German and Beginners' Modern Greek

German and Beginners' Modern Greek is a programme that asks you to develop expertise in a major European language while simultaneously building a new linguistic competence from the ground up. German is one of the world's most significant languages for philosophy, literature, science, and classical music, the native language of the most populous country in the European Union and a major working language in European institutions and business. Modern Greek connects you to one of Europe's oldest literary traditions, to the contemporary culture and society of Greece and Cyprus, and to a language whose ancient form has been foundational to the study of philosophy, medicine, and theology in Western universities for centuries.

At the University of Oxford, this four-year full-time programme is structured to develop your German to a high level while introducing you to Modern Greek with no prior knowledge assumed. The tutorial system means you receive intensive, personalised engagement with scholars who are specialists in each language and the cultural and intellectual traditions it opens up. In German you will work across literature, cultural history, linguistics, and translation, engaging with texts from the medieval period to the contemporary.

The Modern Greek strand builds your reading, writing, and spoken competence progressively, situating language learning within the history and culture of the Greek-speaking world from the Byzantine period to the present.

The combination develops a genuinely unusual intellectual profile: the depth of a major language studied to an advanced level alongside the challenge and discipline of learning a second language from scratch, both embedded in the research-rich environment of Oxford's Modern Languages faculty.

Graduates pursue careers in diplomacy, international law, translation and interpreting, academia, finance, journalism, and the cultural sector. Many continue to doctoral research in German studies, modern Greek, or comparative literature. The combination is relatively rare and carries particular significance for anyone interested in the history and future of European culture.