Tag Archives: beginners' languages

We’re in Baltic business, people! The *new* beginners’ Russian year abroad

In this week’s blog post, third-year French and Beginners’ Russian student, Catrin, tell us all about her year abroad spent in Tallinn, Estonia!

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the beginners’ Russian cohort spends the year abroad in Tallinn, Estonia, engaging in an intensive language programme for eight months. At first, it disappointed me that I would not experience the legend that is the traditional Russian ab initio year abroad to Yaroslavl’ (seriously, it’s described like folklore in the department), spending a long winter only 270km outside of Moscow with a firm and matronly ’babushka’. However, this disappointment was of course dwarfed by the gravity of the situation in Ukraine and my sympathies for those living through the atrocities.

When I left the UK for my first semester, with two large suitcases and no expectations, I was yet to know the magic of Russia’s tiny neighbour; I was yet to learn the intricacies and nuances of life in a post-Soviet country, and I was yet to feel that I had truly built a life and home for myself abroad. All these things had become true as my time in Estonia came to an end in May of 2023.

The language course provided by the organisation ‘LanguageLink’ in Tallinn is the same as the one previously given in Yaroslavl’. There are daily lessons in literature, translation, grammar, essay writing and speaking. The lessons take up half a day, in a morning or afternoon slot, and in them we covered a wide range of themes. The courses are all provided by native Russian speakers, but what made the lessons all the more interesting and unique was the politicised lens through which Russian as a language is considered in Estonia. In 2011, nearly 50% of Tallinn’s inhabitants spoke Russian as their first language and the vast majority of Estonians are fluent in, or can at least understand, Russian. Relations with the language were already strained after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-adoption of Estonian as the country’s official language and were then made even more precarious following the invasion of Ukraine.

Our teachers had very personal stories and interesting views on their relationship with Estonia and the Estonian language: some had lived and worked in Estonia their whole lives, and others had moved to Tallinn more recently following the start of the war. A particularly memorable lesson included a discussion about the implications of displaying a destroyed Russian tank in the capital’s ‘Freedom Square’, with plaques in Estonian, Russian and English explaining the choice to put it on show. We pondered the task of translating and conveying the message in three different languages in such a tense political climate.

I loved the afternoons and weekends we spent in Tallinn, and given that our classes only took place in the morning, we had lots of free time to fill with many cultural activities… and cinnamon buns. Tallinn itself is very architecturally interesting, like a cultural canvas onto which various eras of history have been painted and blended together. You can spend hours wandering around the picturesque medieval Old Town and traditional wooden houses in the neighbouring creative district, or get swept up in the remains of the Soviet era the traces it left (including the derelict Linnahall, which for you Christopher Nolan fans, is used in the film ‘Tenet’).

Alternatively, you could lean into a more modern, slightly Scandinavian way of life. All of this together is what makes it Estonian. Some of my favourite habits included a weekly trip to a coffee shop with a friend after our Friday morning class, taking turns to pick a new café and explore new districts by the very efficient Tallinn public transport system, as well as a Sunday afternoon trip to the sauna to go ice-swimming in the capital’s seaplane harbour.

Many of us lived in the east of Tallinn in Lasnamäe, often called ‘the Russian ghetto’ given the high number of Russian speakers living in the area. Many lived with babushkas, but a friend and I lived with a man who trained Ukranian soldiers and ran a metal-for-furniture business on the side (whatever floats your boat?). We enjoyed conversations about his work and his family, which was spread between Estonia and Ukraine. His mother came to stay with us for a month from Kyiv, and we really enjoyed learning about her life and interests in a mishmash of Russian and Estonian, which she was learning at the time.

However much I loved Tallinn, one of the best things about it was how easy it was to leave. As in, it has excellent (and cheap) transport links to many parts of Estonia and other capital cities. The ferry trip to Helsinki is around £25 and takes two hours, other Baltic capitals are easily reachable by bus- although the overnight trip home from Vilnius to Tallinn is not the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had. One reading week at the end of March was enough time for a whistle-stop tour of Scandinavia by train: a friend and I interrailed from Helsinki to Kemi in the north of Finland, across the north of Sweden, before seeing Trondheim and Oslo in Norway, finally making our way down to Copenhagen. Many of our classmates travelled further afield to Georgia, Uzbekistan and Hungary during these reading weeks.

Although not what I expected when I originally applied to study Russian at Oxford, my time in Tallinn was formative, fulfilling and most importantly, fun. The beginners’ Russian year abroad seems highly structured, with little space to make it your own, but all our cohort came home with different experiences, stories and memories. Looking back, I realise that Tallinn to me was originally a ‘plan B’, an alternative, and a place I never would have considered home. How wrong I was!

