hello everyone and welcome back to my channel if you're new around here my name is Sarah and
well the questions which i'm going to answer today do span all of the kinds of topics that
i make videos on thanks so much for sending in a question if you did i did receive quite a few so
yeah i'm gonna try my best to answer as many of them as possible today so yeah i hope that you
enjoy this video and let's get into it so as with my last q&a that i did about a year ago
i've tried to categorize the questions so that they're sort of all as coherent as possible so
for a bit of context for the first question i'm going to answer on instagram when i did ask you
guys for questions i also asked on one of my most recent youtube videos but i also asked on
instagram and i did it against a background of a picture of buildings in bath and someone has
asked me where is this place um i'm not entirely sure of the actual name of the building itself
but it's in the northern part of the city center kind of near the circus if you're familiar with
bath and the royal crescent is a bit further away from that i think the closest landmark to
where this picture was taken um it's called the assembly rooms it's owned by the national trust
and yeah it's just a really nice building and bath why did you fall in love with learning languages
wow um i mean first of all i kind of did languages well especially german for a level because it was
one of the subjects i enjoyed the most at gcse so it was kind of my process of elimination but
um i think when i really started to enjoy learning german for what it was not just
because it was like to use really bad grammar the least worst option i think it was when i could
feel as though i could express myself in loads of situations in that other language that was a
really sort of as cliched as it sounds magical moment for me um i think hopefully if you do
speak more than one language then you can relate to that um and also the fact that you can you
know travel to places where this language is the main language and you know understand all of
the signs and stuff i think there's something really special about that and just being able
to travel in general you know the more languages you learn the more you can travel with ease so um
yeah i think that was the main thing really that made me fall in love with learning languages was
that i could find another medium of expression yeah how did you do german grammar wow um
i mean i am still very much in the process of understanding german grammar um i think german
grammar is extremely hard um and there's still some things even to this day you know i'm a final
year student of german there are still things that i'm new things i'm learning about german grammar
um i think just the key is to practice as much as possible there are so many workbooks that
you can get out there exercises that you can do online and stuff um i'm sure that your teachers
or lecturers wherever you're learning german will have some recommendations for the kinds
of materials that you can use but yeah i guess you just have to be really persistent with it
um and yeah it is really satisfying when you do finally get to grips with something yeah
it i do find it really fulfilling and that kind of links in with the next question which i'm going to
answer which is how do you motivate yourself to do german just a combination of it being a challenge
which i can conquer with persistence and i guess just the fact that there aren't that many native
english speakers who speak german well i think there's like a real gap in the market for that
so that is another huge thing that does motivate me to persist with learning german um and i
think that's particularly useful to bear in mind because like even though most native german speakers
can speak english quite well there is still a need for native english speakers to learn german
there are certain jobs where that is extremely useful okay i'm now going to answer a couple of
questions which were asked in the youtube comments do you know the common european framework for
languages if so where would you place a level german and degree level german relative to the a1 to c2
um wow i think so for those of you who don't know a level was sort of like high school diploma
i would say um to give a u.s equivalent it's probably the most universal thing to
compare it with um and it's like the equivalent of Abitur in germany Matura in switzerland i think
i yeah i think that's the only further education qualifications i know of but anyway i digress
this video is already going so long i would say that a level german is probably maybe it's B...
...1 level now that it's got a bit harder but i think when i did it i was sort of
borderline a2 b1 kind of thing
and i think degree level german is c1 yeah that's the level that we're meant to be by
the time you graduate which is a bit terrifying but um i think i guess i am kind of almost there
especially with some aspects more than others like i think my reading level of german for example is
quite high but my speaking level isn't as high so yeah hopefully i answer that question do you use
watching tv in different languages yes i do um if so any idea of the best method for learning yeah
i mean i definitely think that using subtitles if you have access to them is good um there are
a couple of tv shows like i watch a swedish television program for example but i watch it
with german audio and i mean even though you can't really see the um lip syncing with the language
i still do find that really useful um so yeah when you do have available subtitles or audio
then definitely use them in the target language i do appreciate that especially on netflix on
british netflix it seems that you can get french and spanish audio for a lot of tv shows but
very rarely my language is german and italian so yeah i guess it depends what languages you're
learning i definitely think that if you want to sort of learn idioms and sort of how it would be
verbalized in your native language then maybe use subtitles in your native language i do actually do
that a bit and then the other half the time i do watch them with subtitles in my target language
i guess that yeah it depends if you want to sort of practice new vocabulary in your target language
then use your target language subtitles if you want to sort of understand how things
are pronounced in a more natural environment um yeah as i say if you want to sort of learn idioms
