Latin - what are the benefits?

[Anonymous]

I took 7 years of Latin. I speak three living languages. What I got out of Latin in school as much as anything was social. We were a small group that stuck with Latin, and all got on quite well. We also got to go to Latin Convention in high school, which was fun. There were toga parties, and lots of awards and tests to achieve that looked good (but I doubt were influential on college apps). There was/is some benefit for learning cognates and parsing out unfamiliar vocabulary, but I think it is kind of marginal. One might have the same benefits from another Romance language (not sure on this since I don't know another Romance language). I am not sure on that point, though. I happen to really like learning languages so understanding how grammar can work was interesting. The history and mythology was fun, and it is good general knowledge to have when reading literature (so you know an author talking about Mars didn't mean the planet, etc.) and if one studies humanities/social sciences later on kind of useful. On the other hand, I went to law school and did not find Latin to be useful there like they told us it would be back in middle school. Also, because I never spoke Latin I lost most of it. I can't use it in the workplace, like I can with the other languages I speak. I feel like it was a good experience, and one I would not want to replace. Still, I later realized a love for languages and likely would have enjoyed studying Spanish more because I could have spoken it and used it to travel. That is a long way of saying Latin is pretty cool, but probably not worth it just because it seems better.

[Anonymous]

Took Latin in high school, in Europe. Benefits were that as I am a Slavic language speaker and was learning English, German and French, it helped me connect words and origins and understand almost any word in all of these as they are highly connected. I don't really know that it was Latin that did that, but I can read and understand even Scandinavian languages based on these three plus Latin, and while I can't pronounce the words right, I understand over 70 percent of Spanish and Italian as well. Today, I would say unless for medicine, probably worthless as kids here aren't learning foreign languages. I would concentrate on a living, useful language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I took Latin in 8th and 9th grade back in the '80s and to this day, I can remember studying root words, meanings of words and sentence structure. I was an English major in college and went on to a career in writing and communications. It was a tremendous help to me along the way, in too many instances to recall here. In fact, I still have my Latin text book and actually referred to it (to settle a bet!) several years ago.

If your DC likes writing, reading, word puzzles and the like, s/he will probably enjoy studying Latin. It may be an extra but there is certainly no downside to it.

+1. I took Latin from 7th - 12th grade (so late 80's early 90s) I am often told I have excellent communication skills. I credit this to my years of Latin.
I loved it. I had a teacher who told us, Latin is not to speak, it is to read and understand.

[Anonymous]

In Arlington, that's the language with the best teachers. The Spanish teachers aren't very good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My undergraduate degree is in the Classics with a major in Latin. It was the first foreign language I took in high school (foreign language was only offered in HS in my district). Prior to Latin, I had no experience/exposure to foreign languages. As a PP noted, conjugating verbs and declining nouns was very difficult - in the beginning. Once I understood why and what I was doing, it made a lot of sense and really opened my eyes to what was happening in a sentence - not just in Latin but also in English (and eventually every other language I learned). I am fluent/proficient in 6 languages (including English) and Latin is the only one that is not currently spoken. When people ask me what the point of studying a dead language is, I tell them it's not just about a language, it's:

-understanding the derivation of words and the nuances that lead you to choose one over another
-understanding politics, economics and history
-analyzing and understanding how politics, economics, religion, etc influence thought and writings
-understanding relationships between politics, economics, military, culture, etc.
-understanding context

Albeit, you're not getting all this the first year you study Latin. But, it's provides an incredibly well rounded education and, if you have good teachers and stay with it long enough, you will truly become 'literate'. On standardized tests for verbal/written skills, I typically score in the 97-99th percentile. Ironically, my profession isn't related to this in the least. I've got an MBA and work in IT. Yet, I believe that because I studied the Classics, I bring more to an employer than is typical.

You. You're the kind of person who truly values education. I'm showing your post to my daughter, who is taking Latin in MS and LOVES it. She wants to pursue a STEM career, but Inwant to encourage her to not ignore the classics part of a well-rounded education.

[Anonymous]

^ "I want", not "Inwant".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try it. DD 13 loves it, especially culture and mythology. Will enter Latin 2 as he freshman.

This. Some kids just LOVE it. Are you in the DC area? There is a hugely active Latin/Classics community here, with many opportunities for extracurricular activities--Latin competitions, Latin clubs, Latin conventions, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In Arlington, that's the language with the best teachers. The Spanish teachers aren't very good.

(spouse of an Arlington Latin teacher)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In Arlington, that's the language with the best teachers. The Spanish teachers aren't very good.

(spouse of an Arlington Latin teacher)

Just to be clear: I left a smiley because *I* am the the spouse, I was not insinuating that the PP giving the complement is a spouse!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My undergraduate degree is in the Classics with a major in Latin. It was the first foreign language I took in high school (foreign language was only offered in HS in my district). Prior to Latin, I had no experience/exposure to foreign languages. As a PP noted, conjugating verbs and declining nouns was very difficult - in the beginning. Once I understood why and what I was doing, it made a lot of sense and really opened my eyes to what was happening in a sentence - not just in Latin but also in English (and eventually every other language I learned). I am fluent/proficient in 6 languages (including English) and Latin is the only one that is not currently spoken. When people ask me what the point of studying a dead language is, I tell them it's not just about a language, it's:

-understanding the derivation of words and the nuances that lead you to choose one over another
-understanding politics, economics and history
-analyzing and understanding how politics, economics, religion, etc influence thought and writings
-understanding relationships between politics, economics, military, culture, etc.
-understanding context

Albeit, you're not getting all this the first year you study Latin. But, it's provides an incredibly well rounded education and, if you have good teachers and stay with it long enough, you will truly become 'literate'. On standardized tests for verbal/written skills, I typically score in the 97-99th percentile. Ironically, my profession isn't related to this in the least. I've got an MBA and work in IT. Yet, I believe that because I studied the Classics, I bring more to an employer than is typical.

You. You're the kind of person who truly values education. I'm showing your post to my daughter, who is taking Latin in MS and LOVES it. She wants to pursue a STEM career, but Inwant to encourage her to not ignore the classics part of a well-rounded education.

Yes, thanks PP. This is exactly what we should be seeking in education. This is the value of the liberal arts education. Latin rocks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In Arlington, that's the language with the best teachers. The Spanish teachers aren't very good.

Any validity to the rumor that the Latin teacher at Swanson is leaving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW my middle school kid who studies Latin got a stratospheric upper level SSAT verbal score with zero practice.

I was a National Merit Scholar, and I attribute it to studying Latin (and a bit of Greek) when I was in middle school. I aced the verbal portion of the test.

[Anonymous]

If your children end up taking Latin, please encourage them to join Certamen (Latin competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certamen_(quiz_bowl) ).

My son has an undergraduate degree in Classics (plus another degree in a STEM field), and my daughter minors in Classics. Both had wonderful high school experiences being involved in Latin Honor Society, Junior Classical League, Certamen, and Latin classes. The people I've met who study Latin seem uniformly smart and enthusiastic.

[Anonymous]

DS had the option to take Latin in 9th grade. We decided go the modern language route as he already had one year of Spanish under his belt going into high school. The issue with Latin is that some colleges do not accept that as a language requirement, so if you want to go to a college with this stipulation, you would need to take another three years of a modern language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS had the option to take Latin in 9th grade. We decided go the modern language route as he already had one year of Spanish under his belt going into high school. The issue with Latin is that some colleges do not accept that as a language requirement, so if you want to go to a college with this stipulation, you would need to take another three years of a modern language.

Such colleges and universities are not worth consideration.