The Student Room Group
Reply 1
I applied for two of the Japanese courses at Sheffield last year, Japanese (T210) and Japanese with Spanish (T2R4 I think).
European languages aren't supposed to be all that good an indication of potential in Japanese, though saying that, I had A*s in French, German and Spanish and was about to do A2s in the first two and teach myself AS and A2 Spanish in a year. Still, I don't think the E will make them reject your application.
Both my offers for those courses were BBB btw. Feel free to ask me anything about it, dunno if I'll be able to tell you much more though tbh. Amusingly, I spoke to a person yesterday about uni (he's just about to get his GCSE results) and he started saying how he wants to do Japanese etc at Sheffield. Sounds like it's getting popular, lol.
Reply 2
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If you emphasise in your personal statement how much you love the Japanese culture and why, that would give you a good starting point. Emphasis may go on grades, but a uni will want to see someone who'll be committed to the course, as you definitely will be by the looks of things.

If it doesn't say you need a language then don't worry, I presume they'd have the right facts in the prospectus or website you've seen.

Go for it! Good luck!
Reply 4
FanTOM
Renove, mucho apreció.

Your reply has most certainly got me thinking. Congrats on your superb grades so far by the way. To self-teach yourself Spanish and to be looking to come out with a grade 'A' is amazing. What language have you found most challenging so far?

Awwwh shucks, thankyee :p:
Erm, which was the most challenging, gawd... err... French to be honest. Writing-wise anyway.
I love Spanish speaking, can speak fairly fast (well, I think so lol :s:) and have a decent accent (especially for someone who has no Spanish people about and taught herself, huzzah for TVE and Almodóvar!) and am pretty good at getting grammar (almost) perfect while speaking continuously in German (when I have the vocab anyway lol, which is where I think I'm lacking atm).
French however... I'd be better at it if I liked it lol. Listening/reading is easy, but then that always is easier in any language. Yeah, French. Been doing it since the last year of primary school, 2 years longer than German and erm... MUCH longer than Spanish lol. Yet it's the one I'm comparatively rubbish at. Meh.
I can't say what your chances of getting in are, since I'm not an admissions tutor, but you might as well go for it. All they can do is say no, and they might say yes. As Lil Lee Lee said, use your personal statement to show how enthusiastic you are about the language and culture and mention any reading you've done. Languages, especially Oriental ones, aren't the most popular of courses, so if the rest of your grades are good and you can convince them you really want to do the course, you should be in with a good chance.
Reply 6
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Reply 7
Hey FanTom,

Firstly, excellent choice in regards to choosing Sheffield to study Japanese. I'm just going into my second year there on the Japanese Studies Degree.

Secondly, Don't worry about your GCSE results whatsoever. You'd be surprised at how significant they are past getting into 6th Form College. The main thing is - like others have said but I feel like repeating for the hell of it - the personal statement. Due to it being Ab Initio, you really need to sell yourself with WHY you want to study Japanese (and not just the language! Its Japanese Studies, they like to boast how its not a language degree when in reality it so is!)

As long as you get the entry requirements (and dont even worry about those too much, I dropped a grade but still got in and doing very well) but you really need to make sure it is what you want to do. Unfortunately the course has a huge drop out rate and mainly because people just dont know what they're getting themselves into. I've made posts about Japanese at Sheffield in a few other threads in this Forum and under the Sheffield Uni forum so take a gander at those if you want a bit more info about the course etc.

If you have any questions about Japanese, Personal Statement for Japanese, or Sheffield or anything infact, dont hestitate to ask!

Regards
Jason
Just something I found on the Sheffield website; according to Sheffield's online prospectus, the requirements for all East Asian, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean studies have now increased to ABB for 2007 entry [although UCAS course search does not state this]. Alternatively you could go for BB and two AS levels at bb.
God I hope I'm accepted.
Reply 9
jaybones
If you have any questions about Japanese, Personal Statement for Japanese, or Sheffield or anything infact, dont hestitate to ask!


I was wondering -- how do you convey an interest in a subject (language) that you've not yet studied and know little about compared to, say, your A Level subjects? Should I decide to apply for ab initio Arabic, I'm slightly dubious of my ability to convince anyone, let alone an admissions tutor, to accept me. Do you happen to have any advice? I can only assume that a PS for Japanese and Arabic are quite similar in the sense that they are normally studied from scratch, etc.

Thanks. :biggrin:
With any language, ab initio or otherwise it seems to be important to stress your interest in the culture of the country/countries where it's spoken. Mention any trips you've done there, anything about the history or the culture that grabs you.

For languages like Arabic and Japanese where the alphabet is different, try learning a few characters and basics, even something as simple as "Hello" and other phrases learnt under your own steam will prove your commitment. You can then say that you have a genuine interest and a bit of subject knowledge already.

Hope that helps!
I applied for ab initio Spanish and I mentioned a holiday I'd been on to Tenerife, some literature I'd read in translation and the fact that I was teaching myself GCSE, so those are some ideas. Obviously with Arabic, you probably haven't been on any relevant trips and it would be very difficult to teach yourself to GCSE level, but culture, polititcs, history and literature would be good to talk about and you could try teaching yourself the absolute basics.
Reply 12
I'm doing Spanish for my degree. I've never studied it before and I haven't studied a language to a high level either so I had some convincing to do for the admission tutors. I am doing Spanish and I was inspired by the language on my visit to Spain. It seems that trips to the country of your target language is useful. Any reading you may have done on the laguage helps too. I said I tend to have a look at Spanish newspapers even though I may not know what they're talking about. I also added I was studying GCSE Spanish - I'm don't now and admission tutors were OK by this, but at the time when it came to decision making, they thought I was doing GCSE Spanish as a night class.

Just show a real good interest in the langauge which prooves you are capable of doing well in it.
Reply 13
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Reply 14
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Reply 15
Ahh Lynne the legend :smile: Glad you got everything sorted with that!

In regards to that question about how to convince the admissions tutor you are interested in a language if it will be ab initio - You just need to look deep down and find out why it was that made you want to study that Language. It may have been a visit to the country in question, or some relative or friend's parents speak that language and you were amazed by it, or possibly future job prospects you might hope for such as International business with whatever country or translation work etc etc its not as hard as you may think.

For example with Japanese, I was the former president of the Liverpool Go Club (Go is a Japanese board game). A very weird link I know but that helped spark up a desire for studying Japanese. Of course there were other things but you can use anything at all on your personal statement!

Hope I've helped!

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