Oxford 2011 Freshers Chat Thread

Original post by Incarnadine91

As I said to deFossard, I'm happy to answer any history-related questions you might have!

I thought I'd take advantage of this, and bug you with another question, if that's okay? :smile:

I was reading the History handbook, and in the languages section it says that:

"In the Third Year several Special Subjects are based on texts and documents in one or more foreign languages and can only be taken by students with an adequate reading knowledge of the language(s) in question. A number of Further Subjects also require knowledge of languages (French and Spanish), though the extent of that requirement varies with the particular courses."

It also says that the University Language Centre offers some courses for free. I'm not the best at languages, but I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to brush up on my French, and maybe pick up some Italian. Just wondering, did you do this, and do you recommend that I do? How many subjects later in the degree will actually require it? I know that it would never do harm to learn a language, so it's probably not a bad idea anyway... just wondering how essential it is?

Sorry this is so long-winded :blushing:

Reply 2461

Original post by laura_bird88

I thought I'd take advantage of this, and bug you with another question, if that's okay? :smile:

Of course! I feel like quite the history oracle now, it's cool :wink:

I'm hoping that it isn't necessary, because I am abysmal at languages and I didn't sign up for any of the courses - I was scared off by the fact you'll be tested on it each term. However, the fact that I don't have anything more than a very rudimentary Spanish does reduce the choice of papers that I could take, both now and in later years. For instance, I would have loved to have studied Machiavelli, but I can't because it's in the original Italian. Same with the third-year course on the French Revolution, it's closed to me. And even in your everyday books, you'll come across passages that the authors just couldn't be bothered to translate, usually from authors writing in the 50s when anybody with any education did two languages and Latin. It's not essential - I've got along just fine even with the Latin, online translators/a dictionary/friends with a better grasp of languages have been enough to see me through - but coming across "The bishop blessed the king with these significant words french french french french" is a bit offputting. Never mind the fact that the big rooms in Exam Schools, our lecture halls, are labelled in... you guessed it, Latin. So basically, I've coped without, but it's frustrating and hard work and limits my options somewhat. If you're up for it and aren't a complete failure at languages like me, I'd say go for whatever you feel comfortable doing. It's not essential, but it's useful.

Reply 2462

ThatOtherGuy

Original post by jenny18

Yes!! Me!!! i'm hopefully going for English, you?

Medicine

There's a girl from my school who's doing english too... the only other person from my school who's going off to oxford. She got her requirements too, which is pretty great for the statistics, I guess - 100% of our prospective applicants got in! :biggrin:

Don't know what college she's going to though, I just know it's not Lincoln.

Reply 2463

jenny18

Original post by ThatOtherGuy

Medicine

Don't know what college she's going to though, I just know it's not Lincoln.

I'm the only one from my school who got an offer, so it's all down to me. Well, i look forward to (hopefully) meeting you in October. Just as a matter of interest, how many medical students will ther be in our year at Lincoln? There's meant to be 12 English people, but i've heard somewhere that there's only 8.

Throwing a similar question out to everyone, what class sizes are you expecting? How different is that from what you're used to. I went to a private school where my biggest class was 10 and my smallest 3. Are people looking forward to the small classes? Or is that a lot of individual pressure??

Reply 2464

Original post by Incarnadine91

Thanks for the quick reply :smile:

You've convinced me that I'll at least invest in a couple of English- (French, Latin, Italian) dictionaries! The information on the actual University Language Courses website seems in conflict with that in the handbook, as it says that you have to pay £25 per term... That would impact my decision too.
I've recently tried to teach myself a bit of basic latin- I really regret not doing the GCSE offered to me last year at school. I had a lot going on, which is a pretty bad excuse I know!

Reply 2465

Original post by laura_bird88

Thanks for the quick reply :smile:

Ha, I did Spanish GCSE and I still can't remember any of it. You'll probably need the English-Latin dictionary, but I wouldn't get more than that unless you're going for a particular paper which requires it, in which case I would say get the course. And to be honest, Latin influences English enough that you can guess a lot of it quite easily. Most people do have to pay, but historians don't - it's free, don't worry :cool:

Reply 2466

Original post by Incarnadine91

Awesome, yet another reason to love my subject choice :biggrin:

I shall buy a latin dictionary, and I actually just went to the garage and dug out my old school French one. If the course is free I'll definitely do it, how exciting!!

