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placenta medicae talpae
Oh wow, it must have taken quite a bit of dedication just turning up!
Yeah, I crammed quite a bit too.
I think by far the easiest ones are the reading ones, since they're always very general (and you can always guess any specialist vocab they might use), and the answers are usually somewhere in front of you :woo:

Is Pinyin a computer system for churning out characters?
I love the languages bar on the computer, to write completely random things like てますちにらい and then pretend that you 'know what it means' aha :smile:


Pinyin is using characters to write out the words: Ni hao = 你好
Reply 21
placenta medicae talpae
It's pretty much to do with UCAS points - I think it's something like 25 for each grade 12, 18 for a grade 11 and 11 for a grade 10 - I might be wrong.
But it means that, for example, four grades 12 is equivalent to a B at A Level, since they're both worth 100 UCAS points! :woo:

Ooh nice, so are you into any other kinds of languages than MFLs then, like older forms of English, ancient languages, or made-up languages - or even nonsense? :biggrin:

Yay, I think they're lovely little things too - and if I have to take a gap year, I'll do as many languages to like grade 9 as I can! :cool:


Yeah, I think you're right with the UCAS points, really useful if you miss your Uni offer by a grade, but none points for me :frown:

As for other languages, not necessarily. In A level English language I studied child language acquistion and language change - which created my interest in linguistics. Mainly, I'm really interested about how our language is put together, but I like learning other languages. I'd love to be fluent in French, Japanese and something else one day.

That's a great idea about learning different languages in your gap year, or maybe you could boost your knowledge of a current one?
My school offers lots of asset languages: they're compulsory for the people who don't do two language GCSEs, and who don't do a language AS Level, which isn't me. Next year, though, I may well volunteer to do Russian or Greek.
Reply 23
placenta medicae talpae
They're pretty cool modern foreign languages units which can be taken in many, many different ways at loads of different points throughout the year.

All the languages you'd expect are offered, but there are also quirky ones in the mix - I think you can even do Cornish! :rolleyes:

They are graded from grade 1 to grade 17 (I think), with grade 9 being roughly GCSE standard, 12 A(S) standard, and anything higher than that being supposedly like doing a tiny unit at degree level.

It's usual to do them in certain specific skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing), and few centres offer speaking since there is training and extra costs for this.
These can be done internally or externally usually (except for post-grade 12 I think), and there are lots of checks done on the internally-assessed exams).
Yet some candidates will want to do all four skills at, say, advanced level (grades 10 to 12), and there is a certificate for this, and it makes it a bit more like doing a normal languages qualification.


hey thanks for that i will def give them a go as my stupid school did not offer a full course gcse in french and now i cant do it at college :frown:
but to get a qualification through this would be fantastic!
TheatreLovely
My school offers lots of asset languages: they're compulsory for the people who don't do two language GCSEs, and who don't do a language AS Level, which isn't me. Next year, though, I may well volunteer to do Russian or Greek.


That is such a cool idea!
I wish they did ancient Greek as well as the modern :rolleyes:
misssmarty
hey thanks for that i will def give them a go as my stupid school did not offer a full course gcse in french and now i cant do it at college :frown:
but to get a qualification through this would be fantastic!


Yeah, it'd be a neat way to bypass the usual system! :woo:

The only thing is that relatively few centres offer assets, so you might have to do a bit of searching in your area to find a place which will offer them :smile:
For anyone who cares (probably no-one :p:) here are the languages offered:

Arabic
Bengali
Cantonese
Cornish
French
German
Greek
Gujarati
Hindi
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Mandarin
Panjabi
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Somali
Spanish
Swedish
Tamil
Turkish
Urdu
Welsh

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