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"How to choose my language degree" Official Thread

OP

afua12

haha, one of the things I'm looking forward to on my year abroad is having Chinese food every day and seeing how it compares to the Chinese we have over here! (I've heard it's sometimes quite a drastic difference!)

If it's anything like what my flatmate used to cook, you're never ever gonna get me to eat anything in China. Ever. Ewwww.

Reply 101

afua12

15

Anatheme

If it's anything like what my flatmate used to cook, you're never ever gonna get me to eat anything in China. Ever. Ewwww.

haha, what did she cook for you?! I have heard that some of the dishes are a bit of a shock to us wimpy europeans :p:

Reply 102

Anatheme

OP

18

afua12

haha, what did she cook for you?! I have heard that some of the dishes are a bit of a shock to us wimpy europeans :p:

No, no, she didn't, lol, I kind of managed to avoid being in the flat while she was cooking 'cause the smell would sometimes remind you of some old socks that spent too long in a gym, and honestly, the texture and what she put in it was really not attractive. I tried the normal stuff, she made really nice samossas, but that's about it, lol. I'm not a fan of Chinese food in general, that said. Middle Eastern food is what it's all about :cool:

Reply 103

Deutsch_Beth

16

afua12

Hey, I'll be starting German and Chinese in 2010 so maybe I can help a little? :smile:

There aren't many universities that offer this combination as it's quite uncommon. But there is Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, I think Nottingham Trent and also Edinburgh if you twist the system a little bit.

I applied to all them apart from Nottingham Trent and got all 5 offers.

From what I've heard Leeds concentrate more on the language side of Chinese, as do possibly Sheffield if I remember correctly. Manchester had a great variety of options varying from History, Philosophy and Culture through to Politics, Business and of course language and appeared to have the most variety/choice. Edinburgh were more traditional and had a strong focus on history and literature and pointed out studying ancient philosophical texts (Confucius, Daoism, Buddhism etc.) in the original language as a strong point of the degree (which I actually loved). I'll be going to Nottingham which are a little different as they actually do a "Contemporary Chines Studies" degree and are placed under the business school rather than the Modern Languages department. So their focus is entirely on Modern China from around 1940 or so to the present. There's a strong focus on Business, Politics and international relations between the west and the "new" China.

So even though there are very few options of unis, the courses are all quite different giving a decent choice from the traditional to very modern.

There is a wider choice of unis offering straight Chinese including SOAS, Cambridge, Oxford, Westminster, Wales Lampeter and Newcastle as well as of course the ones mentioned earlier.

Birmingham also offer the option of a Modern Languages degree on which you take 2 languages plus Mandarin ab initio but I think it only counts for a very small part of the degree which I probably wouldn't recommend if you want to learn mandarin seriously. However, it may be an option for you as you may then be able to take German, Russian and Mandarin? That sounds pretty horrific though :s-smilie:

It would be a shame for you to give up the idea of Chinese if you're really interested in it. I was the same situation as you and thought that Chinese would be silly as I'd never fully master the language and I have no real desire to be strongly linked to China for the entire of my future career and so Russian seemed more sensible. (Although looking back now, I wouldn't want to be involved with Russia at all either!) A Chinese degree has so much to offer though and I'd definitely advise you to just go with what you'll enjoy :smile:

I'm certainly glad that I made that decision and now I can't wait to start!

Let me know how it goes :smile:

Wo-o-w that's fantastic, thank you so much for taking the time to tell me all that! You've given me a lot to think about, I'd almost given up on finding a decent degree with German and Chinese but it turns out I was just looking in the wrong place!
Hmmm lots to look in to. Which uni are you set to go to (I presume you're taking a gap year?) in 2010?
Thank you again! :smile:

Reply 104

afua12

15

Deutsch_Beth

Wo-o-w that's fantastic, thank you so much for taking the time to tell me all that! You've given me a lot to think about, I'd almost given up on finding a decent degree with German and Chinese but it turns out I was just looking in the wrong place!
Hmmm lots to look in to. Which uni are you set to go to (I presume you're taking a gap year?) in 2010?
Thank you again! :smile:

I'm glad I can help :biggrin:

If you have any more questions that I would be able to answer feel free to ask :smile:

If you do a quick search though for something like "Chinese Studies/Madarin" then you may be able to find a couple of current German/ Chinese students who will be able to help more than I can as obviously I don't have any first hand experience of the course yet.
I'll be going to Nottingham in 2010 - I applied this year so my offer is now unconditional.

Reply 105

username330427

13

If you'd like anyone to write a lengthy piece about why to study Russian, I'd be quite happy to do it (as an A-Level student coming from a semi-native background :biggrin:

).

