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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I guess I've never quite understood the desire to learn Latin.  One can read the classics in the original, I suppose.  
However, learning, say, a romance language would enable one to talk to actual people, and one would also have access to popular music, news programs etc. in that language that many language teachers use to help students develop an ear for the language and move toward fluency more quickly.
While I've heard people argue that learning Latin give insight into English, I think much of the same insight can be gained from learning a romance language, since those are all based on Latin and many of the word roots are the same.  Also, English really is more of a Germanic language.  [/quote]

I'd like my child to have a foriegn language immersion education AND the opportunity to study Latin.  So I agree with you, but only to a point.  Because Latin isn't currently spoken, it's obvious that it's not going to help you talk with anyone.  But, because it's not currently spoken, its instruction (at least IME) is focused on mastery of intricate rules of grammar and syntax that helped with my mastery of English grammar -- past pluperfect? gerund? learned that first in Latin class.  Latin is like algebra with words rather than numbers.

Study of Latin gave me an understanding of a completely different syntax that, at least for me, opened my mind to the fact that words and ideas are communicated in completely different ways in different languages.  It helped me better understand English syntax and grammar, and and that of the Romance languages I studied later. It will help with English-language roots, vocab, etc. And that's fine for SATs.  But, in my experience, its biggest benefit was a larger understanding of linguistics, and a reason to learn more about a period of history that otherwise was glossed over in my education.  To set the bar really low -- because I'd translated Ceasar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, I understood why Russell Crowe was wearing fur in the opening scenes of Gladiator.[/quote]

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