Getting an A* in a mother-tongue language?

Surely it's only the same as English people getting A* in English GCSE or Welsh people getting A* in GCSE First-Language Welsh? Only difference is that those are compulsory whereas you can choose these other ones. I say go for it, an extra A* is an extra A*. No-one's going to sit you down in a job interview and explain that you're perfect for the job in all aspects other than the fact that they consider your A* in your mother-tongue a "cheat" GCSE.

Not sure about Welsh but getting an A* in English in England is nothing compared to A* in other languages which at GCSE is elementary level AS the work really loads up.

Basically it is much difficult to get good grade in English GCSE requires more work than in a GCSE language.

How are universities going to know?and OP should take it for A-Level as well-easy A*.

Surely it's only the same as English people getting A* in English GCSE or Welsh people getting A* in GCSE First-Language Welsh? Only difference is that those are compulsory whereas you can choose these other ones. I say go for it, an extra A* is an extra A*. No-one's going to sit you down in a job interview and explain that you're perfect for the job in all aspects other than the fact that they consider your A* in your mother-tongue a "cheat" GCSE.

That wasn't too clever.

I'm really jealous of how many foreign languages are offered at GCSE level. Foreign language instruction here in the USA pales in comparison to that of the UK. I mean, even as a native English speaker, I would've loved the opportunity to take GCSE Manx or Tamil or something exotic. If such a language is your native one then more power to you; I'd want to learn more about it too. And anyone who judges you according to that is just a jealous monoglot or, even worse, a xenophobe.

I am with as far as the extra A* bonus is concerned. However, I disagree entirely with your opening assertion. Its definitley not the same as achieving an A* in GCSE English. GCSE English takes account of the fact that this is the first language of the overwhelming number of people in this country, whereas what the thread maker is talking about is sitting Arabic GCSE as a foreign language, ie learning from the perspective of a 'native English-speaker'.
What you seem to equate is that an A* is GCSE Arabic as a foreign language for a student who is in fact a native speaker, is the same relative difficulty as a native english-language speaker achieving an A* in GCSE English with the exam designed for those whose first language is indeed english. That is faulty logic to me.

If it was writing,you should have got 60 minutes,which should be enough to create a full UMS GCSE piece from scratch,if it was your mother tongue I would have imagined and I forgot my writing scripts for German and created it all from scratch and it ended up being my highest mark,an high A* and no,German isn't my mother tongue language I only speak English so i'm a little

So if I get an A* in my mother-tongue language (the language that is spoken at home between family members, which doesn't require any revision/lessons) would that count? or would it be as a cheat-GCSE?

I'm considering doing Arabic GCSE but I know everything and it feels as if I'm cheating my way into an A*, I don't know whether I should do it or not.

If it was writing,you should have got 60 minutes,which should be enough to create a full UMS GCSE piece from scratch,if it was your mother tongue I would have imagined and I forgot my writing scripts for German and created it all from scratch and it ended up being my highest mark,an high A* and no,German isn't my mother tongue language I only speak English so i'm a little

So if I get an A* in my mother-tongue language (the language that is spoken at home between family members, which doesn't require any revision/lessons) would that count? or would it be as a cheat-GCSE?

I'm considering doing Arabic GCSE but I know everything and it feels as if I'm cheating my way into an A*, I don't know whether I should do it or not.

You're confused.. the poster you're replying to meant that they hadn't practiced writing the arabic script sufficiently. It's a different alphabet, goes right to left, much much more complex than the latin script (which is what we write in, or extended latin for german) and it all has to be joined up (each letter flows into the next letter).

Most letters have 4 forms, depending on whether they come at the beginning, middle or end of a word, or are on their own.. but some letters only have some of the forms, and then force other letters around them to take a different form.

On top of that, it's not a phonetic language - the sounds made in your head and the way they are captured in writing are quite different from European languages.

So - in a nut shell, *writing* arabic is a different skill set to speaking it. Indeed there are many fluent arabic speakers who can't write it at all. Not in the least bit similar to German.