AS French from scratch

Aye, a daunting task, to learn AS French from scratch in a year, but I've decided to take it on since I otherwise have only a very small chance of getting into an interesting university.

Well, I came from Norway two or three years ago, so I haven't got any GCSEs or O levels or anything. What I did next was to fail a few exams here in England. Repeating the year, I got bbe in English Lang&Lit, German (six marks off an A :mad:

) and History.

Now History I dropped because I hated the studies, and so I'm left with two subjects only at A level. That's the problem right now.

I thought one way to remedy this was to get another A level somehow, since I have quite a bit of spare time on my hands with only two subjects at school.

And then, I thought, French would be the perfect subject for me, allready being bilingual with English and Norwegian and near fluent in German, but obviously this is a romance language that I've never encountered before (at least not in great depth). Fragmentæ linguorum latinæ intellego, sed non rogo :suitc:

Well, I stressed around trying to find lessons at school, but everything clashed with eachother, amazingly, both AS and A2 classes clashed with what I already had going on, so I got me a private tutor, and I start my first lesson on tuesday! Wish me bonne chance!

Reply 1

Setaro

Persumably you won't have any problem understanding the principles behind grammar, but the vocabulary will be a hard grind, even though you will have encountered a lot of French vocab from English.

Are you really sure you need French, or another A-Level at all? If you came from Norway 3 years ago and didn't do GCSEs I imagine you are at least 19? I found that myself, as a 'mature student' (21+ according to Notts Trent, I'm 22) they lowered my UCAS point requirement for the course I am about to start from 240 to 160.

Reply 2

brimstone

Don't do it, I'm finding it hard enough from GCSE :frown:

Reply 3

wilsonsamm

Merci beaucoup pour les réponses!
Yes, I will be 19 in January, so maybe after a gap year or something I'd be counted as a mature student... well it's quite an impressive drop in reqirements from 240 points to 160, isn't it? what course are you doing, Setaro?

Reply 4

Setaro

Hmm well there may be a couple of things which made my points offer far lower.

I'm going to be starting Italian with TESOL(BA) in 2 weeks at Nottingham Trent. Trent teach Italian from beginners level; the couse doesn't require prior knowledge. However, I do have prior knowledge (I was studying AS Italian at the time of my application) and I was also taking English Language A2.

Also added to this, I had glowing references from my English and German teachers, both saying my understanding of grammar and linguistics far exceeded the levels of the course, and understanding the principles behind grammar is everything really, when it comes to getting things right (though I freely admit my Vocabulary is terrible!)

Plus I wrote a pretty damn great Personal Statement: I made it quite casual and mostly talked about my drifting without a purpose after I left school, until I discovered Language and Linguistics!

And on a last note: Italian is hardly going to be over-subscribed!

All of those combined is what probably led to a 80 point requirement drop.