MML at Cambridge

I’m a Year 12 student currently studying English Lit, French and History A-Levels with an EPQ and absolutely love the sound of the MML course at Cambridge! If anyone has any advice (particularly in applying for an ab-initio language - mine would be German) I would rlly appreciate it 😁
Also what other UK unis did u apply to for modern languages as well as Cambridge ? Thx

Hi, I'm a Year 13 Student whose applied for the AMES course at Cambridge with a European Language. I have just had an interview for it and agree with you that the course looks awesome! If you get an interview, you will need to do a written test in French and part of your interview would be in French so just be aware for that. I have also applied (and have offers from) Warwick, St Andrews and Lancaster and haven't heard back from Durham yet although they're known for taking a while. I've also heard that Birmingham and Edinburgh are good for languages - they just didn't do my course combinations. I'd recommend gaining a general knowledge about Germany and German speaking countries as you'll want to be able to show within your personal statement what has drawn you to that language. Hope you keep up the desire to do MML!

I’m a Year 12 student currently studying English Lit, French and History A-Levels with an EPQ and absolutely love the sound of the MML course at Cambridge! If anyone has any advice (particularly in applying for an ab-initio language - mine would be German) I would rlly appreciate it 😁
Also what other UK unis did u apply to for modern languages as well as Cambridge ? Thx

Hi I'm currently a second year at Cambridge studying MML (French and Spanish ex ab-initio).

I'd say for tips for applying - try and find a bit of a niche - for example if you put l'etranger on your ps just know that your interviewer has probably interviewed up to 20 people talking about that same book so maybe choose a different book, or a film. Don't be afraid to put something modern - Annie Ernaux, Delphine de Vigan these are all authors that'll prove that you are up to date with modern France and can be discussed and analysed just as thoroughly as you can analyse a classic French novel. Same applies for when you're talking about the language side of things if you go in talking about how much you love the different dialects of French from all over the world well they speak French in A LOT of countries. Pick one that you're interested in. What's the relationship between English and French in Quebec? How did Haitian Creole develop and is a creole a language in its own right or a dialect? Stuff like that that can provoke debate and that you can research really thoroughly.

In terms of applying for the ab initio language I know it's really hard to know what to write about but you can write about if you've ever visited the country before, or if you haven't why you'd like to. Any paintings, architecture, book, film you like about Germany? Maybe look up the texts that you'll study in first year for German and read something by one of those authors if you don't know where to start.

Any other questions I'm happy to answer

Wow, thank you so much - this was extremely helpful!

I was also just wondering whether there is a good balance between linguistics, history and politics within the course (obviously in tandem with language learning/skills). Is the course in first year dominated by French literature or do you have the option to pick and choose modules of interest?

Thank you again for taking the time to answer my previous question 🙂

No worries!
Now comes the main drawback to the Cambridge course - the lack of history and politics! So in first year French linguistics is no longer an option (I believe German linguistics may still be taught however), history and politics are not taught either. So whilst in your language, speaking, or literature classes/lectures you may touch upon history and politics and they expect you to at least reference it in essays it is by no means something that you will explicitly learn about. It's more - you will be studying this text - this is when it was set - this is the historical and political context of that time - now do your own research.
You don't get to chose any modules (they're called papers in Cambridge) in first year. You do do more language than literature and I think the final exam weighting is 60/40 language to literature but often it can feel like all your time is being taken up by the literature because a one hour language class a week with around 2-3 hours homework compared to an essay a week that you'll probably want to spend around 5-7 hours on you will feel like you're doing a lot of literature. But realistically I never found it too much as its only around 7 texts per language for the year and you'll only have to write essays on max 4 in the final exam.
Also in second year you will be able to pick your papers and can do film papers, linguistics, philosophical literature and there's a lot more choice. Still can't do history or politics tho which is super annoying! (but on year abroad many people choose to study these subjects at universities abroad)
To be honest if you want to study linguistics and history etc other unis do courses that cover them but you will get a lot more choice after first year. I've also been told that other languages are a lot less "traditional" in the literature that they teach - French you only study one film and then the rest is poetry, plays and novels but at least I know for Italian they study paintings and architecture as well which can be quite interesting.