SHE COMES BY HER LANGUAGES EASILY. An early childhood in Geneva, Switzerland, meant spoke French. At home, she spoke German, because her grandmother, who lived with the family, spoke German and Spanish. And whenever the adults switched to Spanish, Christiane knew that the conversation wasn't meant for her or her sister to hear.
The family's move to Argentina gave Christiane and her sister a command of English at school—and Spanish, too—which had the added advantage of them now understanding every word the adults were saying.
The family finally settled in Washington, DC, where Christiane's college major was Russian. And several years later, it was a colleague on the Christian Science Board of Lectureship who put the icing on the linguistic cake: "You speak French and Spanish—so you can learn Italian and Portuguese!"
