I think official Harvard tutoring services may be limited to people enrolled in the classes. But there are <em>tons</em> of Chinese speakers around Cambridge you could learn from. One of my roommates worked out an arrangement with a grad student from China, where he would help her practice English + she would help him learn Chinese.</p>
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<p>I’ve never taken higher level language courses… but some of my friends have found them pretty easy. It probably varies course by course, so check the Q.</p>
<p>Chinese Bx is definitely one of the more intense courses out there :-P</p>
<p>One other thing to keep in mind about beginning language courses is that the class will have true beginners along with others who have studied the language in h.s. but did not score well enough on the placement exam to be placed into the next level. That happened to my D in her beginning Chinese class. She had never studied it before, and some of her classmates had had two years of it in h.s.</p>
<p>If you don’t have any background, I’d label the toughest intro languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic) as the hardest courses at Harvard short of Math 55.</p>
<p>I transferred to Harvard after two years of classes at Bryn Mawr/Haverford. The workload in similar fields was similar, but the standard of writing expected in humanities and social science classes at Harvard was far higher. I got an A in my full-year freshman writing class at Bryn Mawr. But as a Harvard junior taking a Core English class in a section full of freshmen, I wasn’t able to get better than an A-minus despite working much, much harder on my papers than I had at Bryn Mawr. You will not be an A student at Harvard without being an excellent writer.</p>
<p>I applyed for harvards summer school program as a high schooler and was accepted. I don’t know what to expect and I’m nervous. What two classes would you recommend for me to take that will give a taste of what harvard is like? Also, can you explain to me in detail what to expect in harvard classes and how to be successful (B, B+, A) in them? </p>
<p>No way. I can’t speak for Korean and Chinese but I took intro Arabic with no background and my roommate took intro Japanese with no background, and they are not even nearly close to “short of Math 55” status. They take a lot of time but that doesn’t make them difficult in the way that orgo is difficult.</p>
<p>Arabic is time-intensive because it requires at least 2 hours of studying a night, 5 days a week. That doesn’t sound like much, but between class hours and work and a few extra hours when tests come up, you’re looking at almost 200 hours of your time in a semester put into the class. However, the grading isn’t too too tough. It may be hard to get a solid A but it’s hard to do really poorly.</p>
<p>^The Arabic class you took was an intro to Arabic was it? If so, for how long did you take the course and how proficient at it do you find yourself now? And can those who already know the language take it (can’t see the point of doing this, but I’d like to know Harvard’s policy on such matters)?
I don’t know about Korean or Chinese but Arabic definitely ranks up there with the 4-5 most difficult languages. I somehow find it hard to believe that a Math course is more difficult than it to students who know nothing of the language, but then again, I haven’t seen the math course and the Arabic course is probably an intro so exams should be easy…</p>
<p>Arabic takes a long time to become fluent, so I’d say I’m not very proficient at all after 1.1 semesters so far.</p>
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<p>Probably like 80% of Harvard students could get a B or better in Arabic if they put in a few hours a day. Less than 1% of Harvard students can pass Math 55.</p>
<p>Can someone explain what a foreign language citation is? I looked it up on the Harvard website but couldnt make much sense of its uses, only what the requirements are.</p>
<p>Also, what kind of math is math 55? Is it a freshman class? Is it harder than single variable calc?</p>
<p>It would be stupid to take intro Arabic if you already speak Arabic. Imagine sitting in an ESL class where two weeks is spent teaching you that B makes a “buh” sound and “D” makes a “duh” sound. I don’t know offhand of anything preventing you from doing so, but I’m sure the instructor would catch on and ask you to move up a level.</p>
<p>I suppose sometimes students know some Arabic but not enough to get placed into second-year level, in which case they would probably take intro and make the class a bit harder for everyone else :)</p>