Reply 106

Wanischa

16

I'm going to Nottingham 2010 as well (hopefully) but to do Spanish and Contemporary Chinese instead, I wonder how many people are there in my class.

I know that combined class of all Contemporary Chinese Studies is 60 but I think most of them will be French and Contemporary Chinese D8

Reply 107

embersglow

This thread is so useful!
Just wondering if anyone could tell me what taking Japanese from scratch at degree level is like? I was interested in doing French/Japanese but I can't see how it will help me later on in life, so I was looking into French/Spanish instead. What jobs are available to people with Language degrees aside from teaching and translating? I wanted to be a teacher but I'm going off the idea more and more each day :/

Reply 108

Anatheme

OP

18

embersglow

This thread is so useful!
Just wondering if anyone could tell me what taking Japanese from scratch at degree level is like? I was interested in doing French/Japanese but I can't see how it will help me later on in life, so I was looking into French/Spanish instead. What jobs are available to people with Language degrees aside from teaching and translating? I wanted to be a teacher but I'm going off the idea more and more each day :/

Quite literally anything you want. I just gave a talk today about why studying languages increases your employability, and the options are just infinite, you can be a journalist, work for the government, social services, work for NGOs, fashion, retailing, anything as long as your have the willpower for it :smile:

Reply 109

embersglow

Anatheme

Quite literally anything you want. I just gave a talk today about why studying languages increases your employability, and the options are just infinite, you can be a journalist, work for the government, social services, work for NGOs, fashion, retailing, anything as long as your have the willpower for it :smile:

That's good to know, thanks :smile:

Do you think Japanese would be more helpful to me than Spanish? I noticed that a lot of teaching vacancies were for French/Spanish teachers but I'd be more motivated and interested in learning Japanese than any other language.

Is it possible to combine French, English and Japanese in any way? I might like to go down the journalism route and I think that English would be useful.

Reply 110

Anatheme

OP

18

embersglow

That's good to know, thanks :smile:

Do you think Japanese would be more helpful to me than Spanish? I noticed that a lot of teaching vacancies were for French/Spanish teachers but I'd be more motivated and interested in learning Japanese than any other language.

Is it possible to combine French, English and Japanese in any way? I might like to go down the journalism route and I think that English would be useful.

If you'd be more interested in Japanese, go for it, a degree will help you getting a better job, but if you didn't really enjoy it that much because you picked Spanish thinking it'd be more useful, it'll be useless. So if you think you'd rather study Japanese, go for it and forget Spanish, employability will come from you, not necessarily your combination (plus I've had several employers saying they have too many Spanish graduates, haha).

You could combine French and English pretty much anywhere, then do evening classes in Japanese, but I don't think you could combine the three of them together :smile:

Reply 111

Angelil

19

Anatheme - hate to pee on your parade but I can't even get into journalism with an English degree and a truckload of relevant experience, so I can't see why language graduates would be even more eligible. It's the experience (and sadly the contacts) that get you into journalism rather than what degree you have done :frown:

Reply 112

Anatheme

OP

18

Angelil

Anatheme - hate to pee on your parade but I can't even get into journalism with an English degree and a truckload of relevant experience, so I can't see why language graduates would be even more eligible. It's the experience (and sadly the contacts) that get you into journalism rather than what degree you have done :frown:

Well, yeah, I did not deny it, hence my "employability will come from you, not necessarily your combination" :p:

. I mean, I saw graduates in Spanish working for the marketing team for L'Oréal, it's deffo not their language that got them there, rather the experience they had thanks to it. I don't think my degree will lead me anywhere if I don't have the relevent experience that goes with it, but that's what makes languages a good degree, having a year abroad during which you could work means you have a plus over some 3-years course students that won't have any work experience.

True indeed :smile:

I'm not sure whether to take a gap year to study french and improve my italian before going back to uni, so i'm not an absolute noob in french?

Reply 115

Anatheme

OP

18

Original post by Muscovite

Hi,

I've always liked the cultures of eastern europe and Russia, and until recently I was fairly certain that i wanted to do History and Russian Ba (or Russian and Czech or something). However I've recently gained an interest in the languages/politics/history of the middle east and Asia and am considering Chinese [Mandarin], Arabic [Modern Standard] or a South Asian language [probably Hindi/Urdu] with history (or something similar). What advice would you give to someone like me who is considering many different languages, and who wants to try something different. The year abroad on a language degree is also an important consideration for me.

Thanks

Those are all languages in which you will have, at best, a good intermediate level when you graduate. They will all require you many more years of study after university, and you can't expect to be at the same level as someone doing Italian or Spanish. Ideally, you would want to live there upon graduation, if you plan on getting good at them, so bear that in mind, as they are regions were the cultural shock is quite important (can't comment for Asia, but the Middle East and Russia have made a lot of students go nuts) and it's not always easily dealt with.

