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Would is best university to study languages?

Hi guys, I just wondered what is the best university to go to if you wanted to study languages such as French and Spanish ?

Reply 1

Quick-use

I'm sure there's a university that has the best prospects for its graduates of French and Spanish. I'm not sure which university that is though, but it's probably one of the Oxbridge universities.

Keep in mind about one thing: a lot of the universities for languages focus on different things. Some universities focus heavily on literature whereas some others focus heavily on linguistics.

Reply 2

tengentoppa

Oxford and Cambridge. Edinburgh is very good too.

Reply 3

Paralove

I applied for those two languages!! League wise, oxford and Cambridge are the top two, but their course is quite literature based and you study topics way further back in history than pretty much anywhere else. Southampton is next best and I would highly highly recommend it (my insurance choice). The programme is very contemporary and very wide ranging in terms of what topics you can choose. Exeter is pretty good as they do tutorials like Oxbridge have. It honestly depends on what you want to study.

Reply 4

TheBigJosh

From your construction of the thread title, I would review your grasp on English first...
However, aside the top 2 - Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Warwick, Durham and Bristol are all solid places to go. Language content is high. Personally, I think Southampton is very overrated.

Reply 5

niamh17

Original post by TheBigJosh

Whoops, I was in a hurry and I rephrased the title and I forgot to replace would with what. How bad- and thank you that has given me lots to think about

Oxbridge

Southampton isn't bad I just think it's not as good as it is made out. If you like language then the aforementioned places are good from my perspective, Oxbridge is more literature I saw, so I turned down their offer.

Reply 8

cambio wechsel

I'd second the poster who said that the courses at Oxford and Cambridge are essentially courses in French (or Spanish or whatnot) literature. That might be a good or bad thing, I dunno. Depends on what you want from it.

If you are a credible candidate for the 'best' universities, I'd be inclined to go for this: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/esps/prospective-students/esps-dual-degree-ba, choosing the Spanish option at Poitiers. And to think about this: http://ulip.london.ac.uk/ba_french_studies

Reply 9

username1221364

Original post by niamh17

Hi guys, I just wondered what is the best university to go to if you wanted to study languages such as French and Spanish ?

You can't look at just the overall picture. It depends on what specifically you're interested in. For me, I'm really interested in the various dialects of Italy, and Exeter offers modules on that. So that will most likely be my top pick. Durham is also really good for languages, or so I hear!

Reply 10

sophia5892

Top 15 unis for French: Oxford, Durham, Cambridge, Warwick, Bath, King's College, St Andrews, Edinburgh, UCL, Southampton, Glasgow, Exeter, Sheffield, Nottingham, Newcastle.

Top 15 for Spanish: Durham, Cambridge, Oxford, St Andrews, Nottingham, Birkbeck, Newcastle, Leeds, Edinburgh, Manchester, UCL, Southampton, Bath, King's College, Exeter

Those unis are according to the complete university guide.
For Modern Languages generally you can look here: http://www.theguardian.com/education/table/2013/jun/04/university-guide-modern-languages-linguistics

I think that basically gives you an idea of the kind of institutions to consider, but then as others have said, you need to think about what you want. Although Oxbridge are the most highly regarded academically, and would set you in great stead for masters/phD, they're not necessarily the best places to go to for certain career paths as they're very literature focused. A lot of employers now want to know about the complete individual - so it's not just what you study, it's all about your work experience, what you did on your year abroad, your extra-curricular etc etc.

Aside from course content, it's important to consider things like campus vs. city environment, cost of student life, Year Abroad opportunities, large department vs. small department etc etc etc

Personally I went for Newcastle because it's highly regarded and good for languages, very very flexible courses, small department so you get to know all your lecturers and it's really personal, campus uni but right in the city centre too, and cheap, student oriented city to live in. To name just a few reasons!

So yeh, pick what's right for you :smile: