The Linguist
Leah Hammond
Senior, Montgomery Blair High School
Leah Hammond was only supposed to be doing data entry during her summer internship in Paris. But when officials at the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development learned that the American teenager could speak Mandarin Chinese, in addition to English and French, her job description changed.
The committee’s general secretary assigned Leah, then 16, the task of researching the Chinese arms industry using only Chinese sources, then writing a report on her findings in French.
That report earned Leah accolades from the committee and crystallized her career ambitions. The Silver Spring resident now hopes to work in the State Department after college, with the ultimate dream of one day becoming secretary of state.
“Speaking these languages set me apart even from other adults,” says Leah, a senior in Blair High School’s communication arts program. “It made me realize all the doors you can open through the study of languages.”
Her interest in Chinese can be traced back to when Leah’s mother, Sharon, an education consultant, and father, Stig, a project manager with Veterans Affairs, needed after-school supervision for their 7-year-old daughter. They enrolled Leah, who was schooled in the county’s French immersion program, in the only after-school program with spots available: a Mandarin Chinese class.
Not long after the class began, the instructor pulled Sharon aside to tell her something she’d hear often through the years: “Your daughter has a real talent for linguistics.”
These days, Leah spends four nights a week taking online Chinese classes through Johns Hopkins University, and works with her longtime Chinese tutor, Yanming Zhi, on Saturday mornings.
“She is very smart, and very quick to pick up new vocabulary,” Zhi says. “But the best thing about Leah is that she understands that to learn a language, it’s impossible not to make mistakes. She doesn’t mind that—she’s eager to open her mouth and talk, and she’s eager to learn from her mistakes.”
Leah, 17, applies that same energy and enthusiasm to her efforts as a member of the track and lacrosse teams at Blair, and to Ally and Leah’s Cupcakes, a business she founded in 2008 with Allison Whitney, a friend and fellow Blair student. The duo started the business with hopes of baking for relatives, friends and classmates. They now sell three dozen cupcakes and one large cake a week during busy seasons such as the holidays for a variety of clients, many of whom find the business through its Facebook page.
Leah also has organized work trips for students to New Orleans to help low-income residents whose homes were damaged in Hurricane Katrina.
She hopes to attend the Institut d’études politiques de Paris and study East Asian politics.
