Reader Responses to A New Language, in a Hurry

I was thrilled to see BAM focus on some of Brown’s excellent world languages programs, as they were such an important part of my own undergraduate experience. When I decided to begin a new language at Brown, my advisor told me that “languages are something you can learn in the summer.” But there is a special opportunity afforded by intensive language study on campus, as this article makes clear. My four semesters learning Hebrew with Ruth Adler Ben Yehuda were fruitful, incredibly enjoyable, and influenced my own path toward becoming a middle school French teacher. Let’s hear more about how language-learning at Brown changes lives.

I enjoyed Peder Schaefer’s recent article about intensive double-credit language courses. I just came across a Brown grade report addressed to my parents for the 1972 fall semester and confirmed that my Intensive Portuguese class (Port 1 and Port 2) was double-credit. I have fond memories of those classes, where one time, I’m quite sure, we played cards, drank port, and smoked cigars while practicing our language skills. There were also great little sherry-hour type parties (festisinas). Nearly 50 years later, I still know that pao fresco engorda (fresh bread makes you fat), but with Portuguese sweetbread, who cares? I took the course because a boyfriend and I wanted to go to Carnival in Rio. But we broke up before I graduated and I didn’t get to Brazil until 2004, when I participated in a service trip to Recife, Pernambuco, and was able to finally use my favorite dialogue sentence: Da janela, vejo um pedaco da praia (From the window, I can see a bit of the beach).

I was delighted to learn that double-credit language courses are continuing to thrive at Brown and that intensive Russian is among them. When I entered Brown in 1971, I was extraordinarily fortunate to enroll in the first intensive Russian class ever offered, taught by Barbara Monahan, the most gifted teacher I ever encountered in over eight years of higher education. Monahan (who mysteriously dubbed herself “Babushka” because of her prematurely white hair at age 39) leapt about the classroom, engaging us all with her wit, charisma, and determination that we emerge from her class with a fearlessness in communicating in idiomatic Russian. In those days, before the influx of Soviet emigres, Monahan was our window into contemporary Russian culture, as she mimed surly sales clerks and carefully provided connections to her friends in the Soviet Union. Monahan nurtured generations of students, many of whom pursued careers where Russian proficiency was essential. Barbara Monahan passed away in May. She would have been happy to know that the program she started still continues.