The School of Letters & Tongues · language, literature & writing
Modern Languages
First-year paths into the world's living languages, built on speaking from the first hour.
From greetings to the preterite — a full first year of Spanish that keeps your mouth busier than your notes.
Syllabus · 5 units · ~60 hours
Unit I — First Conversations
Greetings, names, and courtesy · The sounds of Spanish · Gender and articles
Unit II — Daily Life
Ser and estar · The present tense, regular and stem-changing · Family, home, and routine
Unit III — Out in the World
Food, markets, and ordering · Gustar and similar verbs · Telling time and making plans
Unit IV — Past and Future
The preterite · Ir a + infinitive · Narrating your week
Unit V — Reading and Culture
Short readings from the Spanish-speaking world · Regional variation: tú, usted, vos · A first conversation without a script
A full first year of French — sounds, structures, and enough conversation to survive a café unassisted.
Syllabus · 5 units · ~60 hours
Unit I — First Words
Greetings and politesse · French sounds and silent letters · Articles and gender
Unit II — Being and Having
Être and avoir · -er verbs in the present · Family and description
Unit III — The Café and the Question
Food and ordering · Partitive articles · Asking questions three ways
Unit IV — Past and Near Future
The passé composé · Aller and the near future · Plans and invitations
Unit V — Into the Francophone World
Numbers, time, and dates · Short readings from francophone writers · A first conversation without a script
A first year of German that treats the case system as a map, not a minefield.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~60 hours
Unit I — First Words
Greetings and the formal Sie · German sounds and spelling · Gender and the nominative
Unit II — Building Sentences
Present tense and verb-second word order · The accusative case · Family, work, and daily life
Unit III — Verbs with Moving Parts
Separable-prefix verbs · Modal verbs · The dative case in daily use
Unit IV — Telling Your Story
The perfect tense · Word order in subordinate clauses · Narrating your week in past tense
Hiragana, katakana, first kanji, and the polite sentence — a patient, honest first year of Japanese.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~60 hours
Unit I — Sounds and Scripts
Hiragana · Katakana · Pronunciation and pitch
Unit II — First Sentences
X wa Y desu · The particles wa, ga, and o · Greetings and introductions
Unit III — Daily Life
Verbs in the -masu form · Counting and counters · Time, days, and schedules
Unit IV — Politeness and Kanji
The te-form and requests · A first set of kanji · Levels of politeness
The four tones, pinyin, and a first set of characters — Mandarin begun the way it is actually heard.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~60 hours
Unit I — Tones and Pinyin
The four tones · Pinyin spelling and pronunciation · Tone pairs in practice
Unit II — First Sentences
Word order: subject, verb, object · Shì and yǒu · Greetings, names, and family
Unit III — Characters
Strokes and stroke order · Radicals · A first set of characters
Unit IV — Getting Around
Numbers, money, and shopping · Time and dates · Ordering food
What the research says about acquiring a language as an adult, turned into a daily practice you can keep.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~8 hours
Unit I — What Actually Works
Comprehensible input · Spaced repetition for vocabulary · Why grammar study alone fails
Unit II — A Daily Practice
Designing a thirty-minute day · Speaking early: tutors and exchanges · Measuring progress honestly
Unit III — Plateaus and Persistence
The intermediate plateau · Learning from native media · Keeping a language for life