<p>do international students have to take a language as a requirement??
korean is my first lang. and english is second.....is it still required for me to take a language?? just curious......</p>
<p>I doubt it, since you can easily test out of it...
Look around on the pton website, they might mention it somewhere.</p>
<p>yeah you cant take the placement test to place out. although as a native speaker, maybe you can get out of the test. but you definitely fulfill the language requirement.</p>
<p>You should probably consider learning a third language though, as it could be a really valuable experience, not to mention lots of fun, a great opportunity to travel and meet other students. If you want to place out of Korean, then go to the East Asian Studies department website and find out when they have the placement test. (most are in the first week of classes)</p>
<p>oops i meant *can</p>
<p>the placement tests are during orientation i belive
ill be taking the phys one, not sure if they do the lang ones the same way</p>
<p>thanks for the answers~ I'm going to learn chinese hehe as my third language..even though i did spanish in high school....chinese might be useful in the future..</p>
<p>yes</p>
<p>you may be a valued asset in a few yrs. =(</p>
<p>haha chinese is hard though...hmm I wonder how I'll memorize all those characters...should i just take spanish....</p>
<p>im gonna take japanese. useful, plus japanese culture is way more interesting than european, and its more developed than china.</p>
<p>i took japanese for a year before...stopped before learning Kan ji (or however you spell it)</p>
<p>well all of chinese is "kanji" </p>
<p>Anonymous, what do you mean when you say japanese culture is more developed than china's? i'm confused</p>
<p>I hear Princeton has a fantastic chinese program; they really immerse you in the language/culture and people learn a lot.</p>
<p>Kanji is quite difficult, mostly because they change depending on usage and how they are combined with other kanji. Furthermore, they are also used in conjunction with hiragana and katakana, unlike Chinese characters which seem to be entirely made up of the complex character sets as opposed to a sort of "alphabet system" that Japanese uses. If you want an easier time I suggest Chinese. Japanese is hella difficult >.< </p>
<p>In terms of speaking though, Japanese is more monotone. Chinese has all those voice inflections that can be tricky. </p>
<p>In short I think the Japanese writing system is really hard and, dare I say, inefficient, hence its nickname "Devil's Tongue". In my experience, the people who are best at the language are natives or people that devote a VERY large portion of time to it, moreso than any other language, as I read a study (a few actually) that said something like, when considering Spanish and Japanese, it takes four times longer to reach the same level of proficiency in Japanese as Spanish.</p>
<p>Ok this was a very disorganized post.</p>
<p>not culturally developed, i meant technologically developed.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I read a study (a few actually) that said something like, when considering Spanish and Japanese, it takes four times longer to reach the same level of proficiency in Japanese as Spanish.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Legend - that's a really interesting stat. Do you know the equivalent proficienty for Chinese? If you have the links then do post them!</p>
<p>i just took the spanish placement test. i find spanish pretty easy (because im fluent in french and the two are fairly similar), but i still want to improve some more.</p>
<p>i was also thinking of japanese, i really enjoy japanese culture/art/food/movies... but isn't spanish and/or mandarin more useful than japanese?</p>
<p>In terms of the number of people that speak spanish/mandarin, yes it is more "useful" but a lot of people say that japanese is useful in the business world. I predict that mandarin-speakers are going to be in high demand as China gets more involved in the world market.</p>
<p>Well I think East Asia in general will be more involved, so both Japanese and Chinese will be useful. A lot of American things come from those countries, so if you are headed into business, both languages are good to know. German would be great as well. Personally I never thought Spanish would be all that useful... </p>
<p>But yeah I want to eventually speak Japanese, Chinese, and German.</p>
<p>gia: I don't know what it would be for Chinese. Not sure exactly how Chinese is structured, but Japanese has some really crazy irregularities that make things difficult to figure out. Figuring out how "particles" (sort of like English articles) work is also difficult and seem less frequent than that in Chinese. For example, "I want to eat" in Japanese is "watashi ga tabetai" (I <em>subject indicator</em> eat(conjugate to "want" form) where as in Chinese it's just "wo yao chi" (I want eat). That is just my initial impression though as I don't know Chinese that in-depth at all.</p>
<p>Although most people use "xiang" (think) instead of "yao" in that specific example... like "I think I will have this food" instead of "want this food" etc</p>
<p>Spanish is plenty useful because a lot of big business/law firms have offices in Spain and South America and big cities like New York have a lot of Spanish-speaking people. However, there are more people who speak spanish applying for the jobs you might want so knowing an asian language might make you more unique.</p>
<p>i think that good knowledge of spanish is a great asset if you want to go into business in the US.
german might no be as useful IMO. sure, its the most spoken language in europe, but its more or less only spoken in germany austria and switzerland. so unless your thinking of settling in one of those countries...</p>
<p>Question in re languages: if you do the online test for french german spanish (p.s. someone want to link me the german?) does it tell you right away which one you've tested into? I'm having a midlife crisis and possibly switching majors / adding on 2 minors and I'm thinking I might have to replan my schedule etc. and how much German I would have to take affects that...</p>