Nottingham High School's Modern Foreign Languages Department

Old Nottinghamian Linguists – Alvin

Posted on 05. May, 2011 by Mrs Moorhouse in Languages

Alvin Parmar left Nottingham High School in 1995 to study at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Since graduating, Alvin has used languages in every stage of his career and continues to expand his knowledge of other languages.

What did you study and where did you go?

I studied French and Arabic at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. From an early age, I knew that I wanted to study languages; the main question was which ones. I already had a sold grounding in French, so I decided to continue with it, and I had always been fascinated by Arabic – ever since finding one of my grandfather’s old army maps of Egypt in Arabic. I followed my heart more than my head when choosing not only which languages to study, but also whether to study languages at all: there were some in my family who thought that I should do something “more useful”.

What were the three most important things that you learnt at university?

The three most important things I learnt at university are that 1) the more you think you know a language, the more you realise that you have to learn, 2) speaking and writing a language fluently is not the same as translating in your head from English, and 3) the only way to be able to read another alphabet fluently is to actually go to a country where the alphabet is used and to miss lots of buses as you are trying to decipher what is written on them.

What role have languages played in your career?

I have used languages in every step of my career. When I graduated, I worked as a headteacher, liaising with Saudi and Emirati banks. I then worked for a Turkish publishing company, where I had to read in a variety of languages and edit and proofread in Turkish. I now work as a freelance translator. Also, I have spent most of the past ten years outside of the UK, so I was using my various languages (I have an active knowledge of about ten now, to varying degrees of fluency) on a daily basis simply for the demands of everyday life.

What advice would you give to our current A-Level linguists?

I would advise your A-Level linguists to keen on with languages. Any single language is an inexhaustible treasure house, not just of words and grammar, which are interesting enough on their own, but also of culture and worldview. We take our mother tongue for granted and do not realise that everything we say, think or perceive is mediated through it. It is only by learning other languages that we realise that the way English chops us reality is, in fact, arbitrary, and that there are many other ways of doing it.

Photograph of Trinity Hall, Cambridge by Gareth Marlow

Tags: Français, ON Linguists