Remembering your Latin

[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.

[tulip]

I remember the book--it was red. Wheelock's Latin. I don't remember anything in it, though.

[SadieKate]

How do you say "prolly" in Latin?

[emily_in_nc]

Took French III my junior year in HS, but had heard that Latin was a good thing to know (and my dad had taken four years of it back in his day) so took Latin I my senior year (not required). Don't remember anything of it. I do remember a little bit of French, and wish I'd just gone ahead and taken French IV, where you actually get to read French literature....

[Veronica]

How do you say "prolly" in Latin?

Probably = probabiliter.

So if Romans were texting they'd most likely use prolly too - morons.

V.

[OakLeaf]

"Moron" sounds Greek.

[Veronica]

"Moron" sounds Greek.

It is. Latin for idiot is too long - homo fatuus or femina fatua.

[carpaltunnel]

"Moron" sounds Greek.

Slightly - OK, Well off topic but you made me think of it:
While cleaning out a box last week I ran across my tiny collection of political campaign buttons. My favorite, from several presidential election back:
"No Mo Ron"

[NoNo]

4 years in high school and a semester in college. I took it in high school because my brother did, and I always heard stories about this crazy teacher. Once I took the class, I understood. He was definitely quirky, but he loved the language and the culture and wouldn't tolerate anyone that didn't give it the proper respect. The first year was the weed-out class to figure out who would stick with it and who would drop. From that point on, we were still "children" (specifically the "Children of the Peanut Gallery") and never "students". As he said, we hadn't "arrived" to that level. By senior year, there were only 6 of us left and in April he finally called us "students". Being only girls left, we all started crying, because we knew it actually meant something. Any questions about his life were answered with "That's none of your business, little girl." Every year we'd take an ill-fated trip to NYC under the guise of studying the city because it was modeled after Rome. Usually there was some type of accident involved, but we always had fun. If you couldn't keep up with him walking, you'd be left behind, and he'd give us a map before we left with places you could find a phone to call him To this day, my brother and I still keep in touch with him and occassionally go to his house to drink wine and talk.

We never learned much vocab, it was a dead language and we prefered to keep it that way (Latin is a language, as dead as it can be. It killed the ancient Romans, and now it's killing me!). We did lots of translations and conjugating and declining. I'll never forget during a test one day my friend broke down in tears. When asked what the problem was, she blurted out "We never learned the subjunctive!" That was a total lie, but he felt awful and told us to skip that section Yeah, I have a lot of happy memories from that class.

[cyclingmama]

I remember "Agricola, agricolae. First declention. Farmer."

I would not have come up with this on my own, but the moment I read it I could hear it, plain as day, roll off the tongue of my Latin teacher. He was a phenomenal teacher as well, and those of us that stuck it out after the first year could not have escaped his class without his having a profound impact on our lives. I'm seeing that as a trend in these posts.

[NoNo]

Facio, facere: to do. Only because the first part sounded like a swear

[malkin]

No Latin for me, but the French teacher did lead us out of class one day to peek in the windows of the Latin class, to watch the Latin teacher after having written right-handed all over the chalk board marched back to the left side of the classroom, and with the eraser in his right hand and the chalk in his left hand proceeded to fill the board once again.

I've never seen anyone else who could display that particular bit of ambidexterity.

[squirrell]

Never took it and only Latin I know is Red Green's Possum Lodge motto--

"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati"

(pseudo-Latin for "When all else fails, play dead")

[BabyBlueNTulsa]

We were lucky that it was even offered at my HS (public high school). I decided to take it my senior year since I'd already had 2yrs of Spanish (French or Spanish was required).

I enjoyed Latin quite a bit, but I admit, I don't remember a whole lot. I believe it was very helpful anyway. As others have said, it does help translate or just figure out other latin-based foreign languages.

In college, I took 2 semesters of French (again, it became a requirement to take a language). Am I dating myself?? :P

So...I'm a dabbler in many, but a master of none.

A lot of you gals make me nervous...especially the educators on here! I know I must murder the English language at times. Hopefully I am not making you gals cringe at every post.

My fav Latin phrase: Quod me nutruit, me destruit.
(and NO, did not pick that up from <gag> Angelina Jolie's tattoo)