French is an important language in international affairs. Along with English and German, it is a procedural language (langue de travail) of the European Union and one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
Applicants should already have studied French at upper secondary school and attained a basic level of proficiency. This programme builds on that knowledge and explores French grammar, pronunciation and texts in greater depth.
The programme is 60 ECTS and is organised as one year of full-time study.
It is made up of:
The programme is taught in French.
As of the autumn semester 2024, all mandatory courses will be offered through distance learning.
The programme is designed to ensure that students:
Icelandic matriculation examination (stúdentspróf: school leaving examination from secondary school) or equivalent qualification.
Students are expected to have language proficiency in French at the A2 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
To complete the diploma in French the student must complete all the compulsory courses specified in the programme structure:
- FRA101G French Grammar I
- FRA104G Pronunciation
- FRA106G French society I
- FRA113G Translation I
- FRA201G French society II
- FRA203G History of France
- FRA205G French Grammar II
- FRA214G French Literature and Culture
The other 12 credits are FRA electives from the BA in French Studies, free of choice.
Check below to see how the programme is structured.
This programme does not offer specialisations.
The students get the opportunity to develop their knowledge in french grammar and they learn to talk about it (with the appropriate terms). Emphasis on verbs and personal pronouns.
Students are asked to be autonome in their studies and to prepare the courses.
Conversation practice in discussion. There will be one academic lecture per week (1x 40 min.) to teach students the basic concepts and methods of General Phonetics, and one and a half training session per week in a language-lab.
In this course students will practice both oral and written expression. Several topics will be studied and discussed, including music, cinema, youth culture, French society, etc. The course material will mainly be based on media and social media, articles and films. The students will be expected to take part in spoken interaction on the course‘s subject. The students will be trained in writing short texts and exercices on different topics, summarize, reword and structure their writing. They will be introduced to dictionaries and other useful tools.
In this course students will be trained in reading, analysing and translating French texts (easy to average difficulty) from French into Icelandic. Students will translate different kinds of texts (news, blogs, articles, literary texts) and discuss their characteristics, grammar, syntax, etc. Students will also be trained in the use of dictionaries and others important tools.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COURSE IS TAUGHT IN ICELANDIC. THOSE WHO WISH TO TAKE THE COURSE IN ENGLISH SHOULD REGISTER IN THE DISTANCE LEARNING COURSE MOM102G.
MOM101G is intended for students of foreign languages OTHER than English. BA-students in English and those who do not speak Icelandic should register in MOM102G.
In this directed study in French students can further develop their skills in translating from French to Icelandic. Texts are chosen in collaboration with the teacher.
A reading project in French literature. Students must contact the supervisor.
A pronunciation practice.
The course will examine the role of the French language today – both in France and worldwide.
The focus will be on written assignments and reading comprehension. To that end, students will read selected articles in newspapers and magazines and work with news’s reports and documentaries.
Students will get a training in formulating an opinion as well as in summarizing the texts studied.
Fairy tales (Fr. conte féerique) have been an important part of French literature from the 12th century, as can be seen, for instance, in the Lays of Marie de France. In the late 17th century early modern audiences enjoyed the tales of Mme d‘Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, Mlle L‘Héritier de Villandon and many others, and shortly afterwards Antoine Galland published his translation of Thousand and one Night which further increased the interest in this literary genre. The story of the Beauty and the Beast by Mme de Villeneuve was published in 1740 and was one of the tales that were rewritten and adapted to children in Mme Leprince de Beaumont‘s Le Magasin des enfants, first published in London in 1756. In this course, fairy tales by various authors will be read and examined with regard to their social and cultural context (literary salons) and their characteristics. The main focus will be on fairy tales authored by women, collections, frame narratives and fairy tales in children‘s literature in the second half of the 18th century. Icelandic translations of French fairy tales will also be examined.
The course will be taught in Icelandic, with one weekly extra hour in French for the students of the Department of French Studies.
Students can also enroll in FRA505G Directed study: French fairy tales: from Marie de France to the Enlightenment 4e.
This course will focus on the French language today, different registers and recent evolutions such as the feminine form of noun and Gender-neutral language. To that end, students will read selected articles in newspapers and magazines and work with news’s reports, podcasts, and documentaries. In addition, lyrics to contemporary musicians will be studied.
Furthermore, this course will examine in what ways the role of the French language in the international community has changed these past decades and the influence of the language policy in France on its former colonies.
The focus will be on written assignments of various kinds and students will work on registers, style, choice of words, grammar, syntax and get a training in respecting certain traditions regarding form and structure. Students will get a training in formulating an opinion as well as in summarizing the texts studied.
French history from the origins to the twentieth century.
