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Cyfres Amdani: Teithio drwy Hanes

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Llyfr o gyfres Amdani, i ddysgwyr Lefel Sylfaen. Yn y llyfr hwn mae Jon Gower yn mynd 'r darllenydd i 30 o leoliadau sy'n gysylltiedig hanes Cymru. Mae'n esbonio pam mae'r lleoliadau yn bwysig yn hanes Cymru, ac mae e'n disgrifio eu harddwch a'u naws yn ei ffordd arbennig ei hun. A book for Welsh learners, Foundation Level. In this book, Jon Gower takes the reader to 30 different locations connected to Wales' history. He explains why these places are important to Welsh history and describes their beauty and atmosphere in his own special way.

44 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2018

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About the author

Jon Gower

44 books10 followers
Jon Gower grew up in Llanelli. A former BBC Wales arts and media correspondent, he was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where he read English. He is a documentary maker for television and radio with a third of a century's credits to his name. Recent documentaries cover subjects such as the secret life as a poet of Hollywood actor Robert Mitchum (based on the book 'Oh Dad!' by Lloyd Robson) and the Summer of Love in San Francisco.

Jon has eleven books to his name, in both Welsh and English. They include 'An Island Called Smith,' about a disappearing island in Chesapeake Bay, which gained him the John Morgan travel writing prize, and 'Uncharted', a novel described by Jan Morris as 'unflagging and unfailingly inventive.' In 2009 he was awarded a major Creative Wales award to explore the Welsh settlement in Patagonia.

Along with novelist Tiffany Murray, Jon is currently a Hay Festival International Fellow, and his next books will be a novel called 'Y Storiwr', due out in July 2011 and 'The Story of Wales' which will accompany a landmark BBC series, due to be broadcast early in 2012. His second volume of short stories 'Too Cold for Snow' will appear in May 2012 as will a joint publication about the Welsh coastline where his text complements beautiful photography by Jeremy Moore.

In what little spare time he has Jon develops and performs theatre pieces with actor Gerald Tyler and trumpeter Tomos Williams, and reads, both to his children and occasionally by himself!

Jon lives in Cardiff with his wife Sarah and two book-loving daughters Elena and Onwy.

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5 stars
15 (46%)
4 stars
8 (25%)
3 stars
8 (25%)
2 stars
1 (3%)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Profile Image for Nicola Michelle.
1,874 reviews15 followers
March 24, 2025
I don’t often read non-fiction Welsh books so I’m grateful to the Sylfaen course for exposing me to things I wouldn’t necessarily chose to read myself! It exposes you to a whole new different kind of Vocab and is so learner friendly. I always learn a lot of this Dysgywyr series.

And while it’s not necessarily a book that everyone will enjoy to read as with fiction (unless non fiction is your bag) I did enjoy learning about a lot of different history, welsh buildings and places I now want to visit!
442 reviews
May 10, 2020
Very short write up of places of historical note around Wales.
Written for Welsh learners.
Fairly interesting
Profile Image for Elizabeth.
105 reviews2 followers
February 5, 2024
A Christmas gift that was a pleasant little read over a few days. This book covers some of the most famous and historically interesting sites of Cymru - and I'm proud to say I've visited some of them (I particularly recommend the Sain Ffagan museum, it's an excellent day out, and very good to practise your Welsh in) and now have a few more on my bucket list. It's printed in colour so you'll have some photographs to match up with the text.

Recommended at Uned 20 of Sylfaen, this was a relatively smooth read for me as a mid-Canolradd student but I still found myself looking up certain words or referring to the geirfa at the back on occasion. Late Sylfaen books do seem to be quite the undertaking, as Robyn has already noted! This certainly isn't on the level of Samsara and Trysor Garn Fadryn and is easier to break up into smaller sections, so would make nice 'coffee-break' material. Outside of Amdani, if you liked the Ar Ben Ffordd series, you'd probably like this too.

It's not quite a 5, but a 4 just about sums it up. I've got a couple of other factual books yn y Gymraeg by Mr Gower (admittedly not written for learners), and completing Teithio Drwy Hanes has reminded me to get cracking with them this year!
Profile Image for Robyn.
2,086 reviews
July 10, 2022
Gwych!
I really enjoyed this, but it was definitely an undertaking. On every single page, the list of new words defined at the bottom was between 8 and 20 words long, and there were other words in the text that were also new to me, so this required more dictionary work than the Amdani books usually do. The method I chose was to read a sentence aloud, and if I understood it, just move on, but if I missed anything I would go back and break it down bit by bit until I had it. Slow. But the last few I was moving through at a good pace, so it worked for me. My ability to say years needs work, clearly.
I'm signed up for Cylch Darllen ar Zwm using this book for tair wythnos starting this coming week, hopefully by the end of that I'll be moving through it quite quickly. I'm halfway through Sylfaen right now.
Profile Image for Judith Johnson.
Author 1 book100 followers
September 12, 2022
Found the Welsh in this book matched my learning level well.

Was excited but surprised to read that the Emperor Constantine was born in Caernarfon, but when I looked that fact up, am pretty sure it's incorrect. The Emperor was born in Naissus, Dacia, now Serbia. The Constantine born at Caernarfon was, according to sources on the internet, perhaps the eldest surviving son of the British Emperor, Magnus Maximus. Little is known of him for sure, but there are indications that he probably ruled one of the post-Roman divisions of Wales, like his brothers.
Profile Image for Sarah.
18 reviews
June 29, 2025
Roedd hi’n hyfryd darllen llyfr ffeithiol yn lle’r ffuglen arferol. Dysgais i rai pethau diddorol (e.e. pam mae’r Brifysgol Aberystwyth yn edrych fel hynny!) a ches i ddigon o gyfleoedd i ymarfer rhifau a dyddiadau.

Mae’r llyfr yn cael ei threfnu yn ddestlus (un stori ar bob tudalen) ac mae’r rhestri termau ar gwaelod bob tudalen yn berffaith i’r lefel.

Ro’n i hefyd yn meddwl bod yr ystod o hanes yn y llyfr hon yn grêt - o CC 29,000 i adeiladu’r Senedd.
Profile Image for Sam Williams.
65 reviews
June 17, 2021
Fantastic summary of some key historical sites in Wales, while providing a great opportunity to enhance your reading skills in Welsh
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews

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