<p>Seen a lot of talk here re: Latin. I know latin is great b/c one can learn a lot about word roots, etc. </p>
<p>Do most people take it in addition to a modern/world language or just take Latin? </p>
<p>It would be great to take it but not a the expense of learning a second language. </p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Although I sometimes wish that I had taken French specifically, I am incredibly grateful for the many years that I took latin at boarding school and in elementary school. I owe essentially my entire understanding of syntax and grammatical structure in english to the intricacies of translating latin. I would definitely recommend taking latin to anyone who is considering it.
I know at least at Groton, you are required to take both a modern language and latin (you might be able to take greek instead, im not sure)... but I believe that is a rare situation.</p>
<p>Definitely take Latin.
I, too, wish that I had room to take another language (3 actually haha), but time doesnt allow it. Latin will help you with your language and SO MUCH with grammar. Latin grammar actually ****es me off because there's so much.</p>
<p>oh the **** thing is p-i-s-s-e-s. I didnt know it was considered a "bad" word</p>
<p>latin is DEFINITLEY worth it. i take 4 languages (latin, french, arabic, chinese), and i would say that latin and either arabic or chinese would be the most useful. if you can, take a modern language AND latin...its really fun!!</p>
<p>My mom took Latin and French in school at the same time.. she says the only thing she remembers from 4 years of Latin is the word "ovum"/"ova" (lol..gross). But she wasn't as motivated as everyone else on this board!
I learned the 1,000 most common greek and latin words and it helped me a lot.. before, I could guess the meaning of a complex English/French/Spanish word by relating it to others I know, but now I can systematically break it down and am more accurate at guessing definitions for foreign and obscure words. And that's only 1,000 words.. I'm sure learning 5,000 would be very helpful in future language learning endeavors (or current). A must for every polyglot!</p>
<p>creative 1 -- I can speak as someone who took Latin, French and Spanish decades ago. </p>
<p>I took 2 years of Latin middle school/high school. I imagine it helped me on the SAT and other vocabulary tests, but I'm not sure how much. I had a full year of English grammar in 5th grade, so Latin helped a little in grammar but not that much. I used to translate the Latin inscriptions on buildings which impressed people, but I lost that ability years ago. Surprisingly, Latin helped when I was self-studying German, another structured language with declensions and conjugations. Latin was useful, but not that useful.</p>
<p>Spanish is another story. I had it in lower school and then took 3 years in college. I continue to study it from time to time and have some modest fluency in it. It is a joy to use, especially when I travel to Spanish-speaking countries.</p>
<p>Anyway, my 2 cents...</p>
<p>
[quote]
latin is DEFINITLEY worth it. i take 4 languages (latin, french, arabic, chinese), and i would say that latin and either arabic or chinese would be the most useful. if you can, take a modern language AND latin...its really fun!!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Do you take four languages during school or do you study them on your own?</p>
<p>Personally, I feel that a world language, specifically Mandarin or Spanish, is more useful than Latin. It's much more useful on your resume to say that you're bilingual with English and another important language, rather than English and a dead language. To learn vocabulary quickly, knowing Latin roots is a huge help, but a person doesn't need to actually KNOW Latin in order to know Latin roots.</p>
<p>Consider the points that paleozoic makes in this other thread on the same topic:</p>
<p>As I note further down on that page, learning a language like Mandarin is a hit-or-miss proposition. The popularity of languages waxes and wanes as global politics shift. Japanese was the "must learn" language of the '80s because they were going to take over the Western World. When a Japanese consortium bought 30 Rockefeller Plaza the pressure to learn Japanese exceeded what the demand is today to learn Chinese. German was once important. Spanish, too, for reasons that Chinese is so popular: large quantities of people you can communicate with. Even "computer" became popular in the early '80s as a language you needed to learn. But who needs to know Fortran or Pascal or C+ besides programmers? Yet people believed that in the future every person who wanted to get ahead in business would need to know how to program. And in high school, you're just that much more likely to have events make your language choice become an anachronism...unless you take Latin.</p>