questions about that, feel free to ask. Although I'll probably be even less help with this than with my Cardiff/Wales knowledge.

You're so lucky to live in Wales! Every time I've visited (I've been to Aber twice, and Cardiff and Bangor once) I've loved every minute!

Is Welsh fun to learn? My high school form tutor was Welsh so that's probably where my fascination with Wales came from hehe. Also, are there any quiet places/places to relax in or around Cardiff?

Thank you so so much!

You wouldn't be saying that if you went to the valleys!

I only really go to Cardiff for shopping (there are a ton of shops there, especially because of the relatively new St Davids or whatever it's called), but I know that there are loads of coffee shops and stuff like that, as well as different fields (? I don't know if that's the right word - more like parks but without the swings/parky things, if that makes sense). Also Cardiff Bay is super nice and there's loads of places there to just sit and visit. It's not IN Cardiff, but Roath park is sooo nice and it's near there! I used to always go when I was younger. There's a big lake and there's parks and, again, field type things with loads of flowers and stuff, if that's what you're into. I'm not quite sure what you mean by quiet places tbh, but I'm sure there's more quiet places than just fields.

Yes and no, to the learning Welsh question. I like learning Welsh (it's my favourite subject), but I hate learning the grammar. I don't know if you've come across mutations before, but they are the worst. Apparently people who aren't from Wales find them fascinating, though? I don't know why - they are a pain to learn/remember. But if you have the chance to learn it, do it! It's a relatively easy language to learn and it is interesting.

Duolingo is going to have a Welsh course soon, if you're interested in learning the basics! They have loads of languages on there and it's free

What's wrong with the valleys?

That's exactly what I mean by 'quiet places' - somewhere to sit, enjoy the views and destress haha

Mutations? What are they? Tbh I've always enjoyed learning languages - if it wasn't for the extended-convo-with-no-prompts section of the A-Level I definitely would have studied French. That Duolingo thing sounds good, might try that out All I know is Bore Da, and I've sung Happy Birthday in Welsh too though I've forgotten it now.

Just watch the TV show called the valleys and you'll understand! It's rough here haha

Basically, different words cause different mutations (some of the most popular ones are pronouns - he, she, they, we, etc.). So, for example, dad in Welsh is tad. But if you're saying my dad (my = fy), it would turn into fy nhad. There are different types of mutations, too - nasal, aspirate and soft. It depends on the word what type of mutation it is. An other example is Wales, which is Cymru in Welsh. But, if you're saying in Wales (in being yn), it becomes yng Nghymru. There are loads of different mutation rules and some words don't mutate, so it's very hard to remember!

Some of it depends on there being masculine and feminine words, too, which there is no way of remembering unless you look in a dictionary - even my teachers don't know when a word is masculine or feminine. For example, poem (cerdd) is feminine, so when you put the (y) before it, it becomes y gerdd. Party (parti), on the other hand, stays as y parti when you put the before it because it's masculine. They're the only two I know.

Don't even get me started on years. The word changes depending on how many years you're referring to.

That's the good thing about Welsh, see - you don't need to do an improvised speaking exam. We literally write all of our responses up to set questions, memorise them, then spew them out in the exam. I guess it's not that good if you haven't got a good memory, but you definitely have to develop one with Welsh.

Also, happy birthday in Welsh is penblwydd hapus if you were wondering!