You don't have to be good at it. Just say what you know.
Contents
American Sign Language
Bengali
Catalán
David Rodriguez (learned a little bit while abroad in Barcelona)
Chinese
Cantonese
Jason Law '06 can get by, but not as well as with Mandarin (though Cantonese was his first language...).
Jing Cao 08's first language
Mandarin
Jason Law '06 can get by.
Jing Cao 08's second language.
Katherine Huang '08
Kim Fassler '06
Lars Enwereuzor Kana Ojukwu '07
Taiwanese
Rachel Ko '09
English
- British Accent
- Chinese Accent
- East European Accent
- Indian Accent
- Japanese Accent
Diana Davis '07 spent a month speaking English with a Japanese accent, so she can still do it very convincingly.
- Scottish Accent
- Southern Accent
Esperanto
Joe McDonough '06 visited the International Esperanto Museum in Vienna, but by that time he had forgotten most of the Esperanto he had learned in a fit of boredom during Winter Study two years previously.
French
David Rodriguez (He used to be much better, but he now inserts random Catalán words in French conversation.)
Diana Davis '07 is still pretty good at French.
Katherine Huang '08 took a lit course with Professor Martin and scored well on the SAT II and AP exams, but that doesn't mean her accent isn't atrociously American...
Samantha Peterson is majoring in it, so she probably knows a few phrases.
Katie Montgomery '07 can, in theory, communicate in French.
German
- Swiss German
Jono Dowse '06 has a German-language textbook on Swiss German and really wants to be able to speak it authentically. At this point, he knows the numbers and some basic vocabulary and grammar.
Greek
Hazen (As in I can write in it and tell you how to pronounce the letters of their alphabet. I didn't write this.)
Math nerds know the Greek alphabet.
So do Classics majors. (And in order. What comes after phi, oh my math and physics friends?)
- Modern, anyone?
Hebrew
Robert Streicker '07
Zachary Ulman '06
Davida Kutscher '03
Elissa Brown '09
Hindi
IPA
is not a language; it is an omnipotent alphabet. See also Phonetics.
Jono Dowse '06 is to the International Phonetic Alphabet as Al Gore is to the Internet.
David Rodriguez learned the IPA incredibly well as Jono Dowse's (who's Nate Sanders?) student in LING 111
Italian
Lucy Cox-Chapman '06 spent a semester in Italy
Japanese
Amanda Van Rhyn now knows how to say "my husband got drunk and hit me."
Diana Davis '07 frequently mutters small phrases in Japanese. People think she is mumbling, becuase they don't understand Japanese. In addition to randomly speaking in Japanese, she also randomly speaks English with an excellent Japanese accent.
Leah Weintraub '06 spent a semester in Japan. Ergo, she probably speaks Japanese.
Charlotte White rocks at Japanese, and is easily distracted by pretty things from Japan. She also says "WTF Japan" rather often. As should we all.
Korean
Dawn Robinson '08 is Korean. She can read and write Konglish, and say, "Hello, my name is Dawn" in Korean. :)
Latin
The Devil knows Latin. So does Joe McDonough '06.
Oppish
Alden Robinson '06 whopat dopo yopou thopink opof thopat?
Pig Latin
Seth Brown taught a course on Pig Latin during Winter Study 1997.
Polish
Jonathan Landsman '05 can say "What's up, sweetheart?"
Jono Dowse '06 knows how to pronounce written Polish and has quite a few audio samples of Polish phrases on his iTunes account courtesy of Peter Ladefoged.
Portuguese
- Brazil
O Marcos Gouvea '05 fala português. E você?
Russian
Emily Button '07 can say "I've seen more women than you've seen sparrows!"
Ilya Khodosh does an excellent drunk old Russian man impression.
Suzanne C. Walsh '05 can say, "Her breasts are as big as pineapples" and can translate for fiends who lose the ability to speak English and can only speak in Russian while drunk. She is also known to mutter things in Georgian. And we're not talking about, "y'all."
Anna Tsykalova '08 says that all good things come from Mother Russia.
Spanish
David Rodriguez (speaks Dominican Spanish--impossible to comprehend for most other spanish speakers because it sounds more like really fast Italian than anything else)
Jonathan Landsman '05 (budding bachatero)
Sofia Torres (but apparently she speaks Mexican, a variation of Spanish)
Paulette Rodriguez can speak Spanish without consonants (also known as Puerto Rican--similar to Dominican)
Sarah Steege can speak with or without the sexy Spanish lisp.
Tamil
Turkish
Dave Senft can count to four in turkish, and also knows six through eight, and ten.