Language isn't just for humanities students anymore.

These days just about everyone needs knowledge of foreign languages and cultures. The executives you'll meet one day on an East Asian business trip might speak English, but from a cultural perspective, that's not the same as dealing with Americans. Familiarity with their culture will impress the heck out of them. And the more language you know, the more you'll be able to pick up from memos, informal remarks, or other industry materials that haven't been translated for you--all of which will make your boss happy. The same goes for scientists, politicians, economists, and plenty of others.
 

You want to get past shopping, sports, and family and talk about more interesting stuff.

Consider courses such as "SPAN 221, Spanish and the Press: Web, Television, Radio, and Print Journalism," in which students study such topics as how controversial issues like cloning or domestic violence are covered by the media, and "SPAN 222, Legal Spanish," which delves into the roles of human rights and capital punishment in Latin American legal culture. Consider "SOCY 395, Wealth and Poverty: Modern China," which offers a special discussion section held in Chinese for students who wish to read and discuss primary source materials. These kinds of courses offer students the opportunity to learn the vocabulary, structure, and register appropriate to academic discourse in a variety of popular fields of study. But these upper-level courses don't take students who just want to scrape by with the bare minimum (and they don't take American Express).

Study Abroad someplace cool--enough said.

Ask someone who has studied abroad in a foreign country after first learning the language at Yale. He or she will probably tell you that no matter how much you learned before you got there, you'll wish you'd arrived knowing more, and the time you spend learning the language abroad will be much better spent if you've taken four or more semesters at home first. Note: some study abroad programs have minimum language proficiency requirements for participation beyond fulfillment of the Yale College Foreign Language Requirement. Yale College strongly supports study abroad, and more information can be found on the IEFP Study Abroad site. If you're thinking at all about studying abroad, look into this before you decide to stop language study too soon!

The amount of time it takes to gain proficiency in a language varies by language.

The amount covered in a given number of courses is different for different languages. For example, four semesters of Spanish, which uses the Roman alphabet, will likely cover more grammar and vocabulary than four semesters of Japanese. This doesn't necessarily mean Spanish is much easier to learn (or gain fluency in) than Japanese, but concepts can be covered more quickly, often with less time devoted to pronunciation and writing practice.

Why, then, you might ask, is the Foreign Language Requirement articulated in terms of a required number of semesters instead of proficiency level? Good question--the advantages of a proficiency-based requirement probably merit further discussion. However, the primary job of the Foreign Language Requirement is to ensure that you make substantive improvement in your use of the language and gain exposure to resources and study skills you can use to further your language education even after leaving Yale, and realizing these goals is not dependent on the specific proficiency level you reach. Also, seat-time is used for distribution requirements because it's manageable to measure and record.

Employers pay big bucks for foreign language skills.

Language skills are in high demand these days, whether you work for a business, a non-profit, an educational institution, or (gasp!) a government organization. Take the Central Intelligence Agency as an example: the CIA offers big starting bonuses--tens of thousands of dollars, in some cases--as well as larger annual salaries to employees whose college degrees (in such diverse fields as political science, engineering, and economics) are complemented by strong proficiency in a foreign language, particularly high-priority languages like Chinese, Arabic, Persian, or Korean. Just two or three semesters probably won't get you there, though: you need to have some serious game--and the ability to maintain your skills over time--to really cash in.