Remembering your Latin

[shootingstar]

Did you have to take Latin in school? I took 3 years of it in high school. It was not a mandatory course.

lst & 2nd level courses were very popular because it was taught by a very dynamic teacher who made Latin come alive (horrible grammar here). For each lesson, we also learned of English word derivations for Latin words we just learned. At 4th level, some kids even learned to write Latin poetry -their love of it was that great.

But don't remember much Latin to construct a whole sentence/paragraph. Latin did help me..for an ongoing love of English words, their origins, meanings and wordplay.

[OakLeaf]

The only Latin sentence I remember (outside of Veni, vidi, vici) is [said in a very sultry voice]:

Ave, nauta! Esne in urbe novus?

Latin wasn't even taught at my high school, but I had a semester by correspondence and another Winter Term in college. At my high school, Greek was mandatory in the Middle School, but I didn't get there until my junior year, so no Greek. (Tried a semester self-study, it was just too much, and I don't think the schedule would've worked out for me to take it with the sixth-graders.)

I remember the Greek alphabet (mostly because I set it to the tune of the English alphabet song). Dabbled in a number of modern and ancient European languages, most in depth with Anglo-Saxon (which I barely remember, either). I've forgotten much of the Cyrillic alphabet, which I learned only when our symphony chorus performed "Aleksandr Nevsky," but I can still piece out enough of it to at least identify cognates of familiar words [does the split infinitive make you grit your teeth? ha-ha]. Just discovered the Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia pages... what a hoot!

Yes, I love words.

[ilima]

My school only started teaching Latin my senior year, so only one year of Latin. This could go on the words that grit your teeth thread or here, but I hate when alumnus/alumni/alumna/alumnae gets used improperly.

I once saw a poster for UofKY's basketball team with Ashley Judd on it. She was identified as a "Kentucky alumnus."

Funny story from a guy I know that graduated from Princeton. At the graduation ceremony there was a speech in Latin. And all the graduating students had a cheat-sheet that told them when to laugh, applaud, etc. as if they were all fluent in Latin.

[cyclingmama]

sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt!

My Latin teacher told us we'd never forget it, and I never did. OK, I'll reveal how much of a geek I really am: in high school I took Latin 1, 2, and 3, and THEN went on to take AP Latin, during which we spent the entire school year translating the Aeneid from Latin to English.

Can you tell I was one of the cool kids . . . .

[Pax]

I was born in the pre-Vatican II years and learned the mass in Latin, did my first confessions in Latin, and made my first communion in Latin. I don't remember much of it...but if I hear it spoken it takes me right back to Sister Gregory's class.

[Ninabike]

Interesting you should bring this up. I took 4 years of Latin in high school because my mother was a Latin teacher (not my teacher though). I thought (dumb me), great! my mother can help my with my Latin. She did help, but it still wasn't easy. I do have to admit that Latin has been very beneficial both in my prior career (nursing) and later (law). So many medical and legal words are of Latin derivation in addition to standard words that are part of everyday vocabulary for all of us, regardless of our language. I have to admit, I certainly could not put together a sentence in Latin today if you paid me!

[sfa]

I took two years of Latin in high school (mandatory), and two semesters (a repeat of what I already did in high school because I had forgotten enough by then!) in college, then a semester of medieval Latin with a tutor in grad school. That's a big chunk of my life devoted to learning this language and I remember NONE of it for any practical purposes. Not that there's much practical purpose to it. At various other times I've taken tons of French and a bit of Italian and German. And one workshop on Gaelic. I love languages, and it really does seem to help enrich your own native tongue to study other languages, but oddly I really, really stink at actually learning and speaking these languages. I was the slow learner in the classes that the professors tolerated because I was having so much fun with it.

Sarah

[tulip]

In elementary, jr. high and high school, I took French. No choice in the matter until high school, when we could choose Latin instead. I did not.

In college I decided it would be a good idea to learn Latin since I was determined to be a Romance Language major. It was not and I changed majors.

Luckily I'm fluent in French and English. Spanish would be nice to learn but so far I have not gotten serious about it.

[withm]

I have the distinction of being flunked in Latin I by the SAME nun that flunked my mother some 40 years before me. I then got transferred into a different class, and took 2 more years and did well enough so that it helped with my French all through college.

Though I never took any Spanish classes, I was able to muddle through French, Spanish, and even Italian contracts just with the French and Latin background. (In my industry all the contracts said pretty much the same thing so it wasn't that difficult). I don't claim to have made literal translations, but I got the gist pretty well, and knew when I would need a better translation of particular clause.

[Pax]

I have the distinction of being flunked in Latin I by the SAME nun that flunked my mother some 40 years before me.

I didn't get flunked but I did have the same nun for 2nd grade that taught my dad AND my grandfather, I think she was close to 90 at the time.

[Zen]

I wish I had taken Latin.
French has proven rather useless.
I'd like to be able to toss around a 'sine qua non' once in a while.

[alpinerabbit]

7 years Latin, (not the American way with one class a day, more like between 4 and 6 per week depending on year).
I remember nary a sentence, when I see one I can hardly find out what it means but I understand (can derive) most latinate words and we learned how a language works. I kinda liked it when we got into translating poetry because they had weird ways to restructure their sentences.

7 years French (3-4/week) - after my US stay I hated it; I hate being un-proficient in it.
I just went to a 1 week brush-up intensive last fall (best school ever, if you need a recommendation).

My two favorite remnants?

Nubere vis Prisco, non miror, Paula, sapisti
ducere te non vult, Priscus et ille sapit.

Non sunt certa meam moveant quae basia mentem.

I'll give out a beer for a correct translation.

[Veronica]

Classics degree - emphasis in Latin. 4 years of Latin in high school, 4 years in college and 3.5 years of classical Greek in college. Oh and 2 years of French in high school, 3 years of French in college and a year of Russian.

My 5th graders do very well with vocabulary and grammar.

V.

[mimitabby]

2 years of latin
amo amas amat, It helped me with my Italian. i'm surprised to see so many Latin scholars here.

[7rider]

2 years of high school Latin here. 1 year mandatory....the second year b/c the teacher snookered us with "1 year is useless...you need two to actually learn anything!"
I remember "Agricola, agricolae. First declention. Farmer."
It has helped with remembering scientific names - Megaptera novaeangliae anyone? It also helped with my 3 years of high school Spanish.