Studying a language from scratch at uni?

Hello everyone, at that time when i'm looking at unis. I am interested in studying international relations or politics at uni, but i am also considering learning a language from scratch to accompany it. For example Russian or German. Could anybody give advice on learning a language from scratch at uni?

Reply 1

polscistudent88

Many universities offer the possibility to combine Politics & IR with a language, that's the easiest way. Otherwise, many universities offer free or subsidized language courses to their students. Moreover, most British universities have high numbers of foreign students, so you will easily find societies and people to get some help.

Reply 2

StretfordEnd

I would be careful about studying a language as part of your degree unless you know you'll be good at it. Say you got a GCSE A for German and dropped it for A level, incorporating German as part of your degree would probably be no problem.

But for a language which is totally new to you (and not even based on a Latin alphabet!) might be a disaster if you incorporate as part of your degree. You might find that you suck at it and it drags your grades right down.

A lot of unis offer language courses that are nothing to do with your degree classification, these may or may not be free.

Many tutors in many Unis also won't mind you sitting in on their lectures (but not seminars) even if you're not taking their classes.

And you've also got the option to join international societies which would help develop your language skills!