and how it would be expressed in your language how do you translate it into your language
then definitely consider using subtitles yeah in your native language um yeah hopefully i've
answered that as well but yeah honestly i could make a whole video on some of these things and
i might well do that um to stop this video from getting way too long sorry i'm leaning forward a
lot and i'm beginning to get backache so i need to keep that good posture you know so more to do with
uni in general someone has asked me how is dissertation going well um my course
i think it's gonna change but for my cohort certainly for my course you don't actually have
to do a dissertation and i've chosen not to do a dissertation i could have done it if i wanted to
but i've chosen not to because just the thought of writing a 10 000 word essay just
yeah it's really not for me um i don't think i could sort of focus on a single niche topic
for that long and still sort of have the will to live at the end so yeah i've decided just
to take more classes and i'm in lieu of the dissertation so yeah i'm really loving it um
but yeah i think um they do say that if you want to sort of have a career in research and academia
and if you want to do certain master's degrees and definitely do a dissertation so it's like closing
some doors for me but yeah i know that i don't want to go down that certain academic path so
yeah that's why i'm not doing a dissertation so now sort of more questions to do with
the future someone has asked me what are your plans after school um
i don't really know yet i have applied for something um but it's a very competitive program
and there is a good chance that i will get it but also there's a possibility that i won't get it
so i don't want to talk about it too much just in case i don't don't want to get your hopes up don't
want to get my hopes up um but yeah i definitely want to have a gap year next year um i definitely
want to sort of work do something completely different i definitely don't want to study
um at least next year so yeah um i will let you know once i know more myself but yeah sorry about
being really vague about that someone also asked me jobs um i guess you're asking about jobs to do
after uni and yeah again i'm i'm not really sure i can't really say too much at the moment about what
i want to do next year but longer term i don't know i am considering translation interpretation
teaching all of those classic kind of language degree graduate jobs but yeah i don't really know
um it would be nice to have something that uses my languages but at the same time yeah i just want a
job that makes me feel happy and fulfilled and i don't know what that is yet so yeah
so have you decided whether you are going to do a translation masters yet um so yeah
i guess i've kind of already answered this um i i'm considering it but i know that it's not
the solution for me for next year because just with everything that's going on in the final
year i have found it a bit much sometimes i would just like a year where i don't have
loads and loads of deadlines for courseworks and essays and exams and stuff um so yeah definitely
i'm not considering doing one next year but maybe the year after yeah i haven't sort of
i'm definitely doing my research a bit on it but yeah i still need some more time to sort of
explore the options um so yeah i haven't ruled out and now to do more specifically with bath unit
um someone has asked me about accommodation and bath um i mean actually i don't know if this is
specifically to do with basket i don't really know what kind of accommodation you're asking
about i mean i think there are so many youtube videos out there to do with accommodation and
bath so if you're looking for accommodation on a uni campus i don't know if i don't know you could
be looking at bath spa i don't know there's loads of videos out there on accommodation on
uni campuses and bath or yeah private accommodation for when you're not on campus
um so yeah whatever kind of accommodation you're looking for in bath there i think it's very likely
that there will be some really specific youtube videos on that so yeah um have a look when i was
um a fresher the uni of bath seems like such a long time ago now but it was only three years ago
i lived in quads and i did a room tour when back in the early days of me being on youtube
which is probably really terrible but it's got quite a few views so feel free to check that out
um i'll put it up here i think that's the side that you put it up but equally there are probably
loads of videos out there on youtube that are frankly better than that that you could be looking
at so yeah if you did a masters would you do it at bath uni if they did do my subject and i met the
entry requirements definitely because yeah i know quite a few people who live in bath i sort of feel
as though i'm part of the local community here and i don't just know other students
so yeah because my sort of the most people who i know in one place are in bath and yeah i just feel
as though my sort of social support network is here so i would definitely do it in bath
if i could i am considering quite a few master's degrees and not all of them are necessarily in
languages i would be also open to maybe living in bath but doing a master's degree in bristol
i don't know so many decisions to make and because you didn't get to spend your entire year abroad
do you feel the need to travel more next year yes i still have that travel bug that need to
travel i must confess um yeah i definitely want to spend a few weeks travelling in the summer if not
sort of maybe potentially do a gap year abroad but it depends on what the outcome of this thing
that i've applied for as but um yeah i think two of my closest friends at uni also didn't
get a proper year abroad really or like anything like a year abroad so i think yeah we're thinking
of maybe doing a bit of traveling around europe but yeah we'll see but yeah i definitely want to
spend a considerable amount of time abroad before i sort of settle down in a proper graduate job
if you know i mean so yeah those are all of the questions that i will be answering today
i didn't get around to answering all of them i'm really sorry if you asked me a question i didn't
i hope that you have enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up if you did
and yeah if you've made it this far then i think you will definitely like my channel in general
so please subscribe if you haven't done already and i'll see you in another video very soon bye