French and Japanese course...how competitive?

I'm going to apply to do French and Japanese at Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford Brookes and Lancashire, and I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about the competitiveness of this particular course at these unis? Or if anyone does this course and can tell me a little bit about what it's like? I'm particularly interested in Newcastle and Manchester. So yeah, any insight would be lovely, thank you!

Hey, I did French, German and Japanese at Newcastle - graduated last year and doing an MA there now. So any questions ask away

Are you doing Japanese from beginners?
I'm guessing you've applied for the Modern Languages (T901) course?

In terms of competitiveness I'm not really sure. I have some statistics...
In 2012/13 T901 got 327 applications, of whom 59 entered.
In 2013/14 T901 got 383 applications, of whom 61 entered.

Not sure how it fits in with the above, but in 2013 they had 65 people register for T901.

The only problem with the numbers is it doesn't say how many applicants got offers. It's probably pretty safe to imagine that the number getting offers was much higher than the 60 ish who started the course, considering that most students apply to 5 institutions each.

I've always been given the impression that admissions are fairly flexible, particularly as you don't commit to your languages until you start the degree in September. So it's not like they have 25 places for French, and 15 places for Japanese and you're in competition for them. I'd therefore hope that if you're on track grades wise, and write a decent personal statement that you'd be in for a good chance.

Thank you! This is very helpful. I'm still only a first year in college, so I won't be applying until later on this year, and yes I'd be starting Japanese from beginner's level. I've heard that Newcastle is a really good uni for languages, so that's why I think I like the look of it so much. What do you mean that you don't commit to your languages until September? Like, you can change your mind before you start? What grades did they say you had to have on your offer? Thanks!

ABB with an A in French or German. The website says the entry requirements are ABB-BBB but I believe what I got is pretty standard.

They have a supported entry route where you can get a lower offer and do a summer school if you meet one of a bunch of criteria: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/schools/partners/
The typical stuff you'd expect - having parents who haven't been to uni, or going to a poor performing school for GCSE or A Level, or being from an area where few people go to uni.

And yeh you can change your mind when you arrive. On the UCAS form you indicate which languages you're interested in - I guess that helps them evaluate your academic performance and statement. But when I arrived to register for my course and choose modules, nobody ever mentioned that I'd chosen Fre, Ger and Jap on my application. So I could have changed my mind. And I know a few students who originally applied for one or two languages but chose to add another after they'd seen the options.

I think the flexibility is the big thing that makes Newcastle stand out. I'm not sure what the system is at your other uni options, but many I looked at had you registering for a Joint Honours degree, so you're committing to your languages for the full degree. I found this quite scary seeing as I had no idea if I'd love or hate Japanese. Whereas at Newcastle I knew I'd be able to alter my language combination if I wanted to. So I could choose to do Japanese for 1 year only, or 2 years of my full degree. Or I could drop French or German if I wanted to focus on two languages but was loving the Japanese etc. etc. I was worried that if I went somewhere to do, say, German and Japanese, but hated the Japanese then I might have to drop out or transfer courses and it'd be really complicated. At Newcastle, as you're registered onto Modern Languages which lets you do 1-3 languages, you can drop a language without having to change degree or repeat a year.

Other decided factors for me were cost - Newcastle is a pretty cheap student city and accommodation there was cheaper than other places I looked. Everything is walking distance so really convenient. And there's still lots to do there - with 2 big city centre universities everything is marketed at students!

And the Year Abroad. Some unis I looked at specified that you had to split your year half and half or they made you go abroad in second year. Personally, I found it hard enough getting by in Japan after 2 years of study - if I'd have gone abroad in second year instead there's a high chance I'd have dropped out.

