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• Student Name: Anabelle Accetta-Beman
• Major: Criminal Justice and Linguistics
• Language(s) You Are Learning: Chinese, Russian, Japanese, French, Korean
• Graduation Year: 2025
• Essay in English: There’s nothing quite as humbling as trying to communicate with someone in their mother tongue. You learn culture, history—how to properly say someone’s name, unadulterated and unaccented. French was my first love, you see—I wanted so badly to read Le Petit Prince in Saint-Exupéry’s original voice; and when I did, it was magic. Even if the sounds are jumbled in my mouth, the grammar broken and clunky on my tongue, I’ll never let an opportunity to say “hello” pass by. And they’ll laugh—not mean-spiritedly, but perhaps amused—at my misgendered French, my tone-deaf Mandarin, my informal Japanese, my unrolled-r’s-Russian, my smattering of Korean and Spanish and Portuguese—but I don’t mind. Even if I can only catch every other sentence, every other word—to not only listen, but to understand—it is magic. The language barrier is not a wall, only a door. I am not a locksmith yet, but a lock picker.
• Essay in Mandarin Chinese: 我觉得和别人交朋友的时候，如果我可以用他们的母语和他们说话是很棒的事情。我喜欢 学不同的语言，文化和历史，也喜欢学怎么把别人的名字说得正确。法语是我第一个喜欢 学的语言，因为我想看“小王子”法文的书，不是英文的。当我真的可以看懂“小王子”法文 原文书的时候，我快乐极了。 虽然我的发音有时候不正确，文法也常常有错，可是只要有机会可以用新学的语言和别人 打招呼，说“你好”，我一定会这么做。有时候有人会笑我说得不好的法语，声调不对的汉 语，不正确的日语，俄语，还有一点儿的韩语，西班牙语和葡萄牙语。他们可能会笑，但 是没关系，因为我知道他们不是恶意的，而是觉得有趣。即使我只能听懂一两句话，我都 要去听，去理解。因为这样我非常快乐！ 语言的障碍不是一道墙。我觉得那是一扇门，我喜欢打开新的语言的门。