<p>Hello, I'm new to this forum, but I can already see that I'm going to
get a lot of help from the people here.
My son is going to be a prep at Exeter this fall, and he chose
Latin as his foreign language. Frankly, i wanted him to take Chinese, but
I decided to let him take what he wanted to take. However, as the new school year is nearing, I'm starting to worry about his taking Latin at Exeter.
I've talked to many moms with their children at exeter, and they all seemed to agree in the fact that Latin is definitely the hardest language course to take at Exeter. My son has never taken Latin before so I am not sure as to what he should do these last two weeks of summer to be on the same page as those who have already taken beginning latin courses at their middle schools. So I would like to ask current students if Latin is as hard as people say it is (I mean I've heard from moms that students taking Latin should always have a "back up plan") </p>
<p>Also, are students required to speak and communicate in Latin in class?
or is it just a listening, writing, translating type of thing?</p>
<p>It's not that bad, it's just very repetitive. You basically read the same few authors (usually Cicero, Catullus, and Vergil) your entire latin career. I did 4 years of it, and it wasn't that bad. It's probably one of the least difficult languages when it comes to learning vocabulary. Chinese would definitely seem more difficult IMO, but depending on the pace teachers could make latin much harder. If your child is probably going into math, science, med or law career, latin is fine. If not, you should consider whether choice of language would play a part in that.</p>
<p>I have taken Latin since fifth grade and I'm going to be a freshman this year.
It is not as hard as it seems, especially because most of the Latin words have many derivatives that make them easy to remember. (i.e. facit means he/she/it makes. you can remember this by factory [a place where things are made]) I have only finished level I Latin (I'm starting level II this fall) and it was difficult, but then again I was younger and I didn't have good studying strategies. The hardest part of Latin is the endings. There are so many of them, and it's hard to keep track of which ones go with which tenses. My teacher made it easier to memorize the endings by making up songs and i still remember basically all of them! I'm sure the teachers at Exeter will do the same.
Also, at my school students would not speak and communicate in Latin-one of the things that was always better than taking Spanish is that we never had oral exams. But usually you learn to read and speak latin when you translate because you read the sentences out loud.
I hope this helps-if you have anymore questions just ask me.</p>
<p>My son will also be an incoming prep at Exeter who has never taken Latin before this fall. He has friends who have graduated from Exeter as well as current lowers (who took latin with no previous experience) and they encouraged him to take this path. He is excited - after 9 years of Spanish he is ready for a change.</p>
<p>Most schools recommend staying with one language for 4 years. The problem with Latin is that your time is spent reading/translating and writing. Some students find this boring after a few years. It's hard to predict whether or not your son will find it boring and tedious by the 3rd or 4th year.</p>
<p>A living language offers opportunities for conversations, foreign travel, television shows, movies, friendships with people who speak that language, newspapers, more extensive literature, etc.</p>
<p>At least with Latin he won't be competing with native speakers on the AP test and SAT subject test. </p>
<p>I cannot comment on the difficulty of Latin at Exeter.</p>
<p>obeythecougar and sailor_chica: do/did you go to Exeter? I'm just curious b/c so far at Exeter I haven't heard people describe Latin classes as "not that bad" and everyone seems to marvel at the people who get the classical language awards. I can't say much since I never took a classical language class at Exeter, but all I've heard is that it's amazing--and that it's very difficult. Did you talk to him about the difficulty of classical language classes at Exeter? If he's passionate about Latin, he will do well, but...classical languages at Exeter are DEFINITELY much much harder than the modern languages.</p>
<p>Looking at the Exeter course listings, I see two things of note. Firstly, there are two separate tracks for beginning Latin : one for those completely new to it and another for those with some experience. So, there is no need to worry on that account. And, if I understand the course listings, it isn't until the third year of study that students read Caesar/Ovid/Cicero which is a fairly typical rate of advancement. There is a more intensive track, which is doubtless quite difficult. The "Classical Diploma" does require considerable work as well. But, all that being said, I see no reason to shy from Latin at Exeter.</p>
<p>tuesdayair: no, i don't go to exeter or know much about their classics program. My school has college-level Greek and both the ap latin classes. Latin was "not that bad" in that the first 1.5 years are basic grammar, endings, and vocab and then later once you spend a week or two on an author you get the hang out it pretty quickly. I took Latin 8-11, two AP credits, 3 golds and a silver NLE, but I'm going into engineering lol. Latin is the language for logical people and it's concise yet complex.</p>
<p>I did Latin and Greek at Exeter, so I hope I can be of some help here. The truth is that Latin and Greek were not so bad. Admittedly, I came into 300 level courses as a prep, which was a bad idea, as I struggled a bit in my first term trying to catch up with the more rigorous Exeter curriculum, which does, unfortunately, at times focus more on grammar than literature, but by winter term I was doing quite well.</p>
<p>Greek was easy enough, as I started from scratch, and although it required more diligence in daily assignments than anything else I never felt that, with a bit of daily effort, I couldn't handle it. Of course, once I got into college, I may have, say, stopped doing the homework a little bit, and my winter term grade may, say, have dipped off a bit from my fall term grade, but even then it was nothing too dire.</p>
<p>That said, I love languages, and so the reward was worth it. Colleges know classics kids don't necessarily have grades as high in language as non-classics kids (although I remember reading that the overall GPAs are the same...) and assess those grades differently.</p>
<p>Plus, classics kids are definitely the coolest kids around. Since it's a small enough department, they/we really do bond...</p>
<p>Latin is not so straightforward...once you start reading more poetry. The problem lies in the awkwardness of some translations with poetry that make it seem more difficult. Prose can present the same problem.</p>
<p>I don't know, I've found that Latin has hardly been rough on my GPA. It's not a class you throw in for padding, but if you do the translations, you're fine. Your son will be FINE if he puts in the work, and it's far easier than learning tones and characters for Chinese. If your son gets sick of it after learning the basics and spending a year translating Catullus, he'll have an edge switching into any Romance language. Besides, Latin is good for the soul. :)</p>