<p>I am having to take 9 hours of a foreign language as a Biology major...and I'm thinking about taking latin...</p>
<p>Anyone taken it before? How is it?</p>
<p>I'm planning on taking it as my language this fall. so I'm interested in any replies as well.</p>
<p>My boys all took Latin in high school--the teacher is the best teacher in the school and the Spanish and French teachers were variable at best. Latin is very easy because you don't have to speak with any accent or intonation. It's a lot of rote memorization as far as vocabulary and grammar, but the teacher spent very little time on that and emphaiszed the wonderful literature and western civ aspects. Son just got his AP results--he got a 4 but plans to take a foreign language in college anyway.</p>
<p>I took Latin for 4 years in middle and high school. I liked the first two years because the textbook texts were fun to read and other than that we just memorized vocab (10-15 words a day) and grammar and learned some interesting stuff about the culture (e.g. Roman and Greek mythology). I was rather indifferent about it the third year, but in the 4th year we started to read original Latin texts (Caesar, Ovid, Cicero, Virgil...) which I felt were too hard; we also started to analyze Latin poems and we had to learn proper intonation (yes, Latin has rules of intonation and pronunciation as well). At that point I disliked Latin so much that I stopped taking it.</p>
<p>In the first two years I though that Latin was easier than English (I started studying English in 5th and Latin in 7th grade). I don't know how Latin is taught at college level though.</p>
<p>I wish Latin was an option for me. I say take it.</p>
<p>I took Latin last year and I loved it. I'll be taking it this year as well, to complete for language requirement, and will probably go beyond the requirement. My professor was new to Richmond and just finished his PhD, and he was very big on teaching us the grammar, first, along with the vocab that our text required. It is a lot of memorization, but if you learn it when you are supposed to learn it instead of trying to cram right before a test or quiz, it will stick with you and will make everything so much easier. And yeah, working through latin texts and poems and such is really difficult. I'm a very analytical, logical person, so translating things is almost meditative for me. I also think that it really helps you with English, even if it is your first language, as it is for me.</p>
<p>I take both Latin and ancient Greek and I've been told that taking either one of these are a good eye opener to a college. Think about it;I got an A in Spanish 2 H;I got an A in Latin 2 H. Latin works wonders on the SAT and so many english words come from Latin you could chop a few minutes off your SAT prep time or just make life easier in general.</p>
<p>The vocab isn't bad, but, oh my, the grammar is a nightmare! All the endings can make your head spin. If English grammar wasn't your strong suit in HS, I'd be a bit weary of taking Latin.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Didn't take it in high school, decided to take it in college since I didn't feel like jumping into other languages where people might've had some background in them.</p>
<p>Somehow miracled my way to getting really good grades (took the same professor for 3 classes and was just really cool with her outside of class). I seriously don't know a single word of Latin to this day and I know I barely passed anything in those three semesters and somehow got a B+ in every single class. Latin boosted my GPA like crazy :cool:</p>
<p>Icflyer8, can you explain what you mean by Latin bing an "eye opener to colleges?" My D has already had Latin I, II, and III, AP Vergil, AP Latin Lit, and will have IB latin this coming year, are you saying admissions looks differantely on Latin, than say Spanish? Thanks for input.</p>
<p>Do people usually only take one year of Latin? I've looked at my school's course catalog and it doesn't seem they offer much beyond the initial sequence. (How far can you get anyway?)</p>
<p>I'll probably be taking at least up to Latin IV. my college is big on languages, so I'll have to complete whatever language I take.</p>
<p>Latin is a great language to take - took 4 years of it in High School. Definitely recommend it.</p>
<p>I am also a bio major and took 3 latin courses (to the intermediate level translating Ciceronian texts) and I think it is a great language to take, especially if you are going into fields which requires a lot of thoughtful analyses of arguments and syntactic structure. One thing I appreciate most now about my Latin studies is the grammar knowledge it has provided me.</p>
<p>With the biology major it is a good language to study.</p>
<p>This is slightly off-topic but at least its bares relevance to being derivative of Latin -- </p>
<p>I've taken Spanish for the equivalent of ~2 years of normal high-school study. I haven't touched it in YEARS. I'm taking Latin starting in the fall... </p>
<p>What is the best way to self-study Spanish at this point? Sure, I can access professors and friends and TAs by hunting them down when the term begins - what should I do in the meantime? I eventually want to self-study other Romance languages since I know my unit-cap won't permit me to go above and beyond Latin.</p>
<p>BUMP for my questions...</p>
<p>latin's influence is largely confined to western europe. i would take greek which had a far greater influence not just in europe, but in asia. also, many many ancient works...by the way, many educated romans knew greek and some WROTE in greek. in fact, roman empire turns to Greek Empire after about 500 ce. as the capital moved to constantinople... </p>
<p>but Greek is incredibly difficult. it is really difficult to say whether greek is Eastern or Western. some of the letters look arabic YET the capital case look like latin, western.</p>