New elements studied: interrogation, determinants, relative pronouns, negative sentences and subjunctive.
Students should finish French grammar and written expression I before enroling in this course.
This course emphasizes on how to use grammatical concepts in their assignements.
Students must be well prepared before each lesson and are autonom in their learning process.
An introductory course in the BA program in French Studies.
Short stories, poems, excerpts from novels and plays from different periods will be read and studied. Students will become familiar with the principal literary texts, the terminology and methods of text analysis and interpretation.
In this directed study in French students can further develop their skills in translating from French to Icelandic. Texts are chosen in collaboration with the teacher.
Students can take this 4 ECTS directed study alongside the course FRA440GAutobiographies where they can conduct an individual research on an aspect of the course.
Students must contact the supervisor to request registration into the project no later than October 1, 2024.
The course deals with autobiographies, life writings and texts of memory from the second half of the 20th century and early 21st century in France and other French-speaking countries, such as Senegal, Algeria and Morocco. What will be explored is to what degree core elements of the autobiography – the self, the live story and history – come together or collide in the works of different authors. The emphasis will be on autobiographical writings based on memories of social, cultural, and political experiences and conditions. A key focus will be on the roles of memory and forgetting as well on the boundaries between fiction ad reality in autobiographical narratives.
The course will be taught in Icelandic, with one weekly extra hour in French for the students of the Department of French Studies.
Students of the course can take a 4 ECTS Directed Study alongside it, FRA605G, and must contact the teacher to enroll before October 1 to sign up for it.
A reading project in French literature. Students must contact the supervisor.
A pronunciation practice.
This course focuses on creative writing. Students will be initiated to writing very short texts and poems of different kinds in French. They will write a short story together, with inspiration from the road movie. Students will also be introduced to different types of short texts, from the writings of La Bruyère in the 17th century to the New Novel (Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet), OuLiPo, Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec, along with various other types of short texts. The course ends with an event at the Alliance française. Students work under the guidance of the French writer Alexandre Labruffe, author of four novels, who is particularly interested in the short form in literature.
A two-week intensive course in French language skills at the Université de Rennes. Students will engage in conversation related to history, culture and contemporary issues in French society. The course takes place in weeks 7 and 8 during the spring semester. Max. 18 participants.
Evaluation:
Participation: 50%
Presentation: 25%
Written assignment: 25%
The students get the opportunity to develop their knowledge in french grammar and they learn to talk about it (with the appropriate terms). Emphasis on verbs and personal pronouns.
Students are asked to be autonome in their studies and to prepare the courses.
Conversation practice in discussion. There will be one academic lecture per week (1x 40 min.) to teach students the basic concepts and methods of General Phonetics, and one and a half training session per week in a language-lab.
In this course students will practice both oral and written expression. Several topics will be studied and discussed, including music, cinema, youth culture, French society, etc. The course material will mainly be based on media and social media, articles and films. The students will be expected to take part in spoken interaction on the course‘s subject. The students will be trained in writing short texts and exercices on different topics, summarize, reword and structure their writing. They will be introduced to dictionaries and other useful tools.
In this course students will be trained in reading, analysing and translating French texts (easy to average difficulty) from French into Icelandic. Students will translate different kinds of texts (news, blogs, articles, literary texts) and discuss their characteristics, grammar, syntax, etc. Students will also be trained in the use of dictionaries and others important tools.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COURSE IS TAUGHT IN ICELANDIC. THOSE WHO WISH TO TAKE THE COURSE IN ENGLISH SHOULD REGISTER IN THE DISTANCE LEARNING COURSE MOM102G.
MOM101G is intended for students of foreign languages OTHER than English. BA-students in English and those who do not speak Icelandic should register in MOM102G.
In this directed study in French students can further develop their skills in translating from French to Icelandic. Texts are chosen in collaboration with the teacher.
A reading project in French literature. Students must contact the supervisor.
The course will examine the role of the French language today – both in France and worldwide.
The focus will be on written assignments and reading comprehension. To that end, students will read selected articles in newspapers and magazines and work with news’s reports and documentaries.
Students will get a training in formulating an opinion as well as in summarizing the texts studied.
Fairy tales (Fr. conte féerique) have been an important part of French literature from the 12th century, as can be seen, for instance, in the Lays of Marie de France. In the late 17th century early modern audiences enjoyed the tales of Mme d‘Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, Mlle L‘Héritier de Villandon and many others, and shortly afterwards Antoine Galland published his translation of Thousand and one Night which further increased the interest in this literary genre. The story of the Beauty and the Beast by Mme de Villeneuve was published in 1740 and was one of the tales that were rewritten and adapted to children in Mme Leprince de Beaumont‘s Le Magasin des enfants, first published in London in 1756. In this course, fairy tales by various authors will be read and examined with regard to their social and cultural context (literary salons) and their characteristics. The main focus will be on fairy tales authored by women, collections, frame narratives and fairy tales in children‘s literature in the second half of the 18th century. Icelandic translations of French fairy tales will also be examined.
