Test taken: MLAT
Number of interviews: 2
Online interview: yes

In my French interview, I was given ten minutes to read a poem and then we discussed the poem for maybe another ten. At first I answered their questions with the most boring, basic answers because I was so nervous but they always waited for me to speak more and I must have said at least a few insightful things over the course of the interview! Then we had a general discussion about books and what I liked reading. I gave a really animated description of the YA novel I was reading at the time (don't lie about what you enjoy/are reading in order to sound intellectual - if you're not genuinely enthused by what you're talking about, they'll know!) and they asked me some questions about it, then we talked some more about French books/poems that I had read. Finally we had a short conversation in French. I definitely made quite a few mistakes but they were really encouraging and the questions were completely manageable if you'd studied French up to your final year in school. This was December 2020 and I think we talked about what I did during lockdown and what my hobbies were, where I was from, had I ever been to France etc. The interviewers, I should say, were absolutely lovely and now that I've met them in person I don't know why I was so apprehensive about the interview!

My German interview was much the same except I wasn't given time to look at the poem before I had to answer questions on it, which was a little stressful. I was applying for ab initio/ Beginners' German so the poem was in English. I had something to say for all the questions until the last one, which I really just had no clue how to answer, even after trying to talk through it, but that was okay, we moved onto something else. We talked about my personal statement a bit and one of the interviewers asked me more specific questions about statements I had made, so make sure you can back up what you write! Overall, I really enjoyed both my interviews, and I discovered some great new poems through the ones I was given!

I ran through everything on my personal statement to make sure I was comfortable talking about all the books etc. that I had mentioned. As I had heard that I would get a text (possibly a poem) to analyse in the interview I practised talking about a variety of French poems with my teacher and also some English poems with my mum. That mostly served to improve my confidence in myself and what I had to say! I also read another French novel, but that was more for enjoyment than interview prep.

For the MLAT I started by completing a past paper (it was really tough the first time, so don't be put off if your initial attempt goes pretty badly!) and after marking it I went through my mistakes to see what areas I needed to practice. Although the questions are, of course, different each year, they often test you on the same areas of grammar, such as which prepositions to use, cases (if the language has such a thing), agreement (gender and number), subjunctive (again, if it exists in the language) and tense sequences that are different in English (for example, in French you use the future tense after when eg 'quand il SERA prêt - literally meaning 'when he will be ready').

Vocabulary is a little more unpredictable, but I would say try to read, watch, and listen to French content as much as possible in order to widen your vocabulary. A good idea is to learn household essentials such as by choosing a room in your house and describing it out loud to yourself in as much detail as you can, making a note of words you don't know, and then going back and looking those words up before attempting the exercise again.

For the LAT (Language Aptitude Test section of the MLAT, for those applying for new languages as beginners and for Russian on its own) I also started by doing an (untimed!) past paper. It took me about three hours to work it out the first time and I felt so disheartened but after practising a few I developed my own strategy for tackling the problems. From memory, a good way to go about the LAT is to look out for variations in the words depending on gender, number and their position in the sentence (i.e. subject or object). You could try making a table. It's worth spending a good bit of time deciphering the language as much as you can before moving on to the questions, but as the test is so short don't go overboard - you're not expected to emerge as a fluent speaker in the made-up test language!

I would say - and I know this is extremely difficult - have confidence in yourself. What you have to say is important and don't be put off if the tutors seem intimidating. If you're not sure what to say, don't panic - take a deep breath and think out loud. They will pick up on something you've said and guide you. Remember, the tutors want you to do well! It's not in their interest to frighten everyone into performing terribly in the interview - then they would end up with no students!