The EALL department teaches elementary, intermediate, and advanced courses in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in a semi-intensive format, requiring substantial daily preparation and meeting three to five times per week. The department offers a separate track in Chinese and Korean designed for students who have had varying degrees of exposure to the language in a family or other setting. Courses in this track are not more “advanced” than those designed for students with no background in Chinese or Korean, but rather address a different set of needs. Placement in all courses is determined by the teaching staff.
Language Placement and Proficiency Examinations
Course placement and foreign language proficiency exams in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are given at the beginning of the semester. Students seeking to demonstrate proficiency through examination or seeking placement based on prior study must take these exams. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean tests also include online components that students must complete. For the online tests, it must be completed between July 1-29, 2022. Click here for the Placement Exams and Information. Click here to access the online Chinese exam, Japanese exam or Korean exam.
2022 Placement Exams - Oral Interview & Written Test
Interviews and writing parts: Interviews will be via Zoom and the writing portion will be done by uploading to Canvas.
Questions regarding the examinations or courses can be addressed to Fan Liu for Chinese, Angela Lee-Smith for Korean, for Japanese placement exams and courses, Mika Yamaguchi.
If you are in doubt about your status, please come to the placement exam or contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS), Pauline Lin, in advance.
The following categories of students must take a placement examination:
- students who are enrolling in the department’s language classes for the first time but have studied Chinese, Japanese, or Korean elsewhere;
- students who have any background in one of these languages because of family reasons;
- students of Japanese or Korean returning from a Light Fellowship-approved program who are enrolling in language classes; or
- students of Chinese who attended a non-Light-approved program and are enrolling in a language class.
For those students who wish to continue their study of Chinese after returning from a Light-approved program, please refer to the chart found here.
Table of Acceleration Credit
Credits for Study Abroad
Under certain conditions, course credits earned at another college or university may be used toward Yale College requirements. Please see the Yale College Programs of Study policy on credit from other universities for more information.
If you are seeking credit for outside courses, including Light Fellowship-approved programs, towards distributional requirements, please contact the DUS, Pauline Lin to request credit toward the foreign language requirement, please complete the “Earning Credit for Coursework Completed Outside Yale,” form. Please click here to access the form.
For all other questions regarding course credit, please consult the Center for International and Professional Experience or your departmental DUS.
Language Tables
The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, with the generous cooperation of the residential colleges, maintains weekly lunchtime language tables* for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Contact Kumiko Nakamura (Japanese), Chuanmei Sun (Chinese), or Hyeseong Kim (Korean) for details.