Yale College Language Requirement

To ensure that undergraduate students are exposed to a range of ideas and disciplines during their time at Yale, Yale College requires them to fulfill a variety of distributional requirements. As knowledge of more than one language and familiarity with more than one culture is becoming increasingly important, the distributional requirements include language study.

Yale College has created a requirement designed to ensure that all students improve their proficiency in at least one language.  How many courses you take to fulfill the requirement will depend on your language experience prior to entering Yale, but for every student, some language study at the college level is necessary.

Use this Language Requirement Guidance quiz to help determine what you must do to meet the language requirement.

Flow chart showing the options for meeting the language requirement at Yale. The information can be found using the Long Description link and Language Requirement Guide quiz

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Questions and Answers

The Language Requirement is part of the Yale College distributional requirements for all undergraduate students. These requirements are in place to ensure that all students have a broad exposure to important liberal arts disciplines. For specific information, consult the Yale College Programs of Study for the complete guidelines.

You can fulfill the language requirement in any language offered at Yale at the level you need. (Consult the information sheet for your level for more information on which courses you need to take.) In looking at the course listing, you will see that most language programs at Yale offer courses designated L1 through L4 and a variety of L5 advanced level courses. However, there are a handful of language programs that do not regularly offer L5 courses, such as Czech, Serbian and Croatian, Tamil, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Students who are at an L5 proficiency level in these languages will either have to find an approved study abroad program at the L5 level or take another language through the L2 level. Some programs may be able to offer an independent tutorial or L5-level course of study to students demonstrating an L5 level of proficiency; consult the program’s instructor or Language Program Director for more information.

Every student must study some language while at Yale, even native speakers of languages other than English. In fact, if your secondary school work was not conducted entirely in your native language, you might still be required to take a proficiency assessment to demonstrate your ability in the language. Once you have demonstrated your proficiency level, you could take two semesters of a new language, or, if you are not a native speaker of English, you could fulfill the requirement by taking one of the English courses listed in the distributional requirements.

For more information, please complete the language requirement inquiry form.

If your entire secondary school education was in a language other than English, you must be prepared to produce a transcript from your school that clearly indicates that this is the case. Once you have demonstrated your proficiency level, you could take two semesters of a new language, or, if you are not a native speaker of English, you could fulfill the requirement by taking one of the English courses listed in the distributional requirements.

For more information, please complete the language requirement inquiry form.

If you received a 5 on an AP test in your language, or if you received a score of 6 or 7 on the IB Advanced-level exam in your language, you may fulfill the language requirement by completing one course designated L5, or another language through L2. You may need to take a placement exam before enrolling in an L5 course, so check the language department’s policies.

If you received any other score on either test, you must still take the placement exam to confirm your level of placement.

Consult the the course listings in the Yale College Programs of Study. Each course that fulfills some part of the Language Requirement is designated L1, L2, L3, L4, or L5, telling you which part of the requirement that course fulfills. If a course listing indicates “L1-L2” (or “L1, L2”), it means that course, if completed successfully, fulfills both the L1 and L2 components of the requirement. (This designation appears on year-long courses as well as on one-semester intensive courses.) Likewise, a course designated “L3-L4” (or “L3, L4”) fulfills both L3 and L4, and “L1-L4” (or “L1, L2, L3, L4”),  which appears on the listings for some intensive courses, means the course fulfills all four. Keep in mind that a designation of “L5” can appear on many courses above the L4 level. Not all L5 courses are equivalent in difficulty, however.  Some are designed for students with greater proficiency and may have additional prerequisites.

These designations also appear as Language (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) in the course descriptions through the Yale Course Search tool.  

For More Info on Placement Testing

Placement Testing