Study Language and Linguistics at Otago

Bianca Malcolm:

Hi, I’m Bianca. I study Politics, German, and Spanish at the University of Otago. German and Spanish add a massive component to my degree. For one, it looks great on a CV and makes you stand out from other people. It’s great for travel—you can go overseas and do whatever you want, and people will understand you everywhere.

The Department of Languages at Otago itself is just amazing. The German lecturers in particular, and the Spanish and French lecturers, are all just there for you. The classes are quite small, so it’s very one-on-one, and you get a lot of help. Yeah, I’d say as a major itself, it adds a massive component to your degree.

Edan Feint:

Hi, I’m Edan. I studied German at Otago University. I chose to study German because my mother’s German, and I wanted to learn to speak another language. It is really cool to be able to go over to Germany and actually understand what other people are saying.

I’ve also been involved in the social aspect of German at university. We have a Stammtisch every week, where German students of various different levels go to a café and speak German.

Claudia Cooke:

Hello, I’m Claudia, and I study Music and German at Otago. I chose Otago because it’s a community-based university, and it’s a lot of fun.

Music and German link together really well. For German, the classes are small and very social, and the lecturers are very approachable. There’s a great sense of community within Languages as a whole. If you want to take a language, I’d highly recommend Otago.

Hayley Garlick:

Konnichiwa! Watashi no namae wa Hayley desu.
Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Hello, my name is Hayley, and I study at the University of Otago. I study Japanese and Psychology.

When I just finished high school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or where to go to study, so I took a gap year. I went to Japan, didn’t speak the language, but fell in love with the country and the culture. I decided that I wanted to come to Otago to pursue the language and culture.

I feel that Japanese and Psychology pair really well together because, not only do I understand the language now, but also the culture. Really understanding those two aspects has given me such a wonderful experience here at Otago University.

Dr Antonie Alm:

Hi, I’m Antonie. I’m the Head of Languages and Cultures here at the University of Otago, and I’m thrilled to be able to talk about our programme.

Our programme includes languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, and German. We are running a programme of languages, which we offer at all different levels. You can come to us if you have never done any languages before and start at the 100-level, or if you have done languages at high school or through travel, you can start at a higher level.

We offer all different opportunities for you. You might have German or Spanish heritage and want to polish your German so you can talk to your grandparents. The whole idea of using languages for academic study or for your personal interests—we can do all of that here at Otago.

We try to make languages very personal and supportive. We have small classes ranging between 10 and 30 students, so you really get support from our lecturers and tutors. We are also very keen to connect different languages with the outside world.

We have academic projects that involve community work. For instance, we have projects with Chinese immigrants or with citizens, where you interview people to gather cultural information. You don’t necessarily have to travel to experience languages—they are all here in Dunedin. Even though Europe might seem on the other side of the world, we have it all here. We have the culinary, the cultural—we have a whole mix of cultural knowledge here at Otago, and we try to take advantage of that.

We also like our students to have fun with their study. We organise social events, speaking clubs, play clubs, and cultural events. We really like to involve students at all levels in their language study.

Language has to be fun, because you can’t speak a language if you don’t want to. So come here and have fun with languages at Otago!