A-level Spanish Study Group 2023-2024

oo fancy cambridge !! I was looking at oxbridge courses but none of them offer any asian languages same with york, it's 3rd in the country for french but they don't offer chinese </3

Lol ty What Asian languages are you interested in? (& I swear that both Oxford and Cambridge have Asian & Middle Eastern Studies:
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/asian-and-middle-eastern-studies
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/asian-and-middle-eastern-studies
)
& personally I’m a native speaker of Mandarin, so feel free to ask me any questions abt it & I’ll try to help!
& which other unis & course are you looking at?

Nice nice! Good luck for learning french & mandarin! They both seem quite hard & v different from one another: what inspired you to want to do them at uni?

I'd prefer to continue french rather than spanish (i'm doing both at a level, predicted A* for both hopefully haha ), and it comes quite naturally to me so I don't really find french too difficult ! I'm half asian (filipino!) so I wanted to do an asian language at uni, mandarin is challenging but I'm willing to put in the effort, and I really want to learn about chinese tradition and history since I've always found it super interesting but obviously uk curriculum only covers like .. world wars . monarchs etc. Plus I really like learning languages so why not learn mandarin whilst I have the support of uni teachers!!

I was looking at oxbridge out of curiosity but I think if I actually applied/got into them, I'd really burn myself out trying to do everything in my power to do the absolute best I can - it wouldn't be great for my mental health. Leeds seems a lot more friendly and low-stakes in my eyes in comparison!! Still a russell group and still a good uni but I'd put less pressure on myself!!

Fair enough! Seems like you really know what you want to do haha & good luck for your applications! I’ve been exploring the option of continuing/learning new languages at the university I’d be going to via the Language centre (my hopes are to learn Japanese/and BSL!)
Out of interest: would you be starting mandarin from scratch? & (I realise this is far away lol but) have you thought abt your year abroad? (I’m presuming there is one; there usually are for language degrees)

yes learning completely from scratch !! from what I gathered at the Leeds open day, the majority of those on the chinese course take it from scratch.

for the year abroad,I'd prefer to go to Taiwan rather than mainland china, I'd just feel a lot more at ease. Plus the cheapest flights to the philippines are £110 quid and 2 hours long and I'd love to go see my family more !!! and for french, since it's combined, the year abroad would be in mainland China or Taiwan and I'd spend one semester of a different year in France, preferrably Paris but it just depends where I'd be able to go !!

I was originally thinking of learning Japanese at uni but I think I could learn it online by myself, or through a society!!

omg yes, on the topic of unis, where does everyone else want to go ?? uni of leeds is my top choice atm !!

york, leeds, newcastle (and maybe lancaster and brighton) [in order of preference]

Hi everyone! I'm studying Spanish (AQA), Maths (AQA), Chemistry (AQA) and Biology (Edexcel B) and I'm applying for Medicine!
Everyone always asks why I picked Spanish but honestly it's just because I love the idea of being multilingual and I didn't want to forget what I learned at GCSE. I never had the option to do both French and Spanish but I think I would have taken it.

I would also like to learn BSL, German and Igbo - it's so hard to find anywhere that teaches African languages and if they do it's usually just Swahili. I also think it's such a shame that more degrees don't allow you to combine subjects, as I would love to continue languages to degree level.

I tried to watch Guardians of the Galaxy in Spanish with Spanish subtitles but I didn't understand a word haha, so I learnt my lesson and started watching Agents of SHIELD in Spanish with English subtitles. Does anyone have any recommendations for authentic Spanish series/movies on Disney plus?

I'm studying El Laberinto del Fauno and La Casa de Bernarda Alba and I've decided to base my IRP on the impact of gypsies/gitanos on Spanish culture.

It's so great that we have a thread with people doing Spanish so we can collaborate with each other!

hey we are doing the same book and film ! i havent started the book yet, but i studied the film last year

Also doing La casa de Bernada Alba & El laberinto del fauno! I wanted to do Volver but I'm not complaining, laberinto is a gorgeous film. I've started reading the study guides & doing the tasks, but we're nowhere near starting either in lessons. We're still doing La imnigración!

hello !! i'll add more later if you need anything else but for the speaking card, my teacher gave us an acronym ARSQ !!

answer the question in your answer to the speaking card, say if you agree or not etc
refer to the text, mention something in the text, a statistic, reword a statement in the text
structure - add a complex structure, maybe subjunctive, always have a subjunctive phrase template in the back of your head because i think it counts for slightly more if you use it during the conversation following the card
questions - just the questions you'll ask to the examinor

generally, aim for your answers to be about 3-4 sentences long, write in shorthand where you can to save time, don't write for the full 5 mins, the examinor might stop you if they think you're writing too much. during the test, make eye contact with the examinor (or just fake it and look in their direction, you get marks for engagement), don't look down at your paper too much. try to be as controlled as you can with your words, you are allowed time to think after examinors ask you a question in the conversation part, learn some phrases along the lines of "i have understood the question, i need a moment to think" or "good question, please let me think"

just realised that half of this only rlly applies to speaking cards where you get a photo but you have to write and answer a question thats based on the text and disregard the photo in your answer entirely. i have no idea if different exam boards have different cards but this is the advice/feedback i've been given !!!

do you have to revise statistics or give other examples which are related to the topic and how do you do so?

yes you might need to give percentages to back up your points! i would make 'fact sheets' by topic full of the information you need to know! i would read articles around the topics, but if you have a textbook, there should be some useful info in there!

are u by any chance doing aqa? ive got a textbook but it doesnt seem to be very useful so if u could recommend me some that would be great

ooo hows it going?