What ab initio language would you pick?

[MummySallyK]

DS looking at MFL degrees and going to a UCAS event next week. He’s doing French and Spanish A-level but wants to start a 3rd language at uni (some places allow that he says). Would be really interested to hear from those with DC doing three languages as part of their MFL degree. What languages are they doing and what do they think of their uni/course?

There is rhyme and reason though, they may want a particular number of students taking language A or be looking for more state school candidates.

Way back in the 1980s a friend of my brother's had an offer from Oxford of EE. He was a brilliant mathematician and Oxford wanted him

"Way back in the 1980s a friend of my brother's had an offer from Oxford of EE. He was a brilliant mathematician and Oxford wanted him"

That isn't why he got a EE offer - it was pretty standard from Oxford in those days. I took the view that they had enough academic knowledge from the Oxford exams one took before interview

What is the source of the idea that boys have a higher offer rate for MFL? Not sure I've seen evidence of that.

But overall MFl has high offer rates and often lower grades than other courses at top universities so it's a great areas to apply for.

@ACJane You are I expect right that is no firm evidence that boys have a higher offer rate just a hunch that MFL courses have a high percentage of girls so will be keen to attract boys but probably an inaccurate hunch. Here are the stats for Oxford for 2021 and 2022 that have a breakdown for M & F applicants.

https://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Modern-Languages-Admissions-Feedback-Information-2022.pdf
https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Modern-Languages-Admissions-Feedback-Information-2021.pdf

Yes the stats elsewhere (shown on uniguide at summary level by course too) show quite a weighting towards girls on mfl courses but whether admissions tries to balance this by being more likely to give make applicant offers, I don't know. I'm not sure they'd care if there is a gender imbalance towards girls.

Perhaps a wildcard option but a couple of possibilities spring to mind here:

UCL’s BA in French and an Asian language (Asian language to be taught at SOAS)

SOAS BA in Korean - 4 years incl a year at a Korean university. Offer tariff is ABB.

SOAS BA in African, Asian or Middle Eastern Languages, can be combined with French. Also offer ABB.

Indonesian is supposed to be a very easy Asian language to learn and uses the Roman script.

Why does anyone learn a language at uni? It's not just to use on holiday! Grads with russian and mandarin knowledge are going to be highly in demand in terms of eg. government / public sector work given the geopolitical context at the moment. You don't need to be fluent to have an edge in some job roles by developing an understanding of culture / politics etc which comes with learning a language.

@MummySallyK , i have a russian degree and there were a few MFL students in my class doing russian as their 3rd language. I'd say only to pick it if he has a real interest (which it doesn't sound like he does) because it is a hard language to learn from scratch and i think to some extent they felt like they were spending disproportionately large amount of time on the third language to get to grips with it. Having said that, one of them ended up in a job working with russian clients every day so clearly it ended up being very lucrative!

The opportunity to get 2 languages to fluency won’t come again easily. They need a year of full immersion. You’ve got 2 chances: gap year and year abroad, thereafter you’d have to get a job in the country to achieve the same.

What are the options and from which places? You can definitely get fluent in a third ab initio at degree level.

For an easy life pick another romance, but Germanic would give you more versatility and are not much extra work coming from a romance background. Slavic much harder, and Asian would be amazing but only if you have plenty of time and headspace.

hey OP MFL is my subject. language graduate (Bristol) and former MFL teacher.

To answer a couple of points here - a low offer back in the day was not unusual - I was offered EE to go to UCL and also Nottingham.
Not at all sure that admissions officers favour boys above girls for MFL - pretty certain that would not be OK. Certainly tho fewer lads take MFL to uni level (or A level tbh).

OTOH it's great that your son is able to take two languages at A level and wants to continue both and pick up a third. Yay!

As to which language - which floats his boat? German is useful of course, and unlikely to get muddled with the other two. Tho at one stage I was studying three MFLs and I never got any of them confused.

He should be aware that a joint honours degree is already more work than single hons - my joint hons was like one and a half degrees in terms of workload against taking either subject as single hons. So adding a third MFL in a serious way (rather than, as suggested here by a PP, as enrichment or in downtime for fun) might be too much, Which might be why very few unis offer it. Best of luck to him tho

He should be aware that a joint honours degree is already more work than single hons - my joint hons was like one and a half degrees in terms of workload against taking either subject as single hons. So adding a third MFL in a serious way (rather than, as suggested here by a PP, as enrichment or in downtime for fun) might be too much, Which might be why very few unis offer it. Best of luck to him tho

That’s why getting fluent in one in your gap year is invaluable (sorry to be a bore about this). It cuts down the uni workload.

He may do this already, but I really recommend immersing himself in French and Spanish tv series on Amazon/Netflix (good excuse!). You can pick up quite a lot about the culture - cop thrillers for example provide insight into the justice system. And equally listening to audiobooks in the language.

DD did all three at university, and she says

1. Japanese is very hard, due to the complexity of the grammar. People also have to learn thousands of characters.
2. Mandarin is hard, because it’s a tonal language
3. Korean is just as hard, as Japanese because of the grammar
4. The grammar is very different to what we are used to
5. You really have to have a talent for languages, although OP’s DC must be good at languages
6. The drop out rate for these languages is high
7. People do these languages because they are into K pop or anime and it’s not enough - you have to be good at languages
8. She doesn’t want to put people off - if they have the ability and interest, they can do it!
9. As a third language, it’s not going to be as such a high level as she did, so DC won’t have to learn as many characters
10. She loved it!

He may do this already, but I really recommend immersing himself in French and Spanish tv series on Amazon/Netflix (good excuse!). You can pick up quite a lot about the culture - cop thrillers for example provide insight into the justice system. And equally listening to audiobooks in the language.

I actually meant primarily to pick up the language - the culture aspect is secondary.

I'd opt for Gernan as a good contrast. I did German and ab initio Italian for my degree and loved it.

I did German and Spanish and ab initio French. I dropped after Year 1, couldn’t get on with it, and instead picked up Dutch and took this to intermediate level. Enjoyed Dutch a lot!
What I will say however is look at module options. There were some very interesting cultural/history/linguistics etc modules that I would have loved to take, but I couldn’t because I was stuck with having so many core language modules.
Look at the PARTNERS scheme for Newcastle!

It's a shame Bristol shut its Deaf Studies department, BSL (well all signed languages) is a different and strangely useful.

As for Spanish TV / film

Money Heist
The platform (particularly if you watched next level chef)
The barrier

I'm tempted to start learning Spanish to watch them again without the subtitles.

DS (in Australia) did Indonesian ab initio. Relatively easy and nice travel opportunities.