Informal Twitter straw poll - if you're a historian who trains PhD students (esp. in the UK) do you accept students without language training *before* starting? I'm strict on it, but it's been suggested to me that for Widening Participation it can be exclusionary. Thoughts?

Bearing in mind that in the UK, unlike US, there is no built-in capacity for language training during the PhD and you only have 3-4 years to do it. I would think this would make prior language knowledge even more critical but not all colleagues agree...

I'm also not sure it actually helps students without the training needed to write a good PhD to accept them for that PhD (and potentially take their money...) so am sceptical about the Widening Participation benefits but I acknowledge it is complex