BootsnAll Travel Community

Has anyone actually had Latin classes? I've always heard that taking Latin course, especially as a child for years and years, is supposed to be really "good". Benefits are supposed to include knowing the English language better, easier time with academic stuff, ease of learning the romance languages, etcetera . But, I don't actually know anybody who has taken Latin.

I ask because my sister and I are plotting to turn my nieces into linguistic wonders. Maybe Latin would advance our goal.

Those of us of a certain age remember when it was common for people take Latin in school.
My older siblings took it. However, by the the early 1970's, it was all but gone....

I wanted to take Latin in high school but only one school in my city offered it and it wasn't mine. I had a friend who took it and loved it and was definitely a better than average linguist although maybe that's why she was drawn to Latin in the first place.

I picked up a bit through my zoology courses; everything is named in Latin and including many processes, etc. It certainly would have been easier if I'd taken Latin classes.

I still want to learn Latin...

I took five semesters of Latin because the scholarship I had at City College required a classical language. Latin V involved reading The Satyrion in the original. I can't remember much now, but do remember feeling as if I had a huge vocabulary when I finished my BA. A dozen years of teaching ESL/EFL have since shrunk my list of availible words considerably -- I guess it's a matter of use it or lose it!

I took Latin in school for 6 years. It certainly helps with learning other languages.

My wife studied it for about six years, and I didn’t at all. She’s definitely smarter than me, and better at languages (not to mention better looking and a better cook).

You’d better get your nieces enrolled ASAP.

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Callilucy said:
I wanted to take Latin in high school

Why does that not surprise me

quote:

Originally posted by seraphim:
I took Latin in school for 6 years. It certainly helps with learning other languages.

All languages? Or just European? Or only Romance? If I remember correctly, you're more than a little linguistically inclined Which was first? Chicken or egg?

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Where is this place? junkie said:
I guess it's a matter of use it or lose it!

Ok, the ability to read a book in the original is one thing, but I would have thought you've gained lots of fringe benefits, knowledge, and understandings that stuck and are under appreciated. Then again, I forget languages unusually quick myself. Read my posts...English is a problem!

Thanks for all the input, dear boots. More is welcome.

I don't know if it helps with languages that aren't indo-european, as I've never tried to learn any of those (if you don't count the few words of Hungarian and Mongolian I picked up). But you can definitely recognise a lot of words in all indo-european languages from Latin. Also, it was the first language I learned that had cases, so it certainly helped with learning German, Polish and Russian later on. And aquiring (sp?) new languages just becomes easier the more other languages you know, especially if you've learned them at a young age. (I started with Latin when I was 12, so officially at the same age that I started learning English, though I knew some of that allready from watching tv etc.) I don't think I'm especially talented at learning languages, I'm still struggling with French. It's just that practice makes perfect (or adequate, more likely).

What follows it just my opinion!

Learning languages, especially learning to speak naturally, is so much easier at a young age than an older age. For this reason, I'd say as a child you're far better learning a language that you can actually use to communicate. Partly because it will be easier to learn if it's "useful" and you can talk to people (for example, you can watch foreign cartoons, listen to foreign children's music, speak to little kids if you know any who speak the language you're trying to learn) and partly because, if you do actually learn to speak fluently, years down the line you'll be able to actually utilize your fluency. I'd hold off on Latin until they're a bit older - learning it in high school will help with more formal grammar as well as be excellent for taking the SATs!

There are other languages (Russian in particular, that I can think of) that have many of the same grammatical constructions as Latin, but aren't "dead" languages, although they might not give the same basic grounding in big long Latin words...

Of course I've never studied Latin, so who knows

I don't know how old your nieces are, but I agree that for children under 10, it would be better to learn a living language rather than Latin. First of all because if you learn a language under 10, it gets lodged into the same side of your brain as your native language, and it's much more useful to be fluent in a living language. And secondly there really isn't a child-friendly way to learn Latin. It's all cramming (which is also easier when you're young, but you can wait a bit longer). In a living language, children can learn songs, read childrens books, etc. There are a few comic books that have been translated into Latin, but that's it.

My Latin teacher was also a former Jesuit, btw. And I'm not even that ancient

Thanks all for the feedback. Since my nieces are on the young side, about 4 and 6, it seems Latin is not a good move at the moment. As discussed elsewhere (Travel, Languages and Children) their third language is probably going to be Korean, with German a distant second option.

I am told the ATM Machine at the Vatican has a Latin option.

It isn't totally dead....