The first bit would be to really seriously question your motivation. What's making you want to study the language, and why should you do it? Is it really the language that appeals to you, or simply the culture? Do you really want to spend 4 years of your life studying that and only that? Moreso than for other languages, your enthusiasm and motivation are likely to fade quicker, and you really need willpower to keep going. For some languages, like Russian and Arabic, being in love with grammar is essential. There's a lot of it, it doesn't always make sense at all and most of the time, it's a massive pain in the derrière.

If you simply want to go for the originality factor, reconsider. Yes, Arabic sounds cool on a CV, but it's definitely not cool to be just about able to babble in MSA when people sometimes don't bother hiring anyone other than natives (notably for interpreting/translating). It's probably a bit early, but try to define what you'd like to work in, as each language will be very specific and is likely to determine your career, were you to want to carry on with it. Regarding Arabic, bear in mind that MSA is virtually useless, unless you decide never to leave the higher mediatic/political spheres, and that you will have to focus on an area and learn a couple of dialects.

At this point I can't really help you much, but when picking a language, make sure you have no problem with selling your soul to it :p:

.

Reply 116

Anatheme

OP

18

Original post by Muscovite

Thank you very much for taking the time to write that! I'm aware of the issues with MSA, and I'm still not sure whether it's the culture or language that attracts me as atm it is a bit of both. I like grammar but I'm not in love with it if you see what I mean
:smile:

Make sure you don't let language get in the way of culture. If it's the culture that interests you, there may be no need for you to study the language, don't torture yourself with Arabic if you're not madly in love with it. Try to get a feel for each language, see which one you prefer, if you're really quite keen on studying it further. There are podcasts on iTunes and iTunes U, and a quick Google search will show you there are plenty more resources to use. If you have any question about Russian or Arabic, don't hesitate :smile:

Reply 117

Anatheme

OP

18

Original post by Muscovite

Thank you, I think my dilemma is that I love the culture of asia (including the middle east) but love the languages of eastern europe :smile:

anyway I will ask in future if I have further queries :tongue:

Israel is where it's at, then :p:

. They've got an easy Middle Eastern language, all the history and culture of the area, you can even learn Arabic there, but there are SO many Russians over there you could well spend your day without speaking a word of Hebrew. That and the country is actually lovely.

Reply 118

PKU_Research007

to be honest at least for Chinese, anyone who says a solo chinese language degree will make you more employable in nearly any fields outside of development (very rarely) and translation (duh) are either A dishonest or B. clueless. The latter being the most common. This is coming from someone who studied East Asian Studies in America at a top uni and whose Chinese teacher in high school gave us all a speech before graduation that she will not write anyone us a recommendation for university of we are solely applying for a chinese major unless we are planning to double because she doesn't want us in her words "to end up like the loser laowai hanging around china that can speak chinese but don't offer anything meaningful". Western firms really don't care if you are non-asian and can speak chinese because for everyone person at SOAS or Oxbridge studying Chinese who thinks that Chinese will sent them apart from the fold, there is an actual western born Chinese person fluent in Chinese and English that can do it. One of my associates here in Beijing is the head of Corporate Finance at Standard Chartered and we actually had a talk on this subject. Western firms don't care if you speak Chinese (the only firms that do care are international real estate firms with offices in China but the only white person I know that works at one is because he did the Hopkins Nanjing Center and his roommmate who is Chinese landed a job there and helped him get one and he really hates the job) and you will never want to work for a Chinese firm. I worked for a Chinese private equity firm for awhile and it was nightmarish. Not because I had language problems with my coworkers or bosses, but because the business culture is downright dishonest and very discouraging. Its a business culture that honestly puts to shame the shenanigans of the recent financial crisis and if Shanghai really does become a financial capital like the CCP is marketing it to be, I shutter. If anyone here really wants to work for a Chinese company, you must understand that to not song liwu to your bosses or possible clients or anyone in government that can affect you is an ultimate death kiss. The same thing in the west that we call bribery is considered normal (a fund manager who i met at a finance seminar grumbled on how he had to spent 400,000 USD because in order to get a deal, he had to pay tuition and all her expensive lifestyle choices for a gov official's daughter in the usa. So if possible unless you want to go into Academia and by all means its totally worth it to do a language degree because having a high level in a target language is necessary for any top program especially if you want to do it in Chinese literature (I literally had just met a professor from a prestigious chinese department in the states in a cafe here in beijing who was telling me about how she just assumes that kids that apply for phD in Chinese literature can only read with a dictionary, it makes her life less disappointing), doing a joint degree is smarter. If anyone who is serious about studying chinese or plans to live and work in China for an EXTENDED period of time has any questions feel free to ask.