Reply 2467

Original post by laura_bird88

Awesome, yet another reason to love my subject choice :biggrin:

I shall buy a latin dictionary, and I actually just went to the garage and dug out my old school French one. If the course is free I'll definitely do it, how exciting!!

History is obviously the best subject, because after all, as soon as anybody discovers anything in any other subject it becomes part of ours as well :biggrin:

Reply 2468

Original post by Incarnadine91

History is obviously the best subject, because after all, as soon as anybody discovers anything in any other subject it becomes part of ours as well :biggrin:

Hahaha I like your logic :smug:

Reply 2469

thurin

Original post by Incarnadine91

Same with the third-year course on the French Revolution, it's closed to me.

Oh no, same then :frown:

I've considered the LASR courses - either on French, from my rusty GCSE, or German or Russian from scratch. But I'm also worried about time and a busy schedule.

Reply 2470

micky022

Original post by JAR12

Oh no, same then :frown:

I've considered the LASR courses - either on French, from my rusty GCSE, or German or Russian from scratch. But I'm also worried about time and a busy schedule.

I'm hoping to do Russian; bought a book on Wednesday and I'm going to make a proper start tonight. It doesn't seem too bad...

Reply 2471

thurin

Original post by micky022

I'm hoping to do Russian; bought a book on Wednesday and I'm going to make a proper start tonight. It doesn't seem too bad...

You're being proactive :tongue:

My reading list is bad enough. But I would love to learn either Russian or German!

Reply 2472

micky022

Original post by JAR12

You're being proactive :tongue:

My reading list is bad enough. But I would love to learn either Russian or German!

What subject are you doing?

German is a horrid-sounding language, you could be calling someone beautiful and it sounds like you're threatening to torture them...

Reply 2473

Original post by micky022

What subject are you doing?

German is a horrid-sounding language, you could be calling someone beautiful and it sounds like you're threatening to torture them...

I don't get why everyone seems to have that impression; German sounds quite nice a lot of the time. People seem to assume it always sounds like Hitler giving a speech. :s-smilie:

Reply 2474

micky022

Original post by dbmag9

I don't get why everyone seems to have that impression; German sounds quite nice a lot of the time. People seem to assume it always sounds like Hitler giving a speech. :s-smilie:

I dunno; I did it briefly in Year Nine and it seems like a very guttural, harsh language. Lots of hard consonant sounds and the like. I don't think everyday Germans sound constantly outraged :tongue:

Reply 2475

Original post by micky022

I dunno; I did it briefly in Year Nine and it seems like a very guttural, harsh language. Lots of hard consonant sounds and the like. I don't think everyday Germans sound constantly outraged :tongue:

To me it doesn't sound that guttural or harsh; Arabic does, but a lot of German is pretty soft.

Reply 2476

Original post by JAR12

Oh no, same then :frown:

I've considered the LASR courses - either on French, from my rusty GCSE, or German or Russian from scratch. But I'm also worried about time and a busy schedule.

I should probably have clarified: one of the versions of the French Revolution course is closed to me, the one in which you work from primary sources, not the time period as a whole. There will probably be plenty of other options where you deal with translations, it's just they're by nature going to be slightly flawed compared to the originals. And that's only because I haven't done French since year 9 and detested it even then. With a GCSE in it you'd probably get by fine. You'll be busy, yes, but they design these courses with us in mind so I'm sure you'd be able to fit it in.

If you're another historian I'm happy to answer your questions too :smile:

With Latin I can guess/understand about half the words due to general vocabulary knowledge, even though I wasn't taught it, with Spanish it's 1 in 3 and with French it's 1 in 5. German? Zilch. Which is a shame, because a large branch of my family is German and quite a lot of my friends at Catz know it. And they occassionaly decide to have a conversation in it because they know I can't understand...

Reply 2477

Original post by Incarnadine91

Surely knowing English gives you around as much German as it does Latin? Depends on the topic, I guess.

Reply 2478

Original post by dbmag9

Surely knowing English gives you around as much German as it does Latin? Depends on the topic, I guess.

Well one or two words on a page, maybe, yes. But I don't know what it is, my brain just rebels when confronted with German and refuses to translate. I will repeat that I really am absymal at languages.

Reply 2479