At Newcastle, if you do Japanese, you'll have to spend the full academic year studying in Japan. So bear that in mind! For me that's what I wanted - I think you need the full year there to really benefit. But of course that might not be what you want.
Newcastle also has a huge range of universities you can choose from - others I looked at might only have a couple. This also means that you might be the only Newcastle student to go to a certain partner, which forces you to get out there and meet people!
The website isn't entirely accurate on choices I'm afraid. But at present we have:

Akita International University
Aichi Prefectural University
Kyushu University
Fukuoka University
Kobe City University of Foreign Studies
Hokkaido
Hiroshima Shudo
Kyoto

Then in the Tokyo area there's:
Dokkyo
Hosei
Hitotsubashi
Waseda
Sophia
ICU

So you have a massive choice over which area of Japan you live in.
And, as you're "forced" to spend the year in Japan, they also offer a bursary so you can do a language course in your other languages so your French doesn't have to suffer.

Plus uni students get much longer holidays. So it could be possible to organise a summer work placement somewhere French speaking too.

For example my Year Abroad worked as follows:
Early June 2012: finish exams
late June - late July: 4 week German Language Course in Cologne
late July to mid-August: volunteer at London 2012 and get Japanese visa
late September - January: semester 1 in Japan
February/March: Spring Holiday - travel to Korea, China, and around Japan
April - end July: semester 2 in Japan
August - early September 2013: French Language course in Montreal (3 weeks + one week holiday)

It's great how flexible the course can be! You've made it sound amazing. Yeah I think the year abroad will be really helpful. In fact, that's what's putting me off a lot of the other universities, because you either don't spend the year in Japan, or you spend a very short amount of time in Japan. Also your year abroad sounds brilliant, so I'd quite like to have a whole year to fully experience Japan and just get way better at the language. Another thing with other unis is you also don't have the same flexibility with how the course is balanced. Most places I've looked at are 75:25 with French and Japanese, when really I'd like to become a lot more proficient in Japanese.

I had no idea about the partners programme! That would be really great if I could do it. Do you know if it's for first or second years? It doesn't say it on the website, and if it's for first years then I can't do it because I've missed the deadline.

As far as I'm aware for Partners you apply at the same time as you apply through UCAS.
I have a friend who applied through Partners and did the summer school. He said it was pretty good prep for the course, and it took the pressure off a little knowing he could get the lower offer.

Yeh I think having the full year there is really important. Another thing in terms of proficiency is that Newcastle has flexible language levels for Japanese.
So the normal route is:
A Level --> Level B, C, Year Abroad, D (so that's what you'd do in French)
beginner --> Level A, B, Year Abroad, C

Have you heard of JLPT?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-Language_Proficiency_Test

At Newcastle you're expected to be at N3 level by the end of the Year Abroad and N2 level by the end of Level C. N2 is the level lots of employers ask non-natives to get. The top level, N1, can be hard to pass even for a native!

Or, if you want, you can take JLPT N2 whilst you're in Japan, and if you pass you can do Level D Japanese in final year. Level D aims at N1.

This was a new thing for my Year Group so we only found out in April of the Year Abroad that this was an option. 2 girls in my year group did that, so it is possible.
I also took N2 while I was in Japan and failed by 4 marks so I was pretty close too.
I reckon if I'd known before the Year Abroad I could have studied harder and passed it.
Before I knew we could do Level D there didn't seem much point pushing myself to then have to repeat stuff in Level C, and even as it was I found Level C rather boring/easy.

I know it's super early for you to be thinking of things like that, but that's where your Year Abroad options make a huge difference. I went to Kyushu Uni which offers 8 levels of Japanese, so it's really easy to find a class at the right level and progress quickly.
Some of the other partner unis will only offer 3 or 4 levels (eg, Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced). By the end of second year Newcastle students tend to be pretty borderline between Elementary and Intermediate (I did Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate 1 classes at Kyushu). So I know some students who've ended up placed into Elementary classes and then not progressed as much because they've had to repeat a little. But then some students who struggled with the classes at Newcastle really benefited from the repetition/reinforcement in Japan. So it goes both ways!

Wow thank you so much for all this information, it's really helpful! Yeah, it looks like you do apply for the partners thing in second year, which is good.

Yeah I know about JLPT. Do you sit JLPT exams or are you just brought up to the equivalent level? It sounds like you can get to a really high level anyway.

What career are you hoping to go into with languages?