French
We offer a number of flexible, exciting modules and courses that allow you to develop your interest in French studies at every level, from language-learning short courses to study at BA degree level, Graduate Diploma, MA and MPhil-PhD.
At Birkbeck, all our teaching is in the evenings, allowing you to combined study with work and other commitments. We are a research intensive university, so you will be taught by world-class specialists in French literature, thought, history and visual culture from the eighteenth century to the contemporary period.
Hear from Richard Harvey, a BA French Studies student
French courses
BA DEGREE
You can study French on a range of our undergraduate courses, either as a single language pathway, or together with another language within our flexible BA Modern Languages. If you are especially interested in how languages work and keen to orient your study towards linguistics, you can study French as part of BA Language Teaching and Language or BA Linguistics and Language. Or you can study French with another subject as part of a combined honours degree (e.g. English, Film and Media, History, Art History, Journalism, Politics, and Law).
If you focus on French in any of our degrees, this will be reflected in your degree title when you graduate.
View French BA degree courses.
BA DEGREE WITH YEAR ABROAD
Some programmes give you the chance spend a year abroad at a partner institution, enabling you to develop your language skills and knowledge of the culture. View courses with international experience.
BA Degree With Foundation Year
If you haven’t studied for a while or don’t immediately meet our entry requirements, we also offer BA Modern Languages and BA Language Teaching and Language with a Foundation Year. This four-year degree with an in-built foundation year prepares you for study at university level, giving you the skills needed to succeed in the following three years of your course.
View French BA degree courses with foundation year
POSTGRADUATE
If you've already studied for a degree, we offer postgraduate programmes to enrich your understanding of French literature and culture at an advanced level.
We offer a French Studies Graduate Diploma if you have a degree in another subject or have taken a break from studies but would like to refresh and deepen your knowledge of French with a view to further postgraduate study such as an MA, or simply to pursue a personal or intellectual ambition.
Our MA Modern Languages and Comparative Cultures allows you to specialise in French. It provides a thorough grounding in the theoretical basis of postgraduate studies in literary and cultural studies in the context of Modern Languages, and is structured flexibly, allowing you to choose a comparative pathway, or to engage in more depth with one or more specific language-speaking areas such as French. If you do so, this will be reflected in your degree award: MA French Studies. View French postgraduate courses.
Short courses
Enrol on our year-long language-learning short courses to improve your language skills and cultural knowledge of France. We offer four of our five language levels as short courses, starting at Beginner level (French 1-4). Please note that these three-term courses run once each academic year, starting in October. If there are no classes currently showing as available, please email Ann Lewis to register your interest, as enrolment opens around June.
We also offer various modules focusing on aspects of French literature, thought and visual culture as short courses each year.
Student Testimonials
"I was really, really good at French and I don’t know for what reason, I got the lowest grade in the A-Level, so I just thought, right, I’m never studying French again. Probably forty years later, I thought, you know, I really loved my French…. I felt that Birkbeck was a natural home for anybody, no matter what, where you came from, your background, and I think that’s what struck a chord with me." Fola Ademoye, BA French Studies and MA French Studies
Watch Fola talk about her experiences
"Birkbeck is great because it’s at the heart of London which means that it’s easy to commute to and also it offers evening courses which means you can fit your other commitments around it and shape your career at the same time as earning your degree by night." Maria Amato, BA French Studies
Watch Maria talk about her experiences
Research
Birkbeck has a vibrant research culture, with expertise spanning the eighteenth century to the contemporary day with numerous events organised by our affiliated research centres, the Centre for French, Francophone and Comparative Studies (CFFCS) and Eighteenth-Century Research Group.
CAMPUS
At the heart of literary London, you might be studying in a building that was once home to Virginia Woolf and frequented by members of the Bloomsbury Group. You’ll be a stone’s throw from all the cultural richness that London has to offer by way of libraries, theatres, museums and galleries.