<p>One more thing about the Five College language program. </p>
<p>I know this is true with Arabic, I’m not sure about other languages, but they don’t all use the same book. Smith and UMASS use different teaching systems (UMASS uses the orange book, Smith uses Al-Kitaab) and they’re not very compatible. I’m not sure what Amherst uses, but overall I would reccommend taking the language classes at Smith because that way you’ll be in the same learning system the whole way, and for Arabic that makes a big difference. </p>
<p>The Five College program I was referring to above is the Five College tutored language program, which is run out of the Five College Language Center at UMASS and allows you to individually enroll in a self directed language course where you work partially with a tutor, but mostly on your own. It sounds good, but in practice, it’s hard to maintain the discipline you need to learn a language without the structure of a formal course. Also, Smith’s rules for granting credit through the tutoring program are really screwy. You don’t get full four credits and you don’t get any credit unless you stick it for several semesters. </p>
<p>Again, not to be a killjoy, just letting you know. But htis program does offer languages like Hindi and Urdu and other languages that are hard to find in the college system. </p>
<p>Smith offers French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Latin, Greek (ancient), Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and I think a few others (maybe? not sure), which is quite a bit to choose from IMO, but I’m not sure what you’re looking for precisely.</p>