MFL and Ab initio MFL Oxbridge

[malteasergeezer]

Hello all,

Can anyone offer any insight into taking up a language ab initio at Oxbridge (or elsewhere for that matter) please? Dd has been through a lot of agonising about subject combinations for joint honours and has settled on French with Russian ab-initio. She is pretty proficient with French and is predicted AA A (with the possibility of the A being improved) for her A levels; she is quite inspired by the idea of doing Russian and although she's never studied it formally she has read a fair bit of Russian lit outside the curriculum and is teaching herself the rudiments of the language. She's studied it in reasonable depth at GCSE and A level too, in History.

(disclaimer - I hope the bit about her A levels didn't sound boastful)

Any comments or thoughts would be really welcome, thanks all.

Sorry that should have read A , A , A.

Bugger, A star A star A. can't get the star symbol to work for some reason!

I don’t know about ab initio languages at Oxbridge although I applied to study Portuguese ab initio at Cambridge back in the day. I ended up studying at Manchester and it was a very positive experience. The one thing I have found in the long time since is that without practicing the language learned from scratch it is much more easily lost than the one I took to A Level, I think because i just didn’t spend as long immersed in it so it never became engrained in my mind. But that is partly my fault for not keeping up the language post-graduation.

For application purposes I would advise that she be able to articulate why she wants to now study Russian. I don’t think my answer of wanting to combine Spanish and Portuguese so I cover the whole Iberian peninsula/pretty much all of south and Central America stood up to much scrutiny at cambridge! The fact she has some background literature and history knowledge will be helpful in that regard.

Thanks MummaGiles, yes I think she is genuinely interested in Russian history and culture etc.

That’s good, because unlike at A Level, a language degree is much broader than just taking language classes. She will be expected to take classes on literature, culture, history, politics etc depending on the degree course she ends up on. I would recommend that she looks at the modules which are taught/available at the universities she’s interested in, because the course contents and what she will be able to (or will have to) study besides the language element will vary between institutions. If she doesn’t like critiquing literature then Oxbridge may not necessarily be the best fit for her as I believe it is quite literature heavy. Likewise, the periods of literature / history / culture / politics covered in modules will really be guided by the specific interests of the academic staff in the department.

No Oxbridge experience here but I did do Russian ab initio myself some (cough) years ago now, along with French. It is likely, based on my experience, that at least half the students of Russian in first year will be ab initio students. It would be worth considering the following:

• year abroad and holiday travel. It would make a big difference to ab initio Russian to spend time in Russia during the long vacations, and ideally to spend the majority of the year abroad there to really consolidate the language. Worth looking at what the options are.

• I found that my vocabulary was always weaker in Russian as I simply hadn’t acquired and absorbed the language over many years in the way that I did with French.

• @MummaGiles makes some excellent points about wider course content. It would be worth really drilling into this at open days - every university will tell you they cover a mix of literature, history and other options but some offer more choice than others, and the balance of literature to other subjects is an important one to consider depending on personal interests. I would also suggest looking at whether she can choose modules in second year as well as fourth year.

I would really recommend Russian, both as a personal interest and a potentially very useful language to have! It is hard work but so fascinating and really opened up a whole new world and culture for me.

Thanks very much for those comments, very helpful. .