Welcome to the Department of European Languages and Literatures, which offers instruction in the languages, literatures, and cultures of the French-, German-, Greek-, Italian-, and Russian-speaking worlds. In addition to elementary and intermediate courses that provide students with the basic skills of the particular language, the Department also offers a wide range of more specialized elective courses in advanced language skills (including translation), literature, film, and other cultural areas. The Department has also recently inaugurated of four courses devoted to cross-cultural subjects in European studies.<br><br>The mission of Queens College is to prepare students to become leaders in a global society. It is therefore important to teach them the critical thinking skills necessary to understand a world that increasingly provides for interaction between people of different languages and cultures. The college achieves this mission by offering a rigorous education under the guidance of faculty who excel in teaching and research. Our graduates are trained to think critically and explore the diverse cultures of Queens County as well as those of the world beyond. The faculty members of the Department of European Languages and Literatures play a key role in helping the college to meet its goals. Through training in the literatures and cultures of Europe, we teach our students to better understand some of the people they will come in contact with in a global society. The languages we teach were spoken by generations of immigrants to America, and they are all still spoken in Queens today—by families that have maintained ties to the languages of their forebears and by recent immigrants.