French and Beginners' Italian

French and Italian are the two great Romance languages of Western Europe, carrying between them some of the richest literary traditions in the world. French has shaped European thought from the Enlightenment to the present, and remains a major diplomatic and international language. Italian is the language of Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and the great tradition of European opera, as well as a living language of considerable economic and cultural vitality.

Studying them together at Oxford, with Italian as the beginners' language, gives you access to two cultural worlds that have been in dialogue with each other for centuries.

This four-year programme takes Italian from first principles, developing reading, writing, and speaking skills progressively alongside your French studies, which begin at the higher level the programme expects. Oxford's tutorial system means both strands are pursued with intensive intellectual engagement, and you will read literary, historical, and cultural texts in both languages, developing the analytical precision and the cultural knowledge to interpret them with depth. The comparative dimension, asking how the two traditions relate to each other and to the broader European literary heritage, is one of the programme's intellectual rewards.

Graduates with high-level proficiency in French and Italian are sought across diplomacy, the European institutions, international business, journalism, translation and interpreting, academic research, publishing, the arts, and cultural relations. The rarity of the combination, and the Oxford tutorial system's contribution to analytical and writing skill, marks graduates out in competitive professional and academic environments. Postgraduate study in French, Italian, comparative literature, translation, or European cultural studies is a well-established direction for those who wish to pursue scholarship or specialist professional careers.