One of the first steps of most TIME foreign correspondents on a new assignment is to hire a tutor for language lessons. Even the most fluent linguists usually need a refresher course in such staples as French, German, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian. Some other languages with which TIME correspondents have grappled: Dutch, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Korean, Afrikaans, Greek, Japanese and Chinese. There was, for example, the lady visitor who recently walked into TIME'S Rome office and heard two staff members chatting heatedly in Japanese. Said she: "This organization should be located somewhere east of Suez."
Senior Orientalist on the Rome...
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