Languages

The Department of Asian Languages and Cultures offers language courses and placement exams in the following languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Hindi-Urdu, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.

Chinese

Our Chinese language covers four levels: elementary, intermediate, third year and fourth year advanced  modern Chinese. Both of the elementary and intermediate levels offer two separate tracks; for students without any prior Chinese background, and those with Chinese backgrounds.  If your time is limited you can take our summer intensive Chinese courses for about nine weeks to earn three quarters’ worth of course credits. Finally, we offer a yearlong classical Chinese series to complement our modern Chinese offering.

Japanese

We offer a variety of courses in Japanese. In addition to the three levels of Modern Japanese (Japanese 1-2-3 (Elementary), 4-5-6 (Intermediate), 100A-100B-100C (Advanced), we offer Japanese 15 for Heritage Japanese learners, 101A-B (Advanced Reading) and Japanese 110 (Classical Japanese). Japanese 201 A-B is a special course for graduate students who need special training for reading academic texts in Japanese.

Korean

We offer four years (Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced Conversation, and Advanced Readings) of Modern Korean for Korean heritage and non-heritage learners. We also offer   Reading Korean Academic Texts for both undergraduate and graduate students.

Filipino

The second most widely-spoken Asian language in the US. We offer one year each of Beginning and Intermediate Filipino.

Hindi

We offer two years of Hindi (and Urdu) instruction covering elementary and intermediate levels. Spoken Hindi and Urdu are identical languages. First year elementary Hindi, with the Devnagri script,is a sequence of three  quarters. Intermediate Hindi introduces the Urdu script. We also offer a special summer Reading and Writing course for heritage students or students who know some Hindi but cannot read and write Devnagri script.

Indonesian

We offer Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced Indonesian. Indonesian is now among the seven most widely spoken languages in the world. It’s the dominant language of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam. Indonesian is not a tonal language and, like English, it is written in Roman script.

Thai

A language that is distinctly different in both culture and linguistic features.  We offer three levels–Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced.

Vietnamese

Our Vietnamese language offering covers three levels:  introductory, intermediate, and advanced modern Vietnamese. Both Northern (Hanoi) and Southern (Saigon) dialects of  Vietnamese, which are spoken by approximately four-fifth of the Vietnamese population in Vietnam and overseas, will be taught at the first two levels. We offer two separate tracks, one of which is for students without any prior Vietnamese background and the other for those with Vietnamese backgrounds.

Sanskrit

We offer elementary and advanced instruction in Sanskrit, the language of ancient and classical India and of many of its central religious and literary texts, such as the Vedas, the  Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita.