Language applicants for 2012 entry

wow that gave me goosebumps *shivers*

Whyy, might I ask?

(cutting in to a conversation here, but anyway)

Yep, another -hopefully- prospective linguist here! Japanese, to be precise, and preferably combined with either history of art or international management. I applied for deferred entry last year, but got rejected 5x (well, in hindsight it probably wasn't the smartest move to use all 5 choices for one uni )

So, anyone here passionate about Japanese as well?

Beautifully written I think you've just reminded me why I love german so much Though obviously substitute the male for a female

My sister learns Japanse and is finding it so difficult. Which uni was that!?!?!



Obviously. Any other languages which come to mind?

SOAS. Still my dream uni. But i'm most definitely spreading the risk this year

And the difficulty factor: I agree with your sister. I've tried to learn some Chinese during the past 4 years (2 hours a week) and it was HARD.

But what is there about Spanish? I mean, yeah, I get a right thrill out of "feeling" where subjunctive goes, but it doesn't have enough rules, and you don't get that weird feeling when you realise that actually, English word order sucks and you'd rather think in the other language's word order instead (although Spanish does change with prepositions and stuff).

Do you like Carlos Baute?

Spanish is FULL of thrills, and rules! The impulse battles between ser and estar, por and para, the somewhat simplicity of the imperfect subjunctive, contrasted with the huge ambiguity by words which look identical to others but with/without an accent can change its meaning and make any translation a real chin-scratcher. The whole metre of Castillian metric is like a song, surely that's exciting! Spanish has 17 moods, one of which is literary (pretérito anterior) and two judicial/administrative (futuro de subjuntivo and futuro anterior de subjuntivo), which leaves 14 for regular use. Lots of conjugations, plenty of rules and meaty grammar!

As for word order, I quite often find myself writing in a 'Spanishy' word order... it seems much more logical than English!

I'm not sure about German, but the subjunctive is so common in Spanish, and there are so many situations in which it is used, and pronouns which it follows (unlike in French, when it normally follows que). There is perfect, imperfect AND present subjunctive, and for each of these there are 2 sets of conjugations... for any language student this puts the thrill in thrilling.

Obviously. Any other languages which come to mind?

Ohh gosh! I did Latin instead, so...

Where else will you apply?

Okay, that's just confirmed the fact that I really need to work on my Spanish grammar because clearly we haven't been taught very well.
Spanish is so NOT full of rules; it's all about "feeling" where everything should go Although that corresponds to the personalities of the countries. Germany, full of rules. Spain, full of feeling.
And I HATE trying to work out whether to use por or para, or worse, trying to choose between fue, era, estaba and estuvo. Arrrk.

Aha
I reaaallly regret not having the chance to learn German it sounds like a really interesting language. There's still time I guess

I'm logging off TSR now, as much as I'd love to debate Spanish rules for a few hours more, aha Night!

P.S. In response to your question earlier, I don't know who Charles Baute is

Why is everyone so interested in spanish??? I mean spain's a very popular country nowadays but at my school we have never been offered spanish at GCSE or A level.....

Only german and french.... :/

He's beautiful

(cutting in to a conversation here, but anyway)

Yep, another -hopefully- prospective linguist here! Japanese, to be precise, and preferably combined with either history of art or international management. I applied for deferred entry last year, but got rejected 5x (well, in hindsight it probably wasn't the smartest move to use all 5 choices for one uni )

So, anyone here passionate about Japanese as well?

Why is everyone so interested in spanish??? I mean spain's a very popular country nowadays but at my school we have never been offered spanish at GCSE or A level.....

Only german and french.... :/

Yeah, me! Hoping to study it with Spanish, but I might do Japanese+Linguistics at some places, depending on availability/entry requirements.

Yay! Applying to SOAS & Edinburgh as well, or completely different uni's?

Spanish & Japanese... Interesting combination. Where I'm from, the only option is often either Japanese ór Spanish. Or, better said, a combination isn't offered as a standard programme, you would actually have to register independently for both courses.