<p>For instance, between someone taking chinese for 4 years, and someone taking french for 4 years, do colleges view these any differently? I have heard colleges like "challanging languages" such as Japanese, chinese, hindi, and arabic, but then I've heard it doesn't matter, but moreso how you used your language (Using spanish to live in mexico for a year), or how long you've spoken it.</p>
<p>not really. just be good at your language. the only way to standout would be if you took something like Urdu or something for four years.</p>
<p>Oh, and don't take a language that you are a native speaker of and/or have ethnic relations to. that just looks stupid.</p>
<p>Oh, and don't take a language that you are a native speaker of and/or have ethnic relations to. that just looks stupid.</p>
<p>Darn, my school actually MAKES me take English for 4 years :D</p>
<p>haha win. And don't take a language you have ethnic relations to? I have never heard that before.</p>
<p>That's ridiculous. You're probably thinking about taking the SAT Subject Tests in native languages, which IS really bad. 60 percentile for 800 in Chinese SAT II..</p>
<p>But actually, taking a language that you are ethnically tied to is perfectly fine, and I don't really think adcoms really discriminate if a Chinese person took Chinese or if a mildly French person took French. That just screams a neurotic mind. Then again, with the climate on CC, pretty much anything can make us go insane.</p>
<p>how about Greek???</p>
<p>i know some ppl in the admissions business</p>
<p>basically, they hate people who do AP/SAT for their SECOND LANGUAGE, when it's actually their first</p>
<p>i.e. Chinese guy taking Mandarin AP/SAT, and taking Mandarin as second language @ school </p>
<p>do a language that isn't ur native language</p>
<p>Is this opinion really prevalent in admissions?</p>
<p>Because your example of Chinese guy taking Mandarin being viewed as "taking the easy way out" isn't something you'd say if you knew how the language works. Because it's not the easy way out at all. With phonetic languages, knowing how to speak it equals knowing how to write it, but with Mandarin, every character is learned through memorization. And the differences between English and Mandarin, the structure of the languages, make it hard to be truly fluent in both at the same time. </p>
<p>Besides, how would they even be able to tell if it was their first language? From names? Because so many people with "ethnic" names weren't raised in that culture/language.</p>
<p>Don't be jealous of us native speakers, haha. My Dartmouth interviewer was surprised that I got an 800 in Spanish; he said that he thought that native speakers would have harder time with the grammar. If I learned Spanish first, but only developed my English so much that my English is way better than my Spanish(which isn't bad), what should I consider myself? I can't remember not knowing either language.</p>
<p>I hate it when people say taking your native language at school is an 'easy' way out.
It really depends on the level you're taking that particular language at.</p>
<p>I'm Chinese, and I take Chinese.
But the Chinese I am taking requires students to have a level of proficiency similar to the level of English expected of an AP English Lit student.
Is that an easy way out?</p>
<p>It's the easy way out if you can already converse in Chinese. They're taking a subject meant for people who can't speak it; it gives them an unfair advantage.</p>
<p>I'm not of Chinese-descent, but I took Mandarin in school for 5 years. In class, my Chinese friends would always get 90+% on tests, while I would get 70% at most. That's not to say it wasn't difficult for them, because the language is SOOO confusing for both of us, it was just less confusing for them.</p>
<p>I just found it unfair when our teacher would compare my test scores with theirs. :(</p>
<p>I've wondered this too. I take Latin, and everyone's been telling me this will hurt in admissions, but I dont really believe that</p>
<p>re: OP: Esperanto.</p>
<p>The HS near me that has a large native-spanish population has spanish for natives classes in HS, the idea is that otherwise they may not learn grammer, literature etc. The same things that are taught in english for the rest of us.</p>
<p>OTOH, there are children of an ethnic descent in my Ds class where english is spoken at home, and have been studying their ancestors language for years (Greek, Chineese)-- but anyone could have done that. </p>
<p>I think latin is great. </p>
<p>My D has taken Spanish and says she wants to be a criminal lawyer and help the downtrodden.</p>
<p>Regarding the suggestion that someone who knows something like Urdu would stand out... I've been self-studying Luxembourgish and Pennsylvania Dutch. So, can I use that to my advantage? :P</p>
<p>anyone for sanskrit?
:P</p>
<p>ah...the i-learned-this-language-at-home-and-think-im-pro-even-thgh-i-have-the-fluency-of-a-three-year-old crowd</p>
<p>jk</p>
<p>I'm going to make the radical suggestion that you should choose your foreign language based on what interests you and what you will most likely find useful to you later. If you do this, you will probably do better and may get more involved in language-related activities. Certain languages fit well with certain college majors--for example, a music major will want to have French and/or German. If you want to major in Classics, it would be odd not to take Latin. It used to be that engineering majors wanted to take German--I don't know what the preferred language is now.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I hate it when people say taking your native language at school is an 'easy' way out.
It really depends on the level you're taking that particular language at.</p>
<p>I'm Chinese, and I take Chinese.
But the Chinese I am taking requires students to have a level of proficiency similar to the level of English expected of an AP English Lit student.
Is that an easy way out?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>AP Chinese certainly does not require students to have a level of Chinese proficiency anywhere near English for AP English Lit. Unless you're an international and have received considerable schooling in Chinese, I don't even begin to see a comparison between the level of Chinese and the level of English required for college-level coursework (given AP Chinese supposedly is 4th sem college standard).</p>
<p>BUT, I do agree that it depends on the level. If you're Chinese but have never been in a Chinese-speaking environment, taking Chinese to as high a level as you can take it is still going to be fairly impressive. It's only an "easy way out" if your parents speak Chinese at home. How the adcoms are going to know this is another thing altogether though.</p>
<p>Taking a test in your native tongue is useless. If you 800 it, it's expected. If you don't, people are going to wonder how you screwed up your own language.</p>