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Undergraduate Study

The French are our nearest neighbours, with whom we have been interacting throughout our history. French is a major world language, spoken not only in several European countries, but in Canada, Africa, and the Caribbean, and the influence of France on European culture has been massive from medieval times to the present. In literature (poetry, drama, the novel), philosophy, the visual arts, and cinema, its achievements are second to none. You will find French immensely rewarding to study.

 

As well as offering high-level teaching in all aspects of language, the undergraduate course covers the literature, thought, and culture of France and the French-speaking world from the early medieval period to the present day. You will be able to develop your existing interests and to discover new and perhaps unexpected ones. You will encounter challenging and stimulating ideas about language, culture, and life. As well as linguistic skills and academic knowledge, you will acquire important transferable skills, skills of analysis and expression (verbal and written), which will be valuable to you whatever your chosen path after Cambridge.

Latest News

Prof Wendy Ayres-Bennett: New handbook combines wide coverage with cutting-edge research

22 July 2024

22 July 2024 Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett (University of Cambridge) and Professor Mairi McLaughlin (UC Berkeley, Cambridge alumna) have co-edited the newly published Oxford Handbook of the French Language , featuring 32 chapters by different specialists on French from a range of fields and disciplines. In this interview...

Cambridge Emerita Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett co-edits Oxford Handbook of the French Language

11 July 2024

11 July 2024 Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett (University of Cambridge) and Professor Mairi McLaughlin (UC Berkeley) are pleased to announce the publication of The Oxford Handbook of the French Language , featuring 32 chapters by different specialists on French from a range of fields and disciplines. This volume provides the...

Professor Gilby interviewed about her Leverhulme Fellowship

10 June 2024

Professor Emma Gilby, Professor of Modern Literature and Thought and Bye-Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, has been awarded a three-year Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust for her project ‘Women and the Making of Modern Languages: A New Modernism’. Around the turn of the twentieth century, two social...