Berlitz International

No matter how tired or busy he is, business executive Dwane Krumme makes it twice a week to his Japanese class in downtown Los Angeles. From the minute he steps into the 90-minute sessions, he speaks only Japanese with his teacher and classmates. Meanwhile, Nancy Sasaki rushes across town from California State University, Los Angeles, to Loyola Marymount University to UCLA Extension in Westwood to teach Japanese.

Being bilingual is an advantage in today's job market--Christopher Cox can attest to that. If he weren't fluent in a second language, he wouldn't be the Spanish-speaking Beetlejuice. Cox, 23, was hired to impersonate the obnoxious hollow-eyed apparition after the Universal Studios theme park issued a casting call for bilingual performers four months ago.

The Maxwell publishing empire collapsed Thursday beneath a heap of debt, driving the New York Daily News into bankruptcy court protection and hoisting a score of celebrated publishing and communications properties onto the auction block. Four weeks after financier Robert Maxwell's death at sea, his sons Ian and Kevin asked the British high court to appoint administrators to run the family's two major private companies, which have debts of $2 billion.

It sounds like a dream vacation: jetting off to Paris in the lazy days of summer. But when Rebecca Murphy flew to the French capital at the end of August, it was an MBA candidate's step forward in an effort to become more marketable. Murphy will spend the year working as an intern at a French advertising agency while following a regular business school curriculum and studying the French language at night.

Highlights of Wednesday's market activity, compiled from Times staff and wire reports: * Weighed down by a plunge in bank shares, stocks tumbled in a late-afternoon selloff. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 22.42 points to 3,307.06. * The Tokyo market stabilized after the government announced new measures to help ailing banks try to stem a stock selloff. But many traders remained skeptical that the 2 1/2-year decline in stocks has ended.

Being bilingual is an advantage in today's job market--Christopher Cox can attest to that. If he weren't fluent in a second language, he never would have become a Spanish-speaking Beetlejuice. Cox, 23, was hired to impersonate the obnoxious, hollow-eyed apparition after the Universal Studios theme park issued a casting call for bilingual performers four months ago.

Kevin and Ian Maxwell were pleading with British authorities early today for a last chance to salvage the remains of a financial empire that stands in rubble, the legacy of a larger-than-life father who turns out to have been much less than he seemed. By mysteriously falling from his yacht into the Atlantic last month, Robert Maxwell himself escaped the fast-approaching exposure of his massive financial improprieties.

Argentine immigrant Marta Marquez had always dreamed of becoming a teacher, while her son, Alex, had his heart set on becoming a business executive. So when the enterprising mother of four and her son started a language-translation and interpreting service in 1984, they counted themselves lucky to land 15 customers a month and ring up $10,000 in sales the first year. But much to their surprise, Iberia Language Services Inc.

A trip to Japan was not on my agenda until one of my students asked me about Yasuo Kuniyoshi, an artist born in Japan in 1889. The student, a doctoral candidate, had come from Japan to take a graduate course I teach, "Art in New York, 1900-1940," at the City University of New York. She was curious about Kuniyoshi, who was a prominent figure then. I knew about him as a friend of Edward Hopper, whose biography I wrote.

"So this is what it feels like to be a billionaire art collector," I said to my husband, John Wessel. "I could get used to this." It was 9 p.m., and we were still glowing from a dinner of shabu-shabu -- Mongolian hot pot -- and sake. We slipped out of our bedroom in cotton robes and slippers to spend a few moments in our own private art gallery. We soaked up the tropical colors of our David Hockney, the Ferrari-like bravado of our Frank Stella and the relative restraint of our Jackson Pollock.