<p>It doesn’t have “uses” any more than a bachelor’s degree has “uses.” It’s something to put on your resume if you feel it will help you obtain X job or get into Y grad school, or not put on your resume at all. I don’t meet a ton of people who say “I’m planning to get a citation in…”, they just take a language they like and they’ll probably end up meeting the requirements for it by the time they graduate.</p>
Note that I said Arabic, not intro to Arabic I can’t see the point of even taking a higher-level course if I’m already fluent in the language, honestly, (and I sure as hell wouldn’t do it if I do end up going) but I was just wondering about the policy (my question stems from Harvard’s policy in not taking a subject test in one’s own language.)</p>
<p>Well, sometimes it is possible to be fluent conversationally because your parents speak language X and it was around the home but perhaps you are weaker in reading/writing. Or, in the case of Arabic, you might know amiiyah (dialect) but not the formal Arabic you learn in the classroom.</p>
<p>I doubt there are many incoming freshmen fluent in Arabic unless their parents speak Arabic. Few high schools have Arabic programs and even if they did, it wouldn’t be enough to be “fluent.” 4 years of college Arabic isn’t even really enough to be “fluent,” though enough to be functionally proficient probably.</p>
<p>What about internationals? Some of them must be Arab. I know one, but I think he’s a junior/senior or something. No idea if he took Arabic.
And in the case of amiyyah, it’s actually more difficult to know that than the nahaweh (formal Arabic), because it needs years of first-hand experience and such, while the latter needs years of teaching (fewer years than the other, though).</p>
<p>Well in that case his parents would speak Arabic, like I said.</p>
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<p>You’re oversimplifying. You need first-hand experience for formal Arabic too…it’s not like fusha is just written and 100% of spoken dialogue is in amiyyah. And you can be taught amiyyah in classes (in fact there are a few at Harvard). Both fusha and amiyyah can be taught by means of classwork and first-hand experience, as can any other language. </p>
<p>I don’t know if you’re correct in saying amiyyah is more difficult to learn…it’s hard to generalize for all dialects but in general their grammar is highly simplified from fusha. Perhaps it’s harder to learn for lack of opportunities to practice with respect to fusha.</p>
I may have misunderstood, but I thought that in your post you were referring to students whose parents spoke Arabic but had little to no experience learning the language formally in classes. That’s why I mentioned Arabs.
Experience in that can come from texts, as they’re all written formally and there’s little to no difference in dialects between countries. Amiyyah is infinitely complex, and can vary greatly - and I mean greatly - between country and country. I can barely understand foreigners when they speak quickly. Sure the grammar is simplified, but to know it you need experience, and that’s aside from the “invented” words that are used in amiyyah but not in the formal style writing/speaking. Those can only come from conversing with others, and while I’d agree you need to converse with others to know formal talk, you can gain experience much quicker by reading texts and such. Few people speak nahaweh anyways, but it’s good practice if you want to improve yours. </p>
<p>Put simply, you more or less need an Arabic community to learn amiyyah. That said, I’d never heard of amiyyah courses till now, so that might change things, but I still think that you’d learn better and faster in a community by conversing. Formal Arabic can be learnt more readily through courses and reading/writing because it has set rules and laws and those don’t change, while the other is much more fickle. If you consider each as a language, then certainly amiyyah is the simpler of the two for simplified grammar and word structure and such, but the difficulty comes in learning it. Once you do learn it, it becomes the easier of the two to use. That’s why it’s spoken a whole lot more than fusha.</p>
<p>Not to say that either is easy, really - it’s a very difficult language, especially when you start feeling you actually know it. Then come the complexities. :D</p>
<p>My roommate freshman year got an A (not an A-, a solid A) in Math 55. I don’t think he opened the textbook until most of the way through the first semester. </p>
<p>I would say he’s pretty good at math, though.</p>
I can’t see the point of even taking a higher-level course if I’m already fluent in the language, honestly, (and I sure as hell wouldn’t do it if I do end up going) but I was just wondering about the policy (my question stems from Harvard’s policy in not taking a subject test in one’s own language.)</p>