Work Experience: a week in the School of Cultures, Languages and Area studies

The leaves are turning brown, Halloween is fast approaching and one more student comes along, eager to find out what goes on behind the scenes inside a Russell Group University. Hi, I’m Holly  and I spent 5 days working at the University of Nottingham, alongside their wonderful CLAS department, which stands for Cultures, Languages and …

University Language Ambassadors – An inspirational strand in UK schools’ language strategy

It seems that rarely a day goes by without a negative news story about the decline of languages in UK schools (see BBC News, Language learning: German and French drop by half in Schools and The Independent, Britain’s dwindling language skills are a disaster for the country and needs action, MPs warn  for recent examples). …

Work experience in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

Bienvenue! This week, at the University of Nottingham, we certainly received, as the French would say, an ‘acceuil royal’, during our work experience here in the Faculty of Arts. Thanks to the organisation of Tara Webster-Deakin, we’ve had a brilliantly varied week, all whilst getting an insight into the intricacies of the University of Nottingham …

Happy European Day of Languages to all of our students, colleagues and local businesses!

As part of the Languages for Business team, I’ve been thinking about how we translate the varied and culturally-steeped language of business networking. Is it true that there are only two types of people in the world – those who love networking and those who would rather communicate via messenger pigeon than don a nametag …

My MA in Translation Studies with Interpreting at the University of Nottingham

I’d always planned to become a translator. The career seemed to fit my abilities and interests well so the die was cast on my academic path. The translation modules I did as part of my undergraduate degree in Modern Language Studies (French, Spanish and Dutch) only whetted my appetite further for continuing my study of …

Reflections on Fidel Castro’s death

Since January 1959, Cuba has generally been somewhat ill-served by the outside media, being so often the object of preconceptions, half-truths and superficiality. And never more so than in the media’s responses to Fidel Castro’s death (25 November 2016), responses which – ironically –  were often stuck in the very ‘time-warp’ which, they repeatedly told …

“Why I Love My PhD” – Researching Cuban Independence

Alberto Martí, a postgraduate student at the Center for Research on Cuba in CLAS, has reflected on his experience of researching and writing a PhD thesis in a piece written for the Guardian. Alberto’s research uses different disciplinary approaches, including ‘landscape archaeology,’ to explore the emergence of the ‘concentration camp’ during the Cuban war for …

Learning languages at Nottingham

                                                      Emma with friends in Cádiz, Spain I started my UoN career as an undergraduate studying French and Beginners’ Spanish. Starting a language ab initio was daunting at first …

MA Translation Reflections

A number of people have asked why, with over 20 years experience in the translation industry, I decided to apply to do the MA in translation. It wasn’t going to progress my career – I am already a company director, and studying part time was a major challenge on top of a demanding full time …

Cuba at the Crossroads?

Cuban politics, economics and diplomacy are all at historic turning points. On 29 September 2015, the Centre for Research on Cuba’s annual seminar series began with a well-attended discussion by three of Cuba’s leading commentators and political experts (Rafael Hernández, political scientist and editor of the influential magazine Temas, Carlos Alzugaray, ex-diplomat and Cuba’s leading …