When Rosalie Knecht '06 was asked to give a group of students from Ecuador a tour of her Pennsylvania high school, she was amazed that they could understand her halting Spanish. "It seemed incredible that a bunch of words I had learned in class could help me communicate with people who spoke little or no English," Knecht says. "I was just beginning to study Spanish myself!"

The experience fueled Knecht's passion for foreign languages and influenced her decision to major in Hispanic studies at Oberlin. Now that she's earned her degree, Knecht is heading to Argentina, where she will spend a year working as a Fulbright teaching assistant and translating the work of young, up-and-coming authors.

When not in the classroom teaching English or giving presentations on American culture, Knecht is planning to work on a prose translation project with local authors. Once the pieces are translated, she hopes to have them published in an American literary journal.

"I'm looking forward to working with people who are writing about the current political and social climate in Argentina," says Knecht. "But I also would like to find writers who are accessible and appealing to a wide range of readers."

Like Knecht, Ella Ornstein '06 is also heading overseas as a Fulbright teaching assistant. Her destination is Nordrhein-Westfalen, a region in northwestern Germany that borders Belgium and Holland and has a high immigrant population. There, she plans to study the intersection of languages, cultures, and translation that exists among native Germans and the immigrants who call the country home.

"It will be interesting to see how many non-native, German writers have had their books translated into German," Ornstein says. "But it will be even more interesting to see if these translations are something the public is interested in reading."

As a student, Ornstein created an independent major that allowed her to focus on linguistics and literary translation, with a minor in German. But German isn't the only language she can speak; she's also fluent in Thai, and she knows enough Yiddish, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, Russian, Czechoslovakian, and even Mohawk to make herself understood in several foreign countries.

"I've always liked languages," says Ornstein. "It's exciting to learn how to say something in a new way. Learning a different language can also help us show respect and acknowledge diversity, as well as communicate a desire to meet people halfway."

An international educational program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Fulbright Program is designed to increase the mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those from other countries. The program has provided more than 250,000 participants the opportunity to study and teach in other countries, exchange ideas, and develop joint solutions to shared concerns.