<p>D was just accepted at a competitive college-prep school (7-12) in Los Angeles. This week she has to decide whether to take Latin or French in the Fall. </p>
<p>Without knowing where her future career track may lead her -- does anyone have suggestions as to which language would better serve her in the long run. Latin or French?</p>
<p>Personally, I would take french. It is one of the most widely-used languages in the world today. The only benefit to latin, as I see it, is that it helps you to learn the roots of other romance-languages (and some english). But you could receive almost as much benefit from taken any given romance language, so French would be my definate choice.</p>
<p>Go with what your daughter wants to learn. I would side with french, but I like modern applications.</p>
<p>Latin is friggin awesome - I would go with that</p>
<p>I take Latin and I love it. Even if you feel like you'll never use it, Latin is a beautiful language. Being able to read some of the world's greatest texts in their original language is awesome. My class read some of the Aeneid this year and now we're reading the poetry of Catullus; it's an amazing experience. I've enjoyed the experience of taking Latin very much, even though I don't think I'll be continuing in Latin or a romance language next year. I'm going to try Chinese. Bona fortuna!</p>
<p>zhongwen hen nan...</p>
<p>Anyway, tell your daughter to study what she enjoys. Studying a language you don't have any interest in is about as fun as a root canal (i.e. not very.)</p>
<p>Ultimately, if she's interested in it, she'll want to immerse herself in it and will get better grades. Studying a language just to study it makes it into an exercise in tolerance.</p>
<p>Latin is supremely awesome. French is a lovely language, and sounds awesome, so it's really her decision - I don't think you can go wrong with either. Latin is very structured and demanding, but it's got awesome culture as well. </p>
<p>And French has Cyrano de Bergerac.</p>
<p>It's up to her. She should talk to a few language teachers.</p>
<p>UCLAri... i agree CHINESE IS DIFFICULT LOL</p>
<p>hehe</p>
<p>
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The only benefit to latin, as I see it, is that it helps you to learn the roots of other romance-languages (and some english). But you could receive almost as much benefit from taken any given romance language, so French would be my definate choice.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The only benefit to learning most things is actually learning them. I'm not planning to go into medicine or studying other romance languages. I'm not planning to major in classics or use latin in my future profession in any way. The argument that latin helps with your vocabulary/roots/medicine and such is in my opinion not a good reason to learn latin. If anything, english words helped me figure out what latin words meant.</p>
<p>My class read some of the Aeneid this year and now we're reading the poetry of Catullus;</p>
<p>ahh right on - i really enjoyed Catullus' carmina... one of the best was the fourth i think - about "passer meae puellae" :)
I also read most of the Aeneid - great epic text. There are things you get from the original latin that you can't get with any other language. Because Latin (especially Latin poetry) has no word order, poets have a field day with that. As my Latin teacher put it "you can have the subject on line one, the verb on line ten, and a minefield of grammar and syntax in between" haha
But as an example, I remember one line talking about one soldier getting shot with an arrow through the leg, and the words were arranged in such a way that the words for "arrow shaft" and "arrow tip" were on either side of the word for "leg". It's just amazing as a student to see these things that the authors meant to be noticed.
I stand by my recommendation - take Latin</p>
<p>Cyrano de Bergerac has nothing on Latin works - we've got the Ars Amatoria (a book about how to seduce married women) and Catullus (equally risque poetry) :)</p>
<p>and to zoogies, Latin will help you so much with your English (vocabulary, sure, but also grammar, syntax, form, etc...), its not even funny.</p>
<p>I disagree. The only thing that will help your English is to not be American and in particular a product of LAUSD.</p>
<p>(Hehe...maybe I'm just behind on vocabulary...<em>goes off to memorize vocabulary</em>)</p>
<p>I can say, however, that I learned so much more grammar in my first class of Latin I than I EVER learned or WILL EVER learn in high school english classes. That's a good point of latin I forget, heh. </p>
<p>It's never really helped me that much on vocabulary though; or at least, not as much as it's suppose to. The first class, teacher stated clearly, "If you're in here just for the derivatives, I can organize a derivatives class for you where we learn roots. But this is Latin class, not english class."</p>
<p>
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Cyrano de Bergerac has nothing on Latin works - we've got the Ars Amatoria (a book about how to seduce married women) and Catullus (equally risque poetry)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hehe...Cyrano is a good play, even if it's not risque. But, I'm going off to get a copy of Ars Amatoria now...er, I mean...</p>
<p>lol... american english is full of colloquialisms, much like americans make fun of the british for their slang (proper english) other countries make fun of the US...</p>
<p>My uncle can flip through my SAT verbal section and define all the words because of his strong background in Latin. </p>
<p>I took both languages, and enjoyed both of them because of the teachers I had. I never used French again after the four years, and Latin roots pop up once in awhile-- of course, this only helps if you could only remember what it meant after a 1 year gap!! </p>
<p>She should sit in for a first level class for both of the languages, talk to students to see which teachers in which languages are great. In my opinion, unless she wants to major in a language, she might as well find one with a great teacher to get her interested in the subject-- so that it's just for the sake of learning it, making new grooves in the brain, etc. A passionate teacher can really make a difference in the outlook of the language.</p>
<p>Zoogies, there are many reasons to learn a language...most people do it in hopes that they will some day be able to converse. I understand this is different with Latin, but with French I think that would be one of the main points. Also, I wasn't saying that she should take Latin for it's vocabulary help. I was pointing out that French could help nearly as much in that way.</p>