Foreign Language Courses
The Foreign Language Requirement
Foreign Language Designations
The Language Study Committee is responsible for certifying courses as meeting the foreign language requirement. For further information, contact Howard Barnaby at 432-8504 or howard.barnaby@yale.edu.
The Foreign Language Requirement
All Yale students are required to engage in study of a foreign language, regardless of the level of study achieved at the time of matriculation. Students who have not studied a foreign language before arriving at Yale, and those whose prior language study does not qualify them for placement into a second-year course, are required to study a single foreign language through three terms to fulfill the distributional requirement. Students who can place into the third term of a language program must successfully complete two terms of further study in that same language; those who can place into a fourth term must successfully complete one term of further study in that same language. Students who can demonstrate ability beyond the fourth term of language study, either by a score on an Advanced Placement test or by a score on a placement test at Yale, must either successfully complete one term of further study in that language or successfully complete two terms of a different language. (These paths to fulfillment of the foreign language distributional requirement are illustrated in a chart on the Yale College Web site and in chapter III of the YCPS.) Students are also permitted to satisfy the foreign language requirement by completing an approved study abroad program in lieu of intermediate or advanced language study at Yale.
A first-term foreign language course is designated L1 in chapter IV of the YCPS; a second-term course is designated L2, a third-term course L3, and a fourth-term course L4. All foreign language courses beyond the fourth term of study are designated L5. Courses that comprise the equivalent of more than one term of language study are designated with a range of levels, e.g., L1–L2 or L3–L4.
