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LANGUAGE STUDY

BYU offers many opportunities for students to continue their language study.  You can take classes in 63 languages from 20 different language groups. You can also receive a language certificate, minor, secondary major and/or primary major in a variety of languages.

Read more in our Humanities Magazine​ Spring 2016 issue on language study at BYU.

Language Placement Exam

The BYU Language Placement Exam is an unofficial, online placement exam to help you choose the appropriate course for Chinese, French, German, Russian and Spanish.  You may be required to show your score to a professor to justify your registration in a certain course.  Normally, the exam takes about 15 minutes to complete and can be taken multiple times.
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16-Credit Challenge Exam

The Challenge Exam gives students the opportunity to challenge the 100 and 200 level language classes in their second language and earn up to 16 graded credits (you may choose to accept any or all of the credits earned). The Challenge Exam is only available to students who have registered for the designated language courses and must be taken in the first class at BYU/first class after the mission.

OPI, WPT, Reading & Listening Tests

The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and Written Proficiency Test (WPT) are official exams of the American Council on Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and are required for language certificates and most language majors. The Reading and Listening Tests are required for some senior seminar courses.  All are administered by the Center for Language Study in 3086 JFSB.

LANGUAGE CERTIFICATE

The BYU Language Certificate requires only three courses and results in an official notation of your second language proficiency ("Advanced," "Mastery," or "Professional") printed on your BYU transcipt AND a BYU Language Certificate endorsing your completion of advanced coursework, and your ratings for ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) assessments for speaking and writing.
Less-Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL), such as Hawaiian, Afrikaans, Navajo, etc., will have a FLANG course prefix in the BYU Catalog.

COURSES for RMs

Normally, the following courses are appropriate for returned missionaries, however you are also welcome to take the BYU Language Placement Exam (see above) to confirm your self-placement.  The 16-Credit Challenge Exam is offered for students enrolled in these courses.
BULGN 330
CHIN 202
CZECH 330
DANSH 321
DUTCH 340
FINN 321
FREN 321
GERM 330
HUNG 330
ICLND 429
ITAL 321
JAPAN 301
KOREA 301
LATVI 330
LITHU 330
NORWE 321
PORT 321
POLSH 330
ROM 340
RUSS 330
SLV 330
SPAN 321
SWED 321
​UKRAI 330
NOTE: Languages not listed may not have a designated RM course. Check with the Center for Language Studies for more information. 

FL STUDENT RESIDENCE

BYU offers a foreign language student residence (FLSR) for the following languages:
Portuguese
French
German
Russian
Spanish
Italian
Japanese
Arabic
Hebrew
Chinese
Korean
In the FLSR you will live with a native speaker, speak only the target language in your residence, participate in a conversation course and attend church with other FLSR participants of other languages.