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Really nervous about A Level Languages?

OK, this might be really confusing but I hope I can be clear.

Basically, I'm a big linguist. I took Spanish and French at GCSE level in Year 9 (one year course) and got an A and A*. In year 10, I took GCSE German privately and got an A. In year 11, I did AS French and I'm hoping for an A/B on results day.

However, I'm taking Spanish and German at AS in September, as I really love those languages, but I don't know how I'm going to cope. I found German very difficult but enjoyable and I never got my head around cases! I haven't even spoken a word of Spanish in two years. French meanwhile, I've been doing it consistently so it's not a problem unlike the other two.

How should i go about re-learning them again? I knew the basics but I'm scared about being toed along at the bottom of the class, since my classmates will have studied German/Spanish for so much longer than I have. Any tips?
Original post by Pokrok
OK, this might be really confusing but I hope I can be clear.

Basically, I'm a big linguist. I took Spanish and French at GCSE level in Year 9 (one year course) and got an A and A*. In year 10, I took GCSE German privately and got an A. In year 11, I did AS French and I'm hoping for an A/B on results day.

However, I'm taking Spanish and German at AS in September, as I really love those languages, but I don't know how I'm going to cope. I found German very difficult but enjoyable and I never got my head around cases! I haven't even spoken a word of Spanish in two years. French meanwhile, I've been doing it consistently so it's not a problem unlike the other two.

How should i go about re-learning them again? I knew the basics but I'm scared about being toed along at the bottom of the class, since my classmates will have studied German/Spanish for so much longer than I have. Any tips?


Since students don't really get taught much at GCSE (it's all very much learn, regurgitate, pass, forget) they start at a pretty basic level at AS anyway. They'll go over all the basics again and it'll just be up to you to put the effort in at home. Grammar and vocab just have to be learnt, I'm afraid, but if you do this to the best of your ability you'll be absolutely fine. Learn the patterns for each tense and the irregulars - creating your own table is good for this. As for cases, they're really not as scary as they seem. All you need to learn is:

Nominative: der die das die
Accusative: den die das die
Genitive: des der des der
Dative: dem der dem den

Nominative - for the subject of a sentence
Accusative - for the direct object of a sentence
Genitive - for possessives
Dative - for the indirect object of a sentence

Ich gebe dir das Haus meines Onkels.

Easy peasy!

At A Level, it's also very much about having ideas about topics and expressing your opinion. Unfortunately, you can't just describe your house or your hamster like you can at GCSE, but if you have ideas ready for every topic and a load of opinion phrases up your sleeve you'll do well. As long as you're willing to work hard, it's not worth worrying about!
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Avatar for DiaMerill
DiaMerill
Hey
I did GCSE German privately in year 9 and got A*, I think you will be fine as long as the brush up on the cases (German) and the tenses (Spanish) that's what I struggled with starting AS
The great thing about languages is that you can never really lose them, they're always floating around the back of your mind somewhere, even if you don't realise it :smile: good luck!

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