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

Synd for dig!

Not at all to the degree that it works for eg Maths, because the range of things covered in Maths papers is extremely limited. However, at A-Level, the range of stuff covered in a language is also going to be relatively limited. The difficulty of questions and the type of exercises in the papers will not vary much - it's useful to make sure you're comfortable with what they expect if they expect you to give 'short sentences' as answers etc and you can get that from past papers and mark schemes. Usually it's a tick-box kind of approach where they want to see certain words that show you understood the information and know what the answer is for that kind of thing. The amount of different things in grammar and vocabulary is also going to be limited at A-level. Just make sure you're confident with what you're expected to be able to do. If you're running out of things to do to prepare (and you're reasonably solid on grammar), going through all the past papers and checking your vocabulary is up to scratch is a good idea. If a word appears in a past paper, it might appear again in your exam. It's also always a good idea to prepare a brief essay plan for each of the past essay questions and a list of vocabulary you'd need to put your points across well in each, because as I said, the expected vocabulary is pretty limited.

Well, the fact that it's "relatively limited" helps, I'm going through the past papers like I did last year, to learn more words and reaffirm words that I already know. I planned to do a lot this extended weekend, then more writing practice, unfortunately I couldn't do much because I've caught a virus. ( Great timing body.) I hope I still have enough time to get the grade that I want, though. Thanks again!

I'll definitely try to do some essay plans and think of what verbs, etc I can put in.

I got my official 'summons' to the Danish exams by email today - the one on the 21st starts at 9am and finishes at 2:30pm. There is no mention of a food break.

Held og lykke!

I've only seen fast-track A-level Spanish/Italian with people who've done French as well, though. It's the similarities.

It's a bit like how a Dutch person could do A-level German really easily... Hint, hint!

This is making my Spanish and french a levels feel boring haha, maybe I should try something else in my free time, any suggestions on how/ which language?


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Haha all languages are exciting tbh! Not that many people study them in general...

For you, Portuguese & Italian wouldn't be a long shot...unless you're brave enough to step out of the Latin family


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I also learnt Latin at gcse if that counts as slightly more obscure the problem being that i wouldn't want to get it confused, ie end up speaking Portuguese in my Spanish oral next year, I might try it though. Germanic languages really don't appeal to me, I like the romantic feel of french and Spanish :P


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That's your opinion...


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Haha, they just seem really aggressive to me



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Your perception of that point in particular would change quite a lot if you learnt them enough to be familiar with the sounds. But obviously no-one's forcing you to learn any of them if you don't want to (well, obviously everyone is forcing you to learn English but I doubt you mind that)!

This is an excellent point. We're all speaking a Germanic language right now, but we feel able to communicated a full range of nuances and emotions from *why the **** is there dog **** outside my front door" to "let me help you".

(This said, I do spend some of my time being xenophobic and small-minded about the French, in wondering how one actually communicates displeasure in French.)

I think Germanic languages suit the debate part of AQA A2 speaking exams, though!

Ooh you're giving me ideas! I would just love to have a discussion about languages in my speaking exam! It's with the day to day conversation I'm most likely to f*ck up, but thankfully most of that will be over when I've completed the GCSE!


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Dream on, dude! You can debate in a Germanic language, but no linguistics discussions! * It wouldn't happen on AQA, anyway!

Two cultural topics, and a surprise stimulus card. You get presented with a choice of two, and you pick one to discuss.

I will not tell you what I had today, because that would infringe the exam discussion rules. The subjects are all drawn from the AQA textbook, and are thus r̶e̶p̶e̶t̶i̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ fairly similar each year, though. The full range is something like environment, (nuclear power); immigration and integration; social issues (prison sentencing); scientific ethics (genetic manipulation, space research).

*Now that I think about it, I did actually work in a comment on linguistic change in response to the card I picked, but it took effort and my occasionally, p̶r̶e̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶u̶s̶, erm, unique way of seeing the world.

Nawww wauw you just had your exam!?!
Ohh I thiught those 24 hour discussion rules only applied to edexcel exams Amyway I have a longggggg way to go before I can even start considering what my preferred cultural topic areas will be! xD I do like a surprise, as long as it's somewhere in the spec, and I could do adequate preparation 4 it!

haha I'm surprised to see that there are no unemployment / history sub-topics on AQA tho...but I guess the content between different exam boards are not always identifal

Okk surely going "out of the box" will prove to be rewarding lol




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