Growing up I never dreamed of speaking a foreign language. I never even gave much thought to speaking anything besides English until it just kind of fell into my lap in 8th grade.
Language can take you to places you could never imagine–which is exactly what happened to Chris Murphy. Chris, an MSU alumni, is now attending Peking University in Beijing pursuing a Master’s degree in Political Science. As he is now pursuing his passion for Chinese, we talked with him about what gave him that spark.
It was not until he moved to England for four years that Alex realized just how incredible the culture, passion, and community surrounding the game of football truly was.
It was in a moment of interaction with a Buddhist Monk that Edvard experienced a transformation in her perceptions surrounding the power of translation, and the possibility that evolves when worlds collide...
We live in a world that tends to provides more questions than answers, but for Maggie, there seems to always be an answer, a purpose, and even a hope. As a double major in Arabic and comparative cultures, Maggie seeks a unique path, especially when it comes to her goals in life.
In high school I worked at Panera Bread in the Chicago suburbs where half of the employees at Panera were monolingual Spanish speakers. Although I took Spanish in school I had never said anything more than the answer to a question from my teacher.
One morning I cut my finger pretty bad...
I knew there was no way I’d be staying [in Chinese class] because I was well aware of what an undertaking learning the Chinese language was.
“Learning a language is like being able to talk to all of your neighbors, rather than just looking out from a window. It opens up more doors and you get to meet all these amazing people.”
“So, Why East Africa? What convinced you that this was a part of the world that you needed to understand more about?”
Rheanne smiled, and with eloquence and reflective poise, she began to tell her story.
When given the opportunity to choose a name in a different language, there is a lot to take into consideration.