I’m not a native speaker. I was told that if I’m currently studying something at university I should say:
I’m majoring in [subject].
But how can I say this in the present tense but using the British read term in the sense of study? I know that if I have already finished studying something, then I should say this in the past tense:
I read [subject] at X University.
But if I'm currently studying it, should I say it this way?
I’m reading [subject] at X University.
As a British university graduate, I would have said "I am reading physics" if I had wanted to use that construction. In reality though, it sounds a bit pretentious except in formal contexts, day to day I was studying physics.
There's a difference here between typical British and American degree courses. In the US it's possible to pick up points towards the degree by studying a number of (potentially unrelated) elective subjects but then focusing 'majoring' on a particular one.
British degrees tend to be single-subject or much more rarely two-subject courses and are considered to be a single course of study which is formally described as 'reading' the subject.So, "I'm reading physics" or "I'm reading politics and economics" are the formally correct way of describing the activity.'Studying' is the less formal description.
The BE expression, "I am reading history at XYZ University, is archaic, localized English vocabulary used by Oxbridge (composite word - universities of Oxford & Cambridge) undergrads, especially by those who have "come up" from the UK's elite grammar schools and the super-elite public schools (fee-paying) such as Eton (alumni Princes William & Harry), Harrow (alumnus Sir Winston Churchill), Stowe (alumni David Niven & Sir Richard Branson) et al.
The specialized usage never really caught on with the postwar development of redbrick universities in the UK. Its use at Oxbridge ebbed and flowed at a time when state educated student numbers from comprehensive schools narrowed the gap with their grammar and public school counterparts and almost drew level in numbers. Reading history or whatever has been, to some extent, replaced by "studying" history. This was almost always the case with redbrick universities. The OP's "I am reading [subject] at X university" is the present continuous, but the simple present tense as in, "I read [subject] at X university", was never written or said but replaced by - as a matter of linguistic convention - "I study [subject] at X university".
If one were to write, "I read history at Oxford, then this would be understood as the past tense. The pronunciation of "read", but not its spelling, would change to "red", as in the color. (Wikipedia)
