What do you do in 'linguistics' at university?

Question

(U.K) I would like to study lingusics at university and i was just wondering what you have to do, what grades do you need, what languages do you learn, how long does it take to complete the course, whats the best university to do it. Etc.

I am studting French and Spanish and iu want to be fluent in them both one day.

I would love to hear any experices.

Answer 1

Linguistics is the study of language in general - how it's pronounced, why some languages use subject-verb-object (and how that effects how they think), how language evolved from grunting, etc.

It's not a study of all languages or any language in particular, like most people think. If you want to study a foreign language, study a foreign language.

That being said, I'm American, so I don't know what would be the best university for you and how long it would take in the UK to get a degree in linguistics. I assume it's four years just like here, but I could be wrong.

Best of luck in your studies!

Answer 2

you have to apply to the university and suit their conditions

the grades are due to your high school results and the college you choose

you learn the languages you choose

it takes about 4 years to get Bachelor's

the best uni is the balance between uni fame and your finances

you should ask about it in Education section, actually

Answer 3

languages

Answer 4

For grades it depends on the Uni, but I've seen some let you in with 3 Cs. You'll have an advantage if you speak more than one language  since you'll have experience of comparing languages. You don't learn any languages in the Lingustics course itself apart from the occasional word they use as examples, it's studying languages so it's more about sounds, patterns of sounds (like which sounds are okay to put together in a language and which aren't), how words are made and more. It takes three years to complete the course, as almost any University course does.

Something I found a bit surprising is having to learn the phoenetic alphabet and the biology of sound producing parts.