Any of you done an a-level in a 'less common' language?

I did A level Dutch!!!!!! But its not my mother tongue I learnt it myself.

I got an A in AS, and intended to leave it there. My school entered me for the A2 though even though I hadn't studied any all year but I thought may as well do it, but I only ended up with a B cos of that.

I thought it was really hard though, way harder than A level French (despite the fact I speak Dutch a lot better!), I think maybe they write it with people who have it as their native tongue in mind.

Nee - ik spreek geen Fries, maar ik ken een Friese vrouw met mooie haar.

Hou je van wonen in Verenigde Koninkrijk? Alles gezellig?

WOoW. How are you finding it so far? Also, how long have you been learning Japanese??

Hi I am also planning to take A level Japanese too. Do your school offer A level Japanese? It is quite a 'rare' language

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Haha bless that's very honnest of you to make that fact clear to uni's like that.. Omg I can't imagine how hard the writing must be! My only understanding of Arabic are the numerals.. What Arabic dialect is your native? Is it particularly close to 'MSA' ??

:O These Aruban folks make TSRians look average!...

Well, I suppose Welsh counts. I got an A at AS, but I find that the papers are simply more difficult than my other subjects. I think subjects that few people choose are often more challenging.

The writing is sooooo difficult! The exam i have in june is 3 hours long and it involves a proper essay based on books that i have to read ahh!!
Umm well I'm from Jordan and it is quite different from MSA yes :/

I did Arabic GCSE in year 8 and doing A2 now. I am a native speaker so i have made that clear to universities as i would not like it to be a part of any offers (feels a little like cheating) although it is sooooo difficult and the grammar is crazy! It is beautiful though

All languages are less popular )

You are all so lucky my 6th form only does the 'big three'

congrats on the A! but perhaps few people choose the subjects that are more challenging not the other way round.

Oooh this reminds me that I did Arabic upto AS level I'm not a native speaker so I found AS quite a step up from GCSE, which I found quite easy. And the grammer is an absolute nightmare but I love writing it

Thank you!! I'm a lot less anxious about completely failing German next year, thanks to your post! So I'm guessing you had to go over the basic (gcse material) when you first started? But your doing it by yourself now?? How are you going to arrange for the Speaking exams? Or is your school sorting it out for you?? So is there anything else your studying besides German, French & Spanish? What board are you on btw? And definately, extra things like reading newspapers / listening to music in your target language, really help..I also try thinking in the language, but that naturally doesn't last Do you manage to think in German/French/Spanish throughout the day? I'll definately do that for German That's the thing I like about the more common languages...Learning resources are EVERYWHERE!

Ohh w8..you're at uni? Ohh I thought you were in yr13..my bad May I ask for your final grade in each respective language please & what linguistic degree youre studying now?
Ohh that happens to me without reason! :L Hope all is going well with you now though

[ If you csn do it...(I hope) I can do it too Wha yu sayin?? a B in a language you learned by yourself from scratch is GREAT!!
Did you do the old spec or new exam? And I know what you mean! The essay questions especially are VERY thought provoking! and without knowledge of the content...one would fail...zeer ongelukkiig! and that's what I think..or maybe they make it harder to compensate for the fact that there isn't one of those scary oral exams

I have enormous difficulty pronouncing Dutch words. I can't even get my throat around "schatje". At least natives consider my pronunciation to be way off.
(And no, Dutch "sch" is not pronounced "sh" like in German!)

Hiya, I do Japanese at uni, I think N3 is around A level standard (I take it you passed?) So if you just make sure you know everything on the syllabus, yeah just enter as a private candidate!

Oooh this reminds me that I did Arabic upto AS level I'm not a native speaker so I found AS quite a step up from GCSE, which I found quite easy. And the grammer is an absolute nightmare but I love writing it

This phenomenon got me interested in the psychology of language acquisition. According to critical period theory, exposure to many languages at a young age (and Arubans start young) leads to it being very easily to acquire fluency without much effort. (In contrast, delaying learning a foreign language until adulthood makes it very difficult.)

Dutch, English and Spanish are also very common languages on Aruba (in addition to their mother tongue), so an Aruban child gets full immersion in them all. Their mind soaks them up like a sponge. The educational system is the perfect compliment.
And another phenomenon is that the more languages a person is proficient in, the easier it is to add another (particularly related languages such as other European ones).
So fluency in 6 languages isn't quite as difficult as it seems in such an environment.