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Dear Colleagues, You may already have heard that the University of Westminster is considering the discontinuation of its BA courses with German, restricting the modern languages on offer to French and Spanish alongside Arabic and Chinese. The University of Westminster makes a vital contribution to modern languages provision in the UK, with highly prestigious postgraduate courses in Translation and Interpreting. The proposed move would not only be a loss for German but would also further weaken the status of modern languages in the post-1992 universities. On 8 October 2013 The Guardian reported a 40% drop in universities offering specialist language degrees since 1998. The reduction of languages offered is part of that trend. Now that the crisis of modern languages in the UK has been widely recognised, and measures are being developed to strengthen the subject in schools, it is vital to ensure that the range of courses on offer remains stable across the range of universities. Letters should be addressed to: Prof. Roland Dannreuther, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities [log in to unmask] Dr Gerda Wielander, Head of Department of Modern Languages and Cultures [log in to unmask] Best wishes Katrin Prof. Katrin Kohl Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages University of Oxford 41 Wellington Square Oxford OX1 2JF