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Undergraduate Study

Modern Languages and Cultures

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Start any language from beginners

Chinese (Mandarin); French; German; Italian; Portuguese; Russian; Spanish

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Top 150 in QS World University Subject Rankings 2023

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Year abroad spent studying at a partner university or in employment

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Top 10 in the Russell Group for student satisfaction in all seven themes

National Student Survey 2023

Modern Languages and Cultures at Exeter is one of the leading centres for modern languages research, teaching and learning in the UK. Our department comprises seven major language areas: Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, and through optional modules you can also expand your study into other languages and cultures.

Our degrees offer a high level of choice, allowing you to focus on a main language and its culture, combine two or three languages (BA Modern Languages only), or study a language alongside another subject. You can tailor your degree to your strengths by taking up additional languages or specialising in a particular language area during your time here. You can also choose to focus your study on discovering the societies and cultures where these languages are spoken, or on studying languages and linguistics.

We place considerable emphasis on student support, especially for your year abroad. This includes preparation, information, support while abroad, and a range of modules tailored to the year abroad experience. We also involve our students in helping us to improve our programmes via Student- Staff Liaison Committees and the Student Engagement Scheme.

This combination of seven diverse language areas with shared aims and structures gives you the greatest opportunity to get what you want out of a Modern Languages degree; studying Russian or Chinese will open quite different doors from studying Italian or Spanish, but whichever language or languages you study, you will leave Exeter as a trained linguist, proficient in learning languages in context and engaging with other cultures.

The Modern Languages course at Exeter offers a variety of options, ranging from Literature to Film Studies to Linguistics and many more in between.

For me, this academic diversity was incredibly important and I have really appreciated the freedom that this has given me to create a course structure that was personal to me.

Of course, the fantastic opportunities on offer for my year abroad were another draw to Exeter. Last year I was lucky enough to spend 6 months studying at La Sorbonne in Paris before undertaking an internship for 6 months at Giorgio Armani in Italy. I am so grateful for this amazing and invaluable experience of living abroad that studying at Exeter made possible for me. I gained management skills and I would really like to work as a fashion buyer and I am now applying for graduate schemes.

Read more from Rachel

Rachel

BA Modern Languages (French and Italian)