Oxford 2011 Freshers Chat Thread

Ah, you always do better than you think Good luck anyhow! What college are you headed to, if you don't mind me asking?

Keble, having originally applied to New


Also from this thread:
a) I feel really stupid because I know no Latin whatsoever I would have done it at GCSE, but my school has never ever offered it. Sob. So yeah, adding to the 'uneducated Northerner' stereotype nicely there.
b) I agree totally with the sentiments expressed about achaeological digs. The best thing about the one I did last year was all the cool American students who were also doing it although, nerdily, I really like cataloguing and stuff I'm actually doing work experience in a Roman site museum in a couple of weeks

Keble is awesome, really really pretty despite being relatively new, and their accomodation is great. Not as good as Catz obv, but still, you have a nice offer there

My school was a scuzzy East End comprehensive, so suffice to say I wasn't taught it either. I'm an uneducated working class girl and I've got along just fine! Latin's only ever really found in the books for the medieval papers, there are translations of the important bits and you can guess a lot of it when the author forgets - and as you've probably noticed, enough of the grammar/private school kids did it that you can get someone to tell you what it means, if you're really desperate. Don't let things like that get you down - you're not expected to know, it's just occasionally helpful.

I think that's... five historians now? Wow.

Haha, thanks. I went on a summer school in Oxford last year and the end of week dinner was in Keble's hall, and it was really pretty. I also like the 'ugly' red brick buildings

And thanks. that's quite reassuring. It's just that loads of people on this thread, despite being state educated, seem to have had soooo many more opportunities than me, and generally seem more intelligent, which from the sheltered educational experience I've had so far in life is kind of scary. But yeah, if in doubt, Google translate is your friend

Haha, thanks. I went on a summer school in Oxford last year and the end of week dinner was in Keble's hall, and it was really pretty. I also like the 'ugly' red brick buildings

And thanks. that's quite reassuring. It's just that loads of people on this thread, despite being state educated, seem to have had soooo many more opportunities than me, and generally seem more intelligent, which from the sheltered educational experience I've had so far in life is kind of scary. But yeah, if in doubt, Google translate is your friend

When Keble was first built there was a secret society founded at St John's, entry to which was made by stealing a brick from Keble's buildings, the idea being eventually to take the whole thing apart. I had an interview in their obligatory modern building, which is one of the weirder ones too.

And don't worry about other people looking intelligent; especially on TSR it's really more geekishness than anything else. Just don't use Google Translate on Latin!

That is a very good tip, it is pretty terrible. Cant even translate titillandus.

In fairness, Google Translate is (afaik) built on a statistical system, which means rather than trying to program vocabulary and grammar rules into it explicitly it's just fed masses of translated text and tries to figure it out by itself. It works very well for the common european languages because the EU translates almost everything, providing it with a massive corpus. If you try well-known Latin phrases it's pretty good, but individual words not so much (especially in awkward forms like the gerundive).

In fairness, Google Translate is (afaik) built on a statistical system, which means rather than trying to program vocabulary and grammar rules into it explicitly it's just fed masses of translated text and tries to figure it out by itself. It works very well for the common european languages because the EU translates almost everything, providing it with a massive corpus. If you try well-known Latin phrases it's pretty good, but individual words not so much (especially in awkward forms like the gerundive).

That sounds similar to doing Oxford's Language Aptitude Test! "In Classical Armenian..."

This is true, but I would expect it to know titillandus as it is part of the hogwarts motto (draco dormiens nunquam titillandus, never tickle a sleeping dragon)

I remember briefly looking at that test and thinking how fun it looked. Same for language olympiads and stuff.


Yeah, I was surprised it hadn't got it from there, but I guess the corpuses (not 'corpora', thank you) they feed it are classical texts rather than whoever mentions Latin on the internet. And anyone would have a hard time figuring out grammar from 'never tickle a sleeping dragon'; it's a fairly loose translation.

It is, but quite a lot of translations need anglicising so that they make more sense to us.

Well, less about making sense and more about sounding natural ('a sleeping dragon is never to be tickled' makes sense, but sounds weird), but I take your point.

all you lot pretty confident with your offers?

No.

фор ехампле, тчис ис цыриллиц ат итс бест. и тчинк. и чопе...

I printed off all the forms today (going to be so angry on the 18th if I did that too early, but I won't have access to a printer then and I'm too lazy to go to an Internet café), and one of them was about the arrival day, which is stated as Monday the 3rd between 9 and 12 AM. Somewhere else, however, I read that Fresher's starts on Sunday the 2nd. What am I supposed to believe?