Learning a new language is an opportunity to discover more about ourselves and our world. It’s a fresh lens through which we view the people and cultures around us in exciting, and sometimes startling, ways.
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences recognized the value of language study in crafting its new curriculum for students entering in Fall 2025 and beyond, which emphasizes not only mastery of a second language, but encourages exploring a completely new one.
Whether it’s to reconnect with family traditions, further their career ambitions or for the sheer love of discovery, these inspiring stories of four students — told in their own words — demonstrate the wealth of options available for language study at Duke.
For me, those four hours at the academy stretched endlessly, like centuries passing in slow motion. For my mother, they weren’t long enough. She had ensured my first language was Russian, our nannies were picked directly from the streets of Brighton Beach, breakfast was сырники and dinner каша, and every night culminated in a Russian lullaby and cпокойной ночи. Hers was a desperate fight to keep a beloved tradition alive. And yet every week, much to her chagrin, my appreciation for the centuries of Russian-Jewish culture I was heir to seemed to dwindle, as did my Russian fluency.
Despite the fifty-year age gap, Mama and I bonded over a shared love for Korean soap operas. We would sit together, entranced by the complex storylines, swooning when the male lead saved his love interest from danger and exchanging disgruntled opinions about the female lead’s pesky mother-in-law. With my grandparents as my main caretakers when my parents were at work, much of my time was spent with them in front of the television, engrossed in whatever Korean drama was playing.
Language has always been more than a tool for communication to me; it is a gateway to understanding, connection and identity. My journey with languages began as a child, growing up in a multilingual household where English, Yoruba and bits of other languages danced together in our conversations. But it wasn’t until I formally began learning Spanish that I realized the true power of language to bridge divides and foster deeper connections.
Sitting at a wooden table eating seafood, I watched over a hundred family members from France converse, eat and frolic. I was 14 years old, attending a family reunion with Estelle, my pen pal from the south of France. Seven years later, I still remember how it felt to dip my feet in the reflection pool on a hot summer day in Toulon and let my broken French take me through conversations with Estelle’s cousins.