The course will be taught in Icelandic, with one weekly extra hour in French for the students of the Department of French Studies.
Students can also enroll in FRA505G Directed study: French fairy tales: from Marie de France to the Enlightenment 4e.
This course will focus on the French language today, different registers and recent evolutions such as the feminine form of noun and Gender-neutral language. To that end, students will read selected articles in newspapers and magazines and work with news’s reports, podcasts, and documentaries. In addition, lyrics to contemporary musicians will be studied.
Furthermore, this course will examine in what ways the role of the French language in the international community has changed these past decades and the influence of the language policy in France on its former colonies.
The focus will be on written assignments of various kinds and students will work on registers, style, choice of words, grammar, syntax and get a training in respecting certain traditions regarding form and structure. Students will get a training in formulating an opinion as well as in summarizing the texts studied.
French history from the origins to the twentieth century.
New elements studied: interrogation, determinants, relative pronouns, negative sentences and subjunctive.
Students should finish French grammar and written expression I before enroling in this course.
This course emphasizes on how to use grammatical concepts in their assignements.
Students must be well prepared before each lesson and are autonom in their learning process.
An introductory course in the BA program in French Studies.
Short stories, poems, excerpts from novels and plays from different periods will be read and studied. Students will become familiar with the principal literary texts, the terminology and methods of text analysis and interpretation.
In this directed study in French students can further develop their skills in translating from French to Icelandic. Texts are chosen in collaboration with the teacher.
Students can take this 4 ECTS directed study alongside the course FRA440GAutobiographies where they can conduct an individual research on an aspect of the course.
Students must contact the supervisor to request registration into the project no later than October 1, 2024.
The course deals with autobiographies, life writings and texts of memory from the second half of the 20th century and early 21st century in France and other French-speaking countries, such as Senegal, Algeria and Morocco. What will be explored is to what degree core elements of the autobiography – the self, the live story and history – come together or collide in the works of different authors. The emphasis will be on autobiographical writings based on memories of social, cultural, and political experiences and conditions. A key focus will be on the roles of memory and forgetting as well on the boundaries between fiction ad reality in autobiographical narratives.
The course will be taught in Icelandic, with one weekly extra hour in French for the students of the Department of French Studies.
Students of the course can take a 4 ECTS Directed Study alongside it, FRA605G, and must contact the teacher to enroll before October 1 to sign up for it.
A reading project in French literature. Students must contact the supervisor.
This course focuses on creative writing. Students will be initiated to writing very short texts and poems of different kinds in French. They will write a short story together, with inspiration from the road movie. Students will also be introduced to different types of short texts, from the writings of La Bruyère in the 17th century to the New Novel (Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet), OuLiPo, Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec, along with various other types of short texts. The course ends with an event at the Alliance française. Students work under the guidance of the French writer Alexandre Labruffe, author of four novels, who is particularly interested in the short form in literature.
A two-week intensive course in French language skills at the Université de Rennes. Students will engage in conversation related to history, culture and contemporary issues in French society. The course takes place in weeks 7 and 8 during the spring semester. Max. 18 participants.
Evaluation:
Participation: 50%
Presentation: 25%
Written assignment: 25%
The timetable shown below is for the current academic year and is FOR REFERENCE ONLY.
Changes may occur for the autumn semester in August and September and for the spring semester in December and January. You will find your final timetable in Ugla when the studies start. Note! This timetable is not suitable for planning your work schedule if you are a part-time employee.
The University of Iceland collaborates with over 400 universities worldwide. This provides a unique opportunity to pursue part of your studies at an international university thus gaining added experience and fresh insight into your field of study.
Students generally have the opportunity to join an exchange programme, internship, or summer courses. However, exchanges are always subject to faculty approval.
Students have the opportunity to have courses evaluated as part of their studies at the University of Iceland, so their stay does not have to affect the duration of their studies.
A qualification in French can be an asset in many different ways. Language skills can open doors in the cultural and intellectual sectors in other countries. In our modern society, which is increasingly connected and globalised, language skills and inter-cultural understanding are extremely valuable.
French-speaking countries and territories, other than France, include Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Québec in Canada, Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Mauritius, Senegal, Cameroon, Réunion, French Polynesia and New Caledonia.
French can also be the key to future careers in a wide range of professions.
An education in this area can open up opportunities in:
This list is not exhaustive.
What interests you?
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