Key facts

• Typical offer conditions - A*AA - A*A*A at A-Level / IB 42-43 with 776 in Higher Levels
• Required subjects - A-Level or equivalent in at least one of the two languages you wish to study
• Admissions tests - College-administered admissions assessment for which you do not have to register in advance
• Interviews - two subject based
• Written work - two submitted essays (including one essay in each of the languages you are applying to study post A-Level)
• Average offers made - 8

The subject at Selwyn

Selwyn has a long-standing commitment to modern languages and has a thriving modern languages society. Selwyn's teaching offers range across all the principal languages of the MML Tripos.  Students at Selwyn are assisted in their studies by a wide range of travel grants, including the Gebauer Fund, to help with the costs of travel to Germany for academic purposes, the Sarah Adams Travel Fund to help with the costs of travel to Russian-speaking destinations for academic purposes. The College is ideally situated for modern languages, since it adjoins the Sidgwick site, where the University lectures and classes are held and the Faculty Library is located. The College Library itself also has excellent, up-to-date holdings in all the languages available for study. 

All modern linguists spend their third year abroad either studying, teaching English, or on a work placement.

As a result not only of their language skills but also their time spent working or studying abroad, modern linguists have an excellent employability rate after graduation and go on to work in a wide range of careers. Recent modern linguists have gone to work in the media, the arts, in teaching and lecturing, translating, law, the civil service, banking and accountancy.

Teaching Fellows at Selwyn

Dr Edmund Birch (French) is a specialist in nineteenth-century French culture; Dr Bryan Cameron (Spanish) is a specialist in modern Spanish culture, with research interests in the nineteenth-century novel, film studies and social protest movements; Dr Elena Filimonova (Russian) has research interests in Russian linguistics and linguistic typology; Dott. Claudia Domenici (Italian) is a specialist in language teaching methodology and translation studies; Dr Charlotte Woodford (German) has published on early modern, nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century German literature, with a special focus on women’s writing and the novel; Dr Kirsty McDougall (Linguistics) is a phonetician and has particular interests in speaker characteristics, forensic phonetics, and the phonetic realisation of varieties of English. The College also has its own lectors in French and German.

Subject requirements

All students of MML study two modern languages, one of which may be ab-initio (from the very beginning). You will therefore need an A-Level or equivalent qualification in at least one of the languages you wish to study.

You can study the following languages either if you have no experience or if you have an A-Level or equivalent in the language: German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish. You can only study French if you have an A-Level or equivalent in the language.  If you have A-Level Latin, it is possible to combine Classical Latin with an MML Tripos language, either ab-initio or post A-Level. It is possible to study a modern language with History by applying for the History and Modern Languages Tripos, or with Arabic, Persian or Hebrew by applying for the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Tripos.

Successful candidates will have demonstrated an independent approach to learning, together with evidence of wide reading; they will have achieved a high standard in the languages they are already studying; they will be highly motivated and they will have the potential to pursue academic excellence once they are at Cambridge.  

Interviews

Candidates will have two subject interviews, one for each language. All interviews will include a test of your oral ability, except in the case of a language you wish to start ab-initio, where the interviewers will be looking for motivation and an active interest in the culture and history of the language-speaking area. You will usually also be asked to discuss a passage, which may or may not be literary in nature. Those who are following a non-literary syllabus in the sixth form should note that this is designed to be an exercise in linguistic comprehension rather than a test of literary appreciation.  

Written work

You will be asked to submit two examples of your sixth-form work which may be discussed at interview.  You must include one essay in the target language for each of the languages you are applying for post A-Level.  If you are only applying for one post A-Level language, the second essay should be in English.

Admissions Assessment 

Applicants will take an hour-long written language assessment, which follows the same format in all Colleges.  Based on a passage in English, this is designed to assess writing skills in both English and your foreign language.  No special preparation or prior knowledge is required. You will not need to register in advance for this assessment and the details will be sent alongside interview invitations.

A message from the Selwyn College MML Fellows

Studying modern languages has never seemed more urgent and important than it is now. Learning languages plays a vital role in better understanding how we are connected to others. It is for that reason that all students in Cambridge study two languages, or more, during their degree here.

By studying MML, you have the opportunity to learn more about other cultures – as well as more about the culture we share with others and, on top of that, more about yourself.

“My favourite part of my year abroad was the people I met: studying abroad gave me the opportunity to meet people from all over Europe and the world.”

There is a short video here about the MML course in Cambridge, filmed in and around the Raised Faculty Building which is next door to Selwyn. You can hear more from students about their experiences, including the Year Abroad:

We make around 10 offers each year to students for MML. At Selwyn, you will be part of a strong subject community which comes together regularly to exchange ideas, such as during college study skills sessions, and for social events. You will be supported by a Director of Studies for each of your languages who will get to know you and be able to celebrate your successes.

We have a large subject team in Selwyn including specialists in French, Spanish, German, Italian and Russian, and lectors to build your confidence in the spoken language. We also enjoy supporting your travel abroad through a range of travel grants.

As well as gaining in fluency in your languages, the MML course offers the opportunity to engage with a diverse range of cultural experiences; you will be studying cinema and drama, reading fiction, and learning more about the ideas which are expressed through culture. The course in the first year introduces you to the wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, that can be studied while you are here.

Students in Selwyn are able to choose among all of the languages available on the MMLL course and around half of them take up a language from scratch (ab initio). This video from the Italian department gives you an insight into why students have decided to take up Italian without any previous study of the language. Before coming to Selwyn, our students have studied a wide range of subjects at A Level. Everyone who is invited to interview is met by specialists in both their languages, who are looking for evidence that you are good at learning languages, and also that you are motivated and open to new ideas.

March 2026