The Power of Babble
The program offers a major and minor in Japanese, a minor in Chinese, and instruction in Hindi and Korean. All our programs guide students towards cultural as well as linguistic competence, and prepare them to use their languages in the professions and in academic research.
We also participate extenively in Penn State's Summer Intensive Language programs, which offer Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Latin, Russian and Spanish.
One of the best ways to learn a language is to study abroad, which all our languages majors are required to do. Even if you are not a major, studying abroad can be a very quick way to fill out a minor in a language, and is the kind of experience that might change your life.
Other languages at Penn State
Through CIC CourseShare, a program that offers instruction in less commonly taught fields through live video link, Penn State students can take courses in a number of other Asian languages, including Indonesian, Tibetan, and Uzbek. For information on taking those courses, please contact Julianna Chaszar <jchaszar@la.psu.edu>.
Outside of East and South Asia, Penn State offers instruction in a number of other languages, including Arabic, English as a Foreign Language, French, German and Russian, Spanish, Italian, & Portuguese, Hebrew, and Swahili.
Southeast Asian language study
One of the best places in the United States to study Southeast Asian languages is at the UW-Madison summer institute, which offers generous tuition scholarships and instruction in Burmese, Filipino, Hmong, Indonesia, Javanese, Khmer, Lao, Thai, and Vietnamese.
Language Proficiency Exams
Non-credit foreign language proficiency certification (Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Cantonese) may be used to satisfy Penn State foreign language requirements.
Requests for proficiency testing (use this form) in Chinese are to be submitted to Ms. Liana Chen at least 3 weeks prior to the time when the certification will be needed, with the fee ($60) paid before the examination is administered (by either Ms. Chen or an alternate faculty member depending on the language in question).
For language exams in Japanese, contact Kimiko Suzuki (kzs12@psu.edu).
For questions about this policy, contact the School of Languages and Literatures.
