ALC Language Enrollment

ALC offers language courses in the following languages: 

• Chinese (Mandarin), Tagalog, Hindi-Urdu, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Sanskrit, Thai, and Vietnamese.

If you have NO background in the language, you may enroll in the fall quarter level 1 course without taking the placement exam.

Please note: For beginning Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese two tracks are offered to students: Non-Heritage (1, 2, or 3) and Heritage (1A, 2A, 3A), please see the following description to distinguish which class you should enroll into.

Non-Heritage:

No previous background in Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese

Heritage:

Some prior Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese language background, (i.e. living in a Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese family or learning language during weekend language school.)

When you should take the placement exam

(1) If you have a background in one of the particular languages and want to enroll in a language course you will need to take the appropriate language placement test.

**Once you are placed into a course, please wait until the quarter in which the course is offered to contact the departmental advisor (Lindsay Doung, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). To enroll in a language course, please send an e-mail to the departmental advisor with your name, UID, Course ID#, exam date, and results for in order to be manually enrolled in the course.

**It is mandatory for all transfer students to take placement exam when previous language courses have been taken at their community college.

(2) If you need to fulfill the foreign language requirement (for one or two years) at UCLA.

College of Letters and Science and School of Art and Architecture Foreign Language Requirement- If a student passes out of an elementary-level language (1 year) and has not met the college language requirement, a language waiver is automatically sent to the college.  Students should NOT request an individual language waiver letter from ALC. 

School of Engineering- If a student passes out of an elementary-level language (1 year) and wishes to be waived out of the language requirement, the student must email the ALC office or meet with an ALC counselor for a language waiver letter.  Language waivers are NOT automatically sent. 

Major/minor language requirements- Students who need to show proof of passing out of a major/minor language requirement must email the ALC office or meet with an ALC counselor for a language waiver letter.  Language waivers are NOT automatically sent. 

Placement Exam Policies

ALC only offers placement exams for the following languages: Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi-Urdu, Bahasa Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog/Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese.  

ALC does NOT certify for Cantonese, Punjabi or any other Asian language that is not offered by the department.  ALC does NOT certify non-UCLA students for any language.

Placement exams are offered during week 0 of fall quarter and week 1 of winter.  There are NO placement exams offered during First-Year and Transfer orientations.  Students need to see check the ALC website about a month prior to the start of the quarter for exam dates and sign-up information.

There are no make-up exams or individual placement exams.  Students who miss the exam will have to wait until the next quarter offered.