Welcome to our first issue of the Language Exepress!

Welcome to this launch issue of the Languages Exepress, the on-line magazine for all students with a passion for foreign languages and cultures!

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This is a great opportunity for all to share your experiences, joys and challenges in studying modern foreign languages with each other, and I look forward to getting an insight into how you are faring on your journeys.

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You are reading this because you are part of a large community of language learners at Exeter, some of you studying towards a degree in Modern Languages, others taking languages through the Foreign Language Centre.

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By studying Modern Languages those taking a degree not only get to study the languages that you love - through oral classes, written work and translating in and out of English – but you also explore cultures – histories, literatures, cinemas, visual cultures – of the worlds in which those languages are spoken. Our ethos at Exeter is that these two areas of study are mutually reinforcing and indivisible. On your journey with us you perfect your command of a language and you use this skill to investigate the histories and cultures of the nation, or, in most cases, nations, in which those languages are spoken.

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Those of you studying at the Foreign Language Centre will also be gaining insights into different ways of life through the texts you read and listen to, the topics you discuss together, and the way each language frames ways of thinking through the ways words are used, as well as learning to communicate with users of different languages around the world.

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Beyond the sheer enjoyment of language learning and studying culture, it’s also hard to think of a time when studying a foreign language wasn’t more valuable. As the UK prepares to leave the EU and the country reconfigures its position as a global nation, there has surely never been a time when languages were more important. ‘Just English’ isn’t enough. It is the graduates with language skills and understanding of foreign cultures who will create, shape, translate and interpret for this new international UK.

Some of you will be able to take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to spend a year away from the UK studying or working yet remaining a student of the University of Exeter. As well as improving your language, the inter-cultural skills that students acquire to adapt and flourish in a non-Anglophone environment make them highly employable when they return, if not irresistibly employable!

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Enjoy the magazine, and we look forward to receiving your views and contributions.