We are now accepting applications for Fall 2019! Admission for some languages will close early. 

Note for entering first-year students: All languages offered by the Center are open to first-year students in the spring/second semester and level I courses are available in the spring semester. In exceptional cases, entering first-semester students may be considered for a course in the fall semester. Policies vary by campus and by language. Contact the language center to find out the situation for your home campus and the language you want to study.

The Five College Center for the Study of World Languages offers academic-year courses in less-commonly studied languages for students at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Course sessions meet on all five campuses. Courses are taken for academic credit and are part of a student's regular course load. Five College students are not required to pay any special fees or tuition in order to enroll.

Hindi and Urdu Courses                Swahili Courses                    Turkish Courses

Spoken Arabic Courses                               Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian Courses 

Persian Courses                             Changes for Urdu and Indonesian Courses

American Sign Language - upper-level courses - for Fall 2019

Supervised Independent Language Courses in Many Languages: 

  • African Languages: Afrikaans (South Africa), Amharic (Ethiopia), Twi (Ghana), Wolof (Senegal), Yoruba (Nigeria), Zulu (South Africa)     

  • European Languages: Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Georgian, Modern Greek, Finnish, Hungarian, Modern Irish, Norwegian, Romanian, Ukrainian.

  • Asian Languages: Bangla/Bengali (Bangladesh and India), Burmese (Myanmar), Cantonese for Mandarin Speakers, Dari (Afghan Persian), Filipino/Tagalog (Philippines), Khmer (Cambodia), Lao, Malay (Malaysia), Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto (Afghanistan and Pakistan), Sinhala (Sri Lanka), Thai, Tibetan, Vietnamese. 

  • Languages of the Americas: Haitian Creole

  • Other languages may be added. Some languages become unavailable for a given semester or there is limited space available. Some languages may appear in the catalog, but only be available intermittently. If you do not see your language of interest, please e-mail for more information.

Charles Mark Scholarships for Study Abroad

Two scholarships endowed by Professor Emeritus Charles Mark support study abroad by Five College Center for the Study of World Languages students. See scholarship descriptions for application requirements and deadlines. 

Endowment Fund

This fund, created to meet a challenge grant from the The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will permanently fund the operations of the Five College Center for the Study of World Languages.  How to Contribute.