Catrin, French and Beginners’ Russian

You can read more about Catrin’s year abroad experiences in Estonia here on the blog.

The Estonian Sauna

On the blog this week, French and Beginners’ Russian student, Catrin, tells us all about the wonders of the Estonian sauna, and her experiences of using them while on her year abroad last year.

The Estonian sauna is a weird and wonderful place.

Photo belongs to Catrin Mackie

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our Beginners’ Russian cohort was told we would be going to Tallinn instead of Yaroslavl’, which had been the destination of choice for decades. I had no idea what to expect from Russia’s small north-eastern neighbour. Tallinn truly surprised me, and one of the things I miss the most is cold water swimming and the sauna culture that accompanies it. My favourite Russian word that I learnt on my year abroad was моржевание (morzhevanie); a specific, one word translation for “cold water swimming” or “winter swimming”, that comes from the word “morzh” meaning “walrus”.

Tallinn is a coastal capital, sitting on the shores of the Baltic Sea, which meant any ‘morzhevanie’ I would take part in would be, well, baltic. I was sceptical. However, when told that the Estonian way was to swim in the freezing cold water and then run straight back to a cosy, boiling hot sauna, I was more convinced. The ritual of the trip to the sauna became part of my life in Estonia- a friend and I went every Sunday through the winter swimming season, which lasts from the beginning of November through to the end of April. Estonians and the international community alike can buy season tickets for their favourite sauna for a discounted price, much like football fans would do in the UK.

Sauna culture in Estonia is sacred. There are approximately 100,000 saunas in Estonia for a population of 1.3 million. In the capital, it may be a somewhat trendy novelty that tech employees and Erasmus students dabble in for the period of their stay, but a more traditional kind of sauna, namely the “Võromaa” smoke sauna tradition in southern Estonia, has warranted cultural heritage status on the UNESCO list. It is part of a wider Russo-Scandinavian sauna tradition, with slight variations from Estonia to Russia to Finland to Sweden to Norway. Some of the most burning questions include: is it a wood-burning or a steam sauna? What sticks do you hang in the sauna to hit your body with to increase circulation? Should you wear a little felt hat to regulate your body temperature or not? And, for the sauna fashionistas amongst you, what colour should the little felt hat be?  

A testament to its cultural heritage and importance, saunas are now being delivered from Estonia to Ukranian soldiers on the front lines of the war by the NGO “Saunas for Ukraine”, and the movement is garnering support online to send more. It has provided battalions of the Ukranian army with a place to wash, convene, and boost morale. The modern Tallinn sauna is part conference room, part cool hangout spot, part extreme sport training centre. During my first trip to the sauna- a repurposed small shipping container in the trendy, harbourside Kalamaja district- it was full of people who were attending the same technology conference which didn’t officially start until the following day, but business discussions had clearly begun as they scurried as a pack between the sea and the steam.

In the following weeks, we became regulars and noticed that the French embassy in Tallinn ran a group trip to the sauna every week; a mixture of diplomats and NATO soldiers who challenged each other to stay in the freezing sea as long as they could (one soldier managed 8 minutes!). I heard friends conversing in Estonian, Finnish, Russian, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese (that was just on one Sunday afternoon in mid-January). The sauna was a very international space, and a great place for cultural exchange.

Photo belongs to Catrin Mackie

One of the most memorable conversations we had was with two of the chattiest Estonians my friend and I had ever met (Estonians are famously quite reserved), who, upon hearing that I was Welsh and a Welsh-speaker, immediately asked “can you tell us that really long Welsh place name?”. I obliged before even thinking how incredible it was that two Estonians knew about the name of a tiny village, which happened to be my grandfather’s birthplace, on the complete opposite end of Europe. In exchange for my consonant-heavy declaration, we were told an Estonian phrase that was made up almost entirely of vowels- “on the edge of the ice” in Estonian is “jää-äär”.

On other visits, the sauna was completely silent, and a place for meditation and reflection. Desperate not to miss our habitual “ice swimming Sundays” on a trip around Scandinavia, we found the most intense group of cold water swimmers in Kemi, Finland (a mere hour outside the Arctic circle!). The sea was completely frozen over. The sauna was boiling hot, and very quiet.

The relaxed nature of the cold-water swimming community in Estonia eventually left me wondering: what kind of place would the world be if all diplomatic and political negotiations happened in saunas?

– Catrin Mackie, French and Russian student

New Year, New event!

