Anonymous asks:

What languages can you speak/sign?

I basically just know tiny bits of a bunch of different languages, but not quite enough of any of them to actually be useful – French, Italian, German, modern Greek, Maori… and I can read and write Latin and ancient Greek pretty well.  As a classics grad student, you’re basically expected to be able to read anything that’s put in front of you, whether or not you’ve studied the language before (you tend to get told things like “this book is in Dutch, but it’s really useful, so good luck”), so you get pretty good at just muddling through with a dictionary and general knowledge of how translation works without ever reaching actual fluency in any one language.

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