<p>I think this might have been asked before but it wasn't answered. On the common app when it asks you to put your first language, is that the language that you learned first or the language that you know the best?</p>
<p>The language you learned first.</p>
<p>if you learned both around the same time, then you can put which ever one you want</p>
<p>The language your mother spoke to you when you were an infant. In my family's case, there are two languages that fit that description.</p>
<p>Is there any "advantage" to putting a language besides english down? I'm confused as to why this is included on the app. I guess it could be solely for statistical purposes.</p>
<p>These definitions can be argued, but I believe that admissions officers are looking for the language you speak best. This is my understanding of "first language". Second language (as in "I speak a second language") refers to the language you know second best.
The language you learned as a child would be referred to as "mother language", or "mother tongue".</p>
<p>Here first means first in time, I'm sure, hence my answer above. Some students who move from one environment to another have a first language that is not their most proficient language, but usually the students' native (first) language will influence how they speak and write any later language they learn, for reasons well known to scholars of language acquisition.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification. Also now that I look at it more closely I think it is def for statistical purposes since its under the optional section. But the reason i asked in the first place was because since English is not my first language, some schools like the UW states that students who don't have English as their first language need to take the TOFEL or something, that's why I thought by first language they were referring to your best language.</p>
<p>TOEFL requirements can be defined a lot of different ways, and always have to be looked up college-by-college. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>yeah, lol. one of my friends put japanese as her first language cuz chronologically it was her first but english is her best, and so when she heard back from pomona pomona wanted her to take the toefl (mind you she had a 750 cr, 5 on eng lang, etc) haha.</p>
<p>so if you wanna save urself some potential trouble you might wanna just put english.</p>
<p>Ooh, thanks for this guys, because I almost wasn't going to put English... I learned English and another Indian language around the same time, lol.</p>
<p>^I put an Indian language down and everything was fine.</p>
<p>
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pomona wanted her to take the toefl (mind you she had a 750 cr, 5 on eng lang, etc) haha
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</p>
<p>The college admission officers would have to be idiots to have a response like that.</p>
<p>Nice username, lol. Very Indian.</p>
<p>Idk, I just changed it to English just in case.</p>
<p>@tokenadult - they gave my friend a number of verification methods that they would accept, but it did not include CR or any ap tests, and so the most prominent was the toefl, which my friend will be taking in february.</p>
<p>in any case, im putting english next year, and i was essentially raised in a bilingual environment.</p>