The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages is delighted to announce a brand new event for the 2023/24 academic year – a Beginners’ Languages Taster Day!

Alongside our usual Modern Languages Open Day (which will take place on Saturday 11th May), this year we will be running an event dedicated to our beginners’ languages courses. This new event offers students from UK secondary schools in Year 12 or equivalent an opportunity to gain greater insight into our beginners’ languages degree programmes at Oxford. Students in Year 11 who are starting to consider their options for university are also welcome to attend.

The Taster Day will take place on Saturday 2nd March in our main Faculty teaching spaces – the Taylor Institution Library and 47 Wellington Square. After an information and Q&A session in the morning, students will have the chance to attend taster sessions in two of our beginners’ languages.

Photo taken from our Modern Languages Open Day 2022
photo (c) John Cairns

The following languages will be represented at the Taster Day, with academics and current undergraduates present to provide further information about the course(s) and to answer students’ questions:

  • German
  • Portuguese
  • Italian
  • Russian
  • Czech (with Slovak)
  • Modern Greek
  • Polish

The provisional event programme can be found here.

To register for the Taster Day, students should fill out this form by 10am on Friday 23rd February so we know who to expect at the event. Please note that spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and the form will close once our maximum capacity has been reached.

We are also pleased to be able to help students who are in need of additional financial support with reasonable expenses such as travelling to and from Oxford for the event. There is a space to include this information in the registration form.

Photo taken from our Modern Languages Open Day 2022
photo (c) John Cairns

Our beginners’ languages courses offer an exciting and rare opportunity for students to engage with a new language and culture for the first time, or to pick up languages they studied at GCSE. The courses are challenging yet rewarding, with many designed to bring students up to A-level standard within the first year. Therefore, we would love to welcome students who are strong linguists and/or who are looking for a new challenge at University to this event.

As well as alongside a post-A-level language, most of our beginners’ languages can be studied in conjunction with subjects from the Humanities such as English, History, Linguistics, or Philosophy, for which applicants do not need to be studying a language to A-level or equivalent. With this in mind, we would also welcome students of Humanities subjects who are interested in picking up a language at University.

For further inspiration and information, below are some links to content from our tutors and undergraduates about why taking a language from scratch is so worthwhile:

  • Blog post Why study Czech?
  • Video – Branching Out: Picking up a language from scratch
  • Video – Studying German for Beginners at Oxford:

We look forward to seeing you on 2nd March!

Apply to Study Beginners’ German!

Here at Oxford, the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages welcomes applications for German at all levels. This means that if you haven’t studied the language at A-level, you can still apply to study Beginners’ German as part of your degree.

Excitingly, 2023 marks the first year that prospective students can apply to study Beginners’ German as part of our Joint Schools degrees. This means that you can combine learning German from scratch with another of the following Humanities subjects:

  • Classics
  • English
  • History
  • Linguistics
  • Philosophy

So, if you’re hoping to study one of these subjects, but are interested in learning a new language, why not choose Beginners’ German?!

Take a look at our brand new video below to learn more about studying German for Beginners at Oxford, and to hear about the experiences of our current students who have chosen this excellent option!

If students apply via the Beginners’ German route, they will sit the Language Aptitude Test, which forms part of the Modern Languages Aptitude Test (MLAT).

Students taking Beginners’ German will receive intensive language tuition during their first year and further targeted language support specific to their needs during their second year. From the start of their course they will have some teaching on narrative works together with the post A-level group, and they will be fully integrated from the start of the second year, with access to all the course options in linguistics, literature, film and culture.

During the course, Oxford’s tutorial system and small-group language teaching will enable students at all levels to receive the appropriate tuition for their needs, which will build on the knowledge they have already acquired.

You can learn more about German at Oxford here.

Modern Languages Study Days

On the blog this week, we pass over to our friends at St John’s College and Christ Church to promote their exciting upcoming Modern Languages Study Days!

St John’s College – Wednesday 10th May

St John’s College, Oxford is pleased to welcome applications for our Year 12 Modern Languages Study Day. The Study Day is open to all Year 12 students currently attending a non-selective state-school in the UK.

Inside St John’s College chapel

What does the day involve?

  • Academic taster sessions led by Oxford Modern Languages tutors
  • An introductory lecture on applying to, and studying at, Oxford University
  • An interview session with a practice interview demonstration
  • A Q&A session with current Modern Languages students and tutors
  • A tour of St John’s College

To sign up: Complete the application form on our website between 20th March and 8am Monday 17th April 2023. All events and resources are free to qualifying pupils. Travel awards and Digital Assistance Awards are also available for eligible participants. If you have any questions or would like more information, please do get in touch with us at access@sjc.ox.ac.uk.

Christ Church – Thursday 1 June

Christ Church is excited to be hosting a Modern Languages Study Day on Thursday 1 June 2023. This day is aimed both at students who are currently studying languages and those who are interested in picking up new languages at university. It will offer a taste of Modern Languages at university across both cases.

Christ Church War Memorial Gardens

You do not need to be studying a language already to do a Modern Language as part of your degree at Oxford. As well as degree courses in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Modern Greek, Oxford also offers joint-honours courses that can involve languages in different combinations, such as French and Beginners’ Russian, Spanish and Portuguese or Russian and Beginners’ Czech (with Slovak). Oxford also offers a range of joint-honours courses that combine languages with other subjects, such as English and French, Modern Languages and Linguistics, Philosophy and Beginners’ German. More detailed information about course combinations and content can be found on the Oxford courses webpage.

To find out more about the Modern Languages Study Day and apply to take part, please check the Christ Church Modern Languages Study Day webpage.

Make sure you apply to these exciting opportunities before the deadline(s)!

Why Study Czech?

In this week’s blog post, recent graduate in Spanish & Czech from St Peter’s College, Joe Kearney, reflects on his decision to study Czech at Oxford and where the journey has taken him…

I chose to study Czech at Oxford because I wanted to try something completely different. At school I had studied French and Spanish, and I wanted to learn a language from a totally new language family.

Exploring Štramberk, Joe Kearney

The first year of Czech was certainly the challenge I’d been looking for. I sat in my first language class of the year, in front of the Czech lady (Vanda, she is lovely) who had been tasked with teaching me and my three classmates Czech from scratch, and wondering how I was ever going to learn what any of this stuff meant. The learning curve was steep, but incredibly rewarding. We started with the absolute basics: how the alphabet works, how to introduce yourself, how to order food in a restaurant. By the end of my first year I’d read my first short stories in Czech and I’d been to Prague and worked for a couple of months as a waiter in a pizza parlour! Learning a language from scratch is fantastic for anyone who fancies a bit of adventure.

We spent second year developing our speaking, listening, writing and translating skills, as well as reading more and more literature in Czech. Because Czech is a small course, with just a handful of undergraduate students every year, the course is really flexible. 20th century Czech history and literature fascinated me, and I was able to shape all of the rest of my degree around it. I learned about the interwar period in the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Czech experience under communism, and the Czech journey out of communism in the 90s and 2000s. Writers like Jiří Weil, Ludvík Vaculík and Bianca Bellová captured my imagination, and I was able to take my newfound interests with me on my year abroad, where I studied New Wave Czech film, a history of Czech photography, and modern Czech politics at the University of Ostrava.

View over the aptly named Smrk mountain, Joe Kearney
Skiing in the Slovak High Tatras, Joe Kearney

In Ostrava I got a job as a waiter in a tearoom (the best language training anyone could get!), I went climbing in the hills with my Ostravák friends, and I travelled with a great group of Erasmus students. One of the best things about the Czech Republic, we quickly found, is that it is a fantastic basecamp from which to travel all around Europe. I visited France, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Poland, and even Sweden that year, as well as making use of the ridiculously cheap trains to get all around the Czech Republic. Some highlights were České Švýcarsko (Czech Switzerland), Skiing in the Slovakian High Tatras, and visiting Kraków, in Poland, and Stockholm, in Sweden. 

My love for Czech grew immensely on my year abroad, and final year went by in a blast. More learning, and more opportunities to take the voyage of discovery further and further.

I would highly recommend learning a new language from scratch at Oxford. My Czech degree was a fantastic awakening to a new world of culture, travel, and wonderful people. I have never looked back!

View over the Beskydy mountains, Joe Kearney

A huge thanks to Joe for sharing his wonderful experiences of studying beginners’ Czech as well as the stunning photos taken on his year abroad in Ostrava last year (2021-22).

If you’re interested in following a similar path, you can find out more about Czech at Oxford here.

Branching Out: Picking up a language from scratch

One of the wonderful things about studying languages at university is that you quite often have the opportunity to pick up a new language from scratch. This can be a wonderful chance to immerse yourself linguistically and culturally in something brand new. At Oxford, within the Medieval and Modern Languages Faculty, you can study Italian, Russian, Portuguese, German, Modern Greek, Czech or Polish as a beginners’ language.

In this video, Julie Curtis, Professor of Russian at Oxford, tells us a bit more about why that could be an exciting option…