I know if I put something other than English for my first language, some colleges want the TOEFL. What if I put English as my first language and a different language for spoken at home? Will it cause any problems? I have lived in the US my whole life and the language I speak at home is just that- speaking only, I can’t write or read in that language. Also, I can “understand” two other languages perfectly when others speak to me in those languages, but I can’t speak/read/write those. Does that mean anything or should I not include those?
I speak Hindi at home but do not read/write it. What I did is put English as my first and then put down Hindi for speak only. I would advise you to do the same.
@tigerman333 What do you think about the other two languages that I can understand but not speak? Should I not write those down? I’m Indian so yeah I grew up around lots of different local Indian languages lol.
I have no clue. Sorry.
Do not fret too much. Just make sure it is clear that English is your first language. I doubt the languages you speak/write will have much bearing on your admission to any school (unless you speak a language at risk of going extinct fluently or something like that).
While colleges are all over the board with their TOEFL requirements, I can’t imagine a single college would require it for a student who has lived here his/her whole life, and, presumably, attended a HS where English was the language of instruction, regardless of what you speak at home. You are overthinking this.
I would only put down languages that you can do two of the three things in: speak, read, or write. For example, English is my first language, but I have grown up speaking Spanish and have taken advanced spanish for my entire school life. So, I listed Spanish as a second language. Even though I can also speak and understand German, French and some Japanese, I didn’t list those as I am not really proficient. A good test that another person in a different discussion suggested: would you feel comfortable conducting your admissions interview in the language? if so, put it down.
You should write the languages you had exposure to other than in school: native language, heritage language, language spoken around you Hen your parents worked and lived abroad, language other than English used in a school you attended…
If you can only speak them, check “speak” only. That’s it.
@MYOS1634 That’s the problem. The other two languages are “heritage languages” I would say. They are local languages from my parents’ home country. However I can understand perfectly but not speak so I guess that’s not something that counts?
There should be “understood” ?
Correct; if you only understand a language, you cannot claim proficiency. Before I took Spanish in HS, I could understand basic Spanish, since I am proficient in Italian, yet even having gotten 5’s on both AP Spanish tests, I was not naive enough to claim proficiency in Spanish on the Common App.