Did anyone take a language at a level without prior knowledge?

Im thinking of taking AS German language since its a requirement to take an AS Language with my 3 A levels and i wanted to know if anyone did it before!!
What if i take 2 years studying the subject? Like ill be doing my a levels in 2022 so I'll have 2 whole years and i think ill get a private tutor

no one?

Why do you have to do a language at AS? Will let even let you start it if you can't prove a reasonable level of competency before hand? Unless everyone else is also a beginner I think this would be completely impossible.

Reply 3

xx_clove

What? How on earth would you even be able to do that?

Reply 4

iamjoecll

Original post by Compost

I want to study medicine in Germany and their requirements are 3 ALs (im doing bio chem and math) AND any AS Language
I've already started german courses but not a specific board but more for the language because i need to be at least level B1 to travel to Germany.
My teacher said that i could reach B1 in a year but im not sure that would be enough to do the AS

Reply 5

Compost

Original post by iamjoecll

Level 3 (AS or A level) is meant to be B2, but I think that's slightly generous.

Reply 6

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by xx_clove

What? How on earth would you even be able to do that?

To be fair - my school allowed you to take A-level German at a partner school despite not having offered GCSE German. And people came in doing A-level Spanish not having done GCSE Spanish. Can't really comment on how easy or hard it is though since I didn't do it myself.

Reply 7

iamjoecll

Original post by _gcx

Do you how well they did?
I only need a pass (C) for the unis requirements

Reply 8

hannychica

I did AS Spanish with no prior knowledge of the language or even French (having a closely related language is often useful if studying from scratch). I got a C (2 UMS off a B :frown:

)

I did German at A2 with the full GCSE. If you have the language learning ability and work intensively, a C might be doable. But it will definitely not be a walk in the park.

Reply 9

_gcx

Study Forum Helper

Original post by iamjoecll

Do you how well they did?
I only need a pass (C) for the unis requirements

I don't sorry, I just know it was an option.

Reply 10

martin7

Original post by iamjoecll

One of the options when I was at sixth form (many years ago) was to do GCSE Spanish in the first year and then continue to do AS Spanish in the second year (alongside 3 A-levels). So assuming the workload is comparable, doing AS German in two years sounds like it's possible.

Reply 11

iamjoecll

Original post by hannychica

I did AS Spanish with no prior knowledge of the language or even French (having a closely related language is often useful if studying from scratch). I got a C (2 UMS off a B :frown:

)

I did German at A2 with the full GCSE. If you have the language learning ability and work intensively, a C might be doable. But it will definitely not be a walk in the park.

Was it exceptionally hard? Since i will be doing 3 full a levels and i genuinely want good grades in them so would it take too much of my time?
I wanted to take Arabic AS since arabic is my first language however sadly it isn't accepted

Reply 12

shin_

Hey, I did german AS without any prior knowledge and yes it's possible. I achieved B1+ in 15 months. Btw, I took Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and German, hope that helps you to gauge the possibility of doing German AS.