<p>If the OP wants to be a specialist in Romance languages, he/she will have to learn Latin. No way around it.</p>
<p>Niomi, what is a "specialist in Romance languages"?</p>
<p>Grumpster, whatever the OP thinks one is. If he approaches it from the linguistic spectrum, Latin is necessary to know where the modern day languages came from and how it has evolved. If he wants to be some sort of literary scholar, you simply cannot overlook the wealth of literature in Latin that is out there.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm also on the team that says Latin should come first. Taking into consideration the long-term goal here (to know all the romance languages), Latin would make things easier in the long term. It might take a while to learn at first, but the pay off would be well worth it.</p>
<p>Well, Niomi, we'll have to disagree about this. There are lots of good reasons one might want to study Latin, but I just don't see it is at all helpful if your goal is to learn to speak, read, and write modern romance languages. The time would be much more profitably spent actually studying those modern languages directly. After all, native French speakers speak French perfectly well without knowing any Latin, as do native Spanish speakers and native Italian speakers. </p>
<p>Obviously, if you wanted to study the history and development of the romance languages, studying Latin would make sense. But even in that case, it's a mistake to think that all these languages are descended from the literary classical latin you study in school. </p>
<p>Learning any language is about learning the specifics of THAT language. There are so many specifics of grammar, vocabulary, etc. to learn, that I think it's best to focus on mastering them directly, rather than learning something else that might be an aid in their learning.</p>
<p>I'm going to be majoring in Romance Languages also. </p>
<p>Don't listen to anyone who tells you not to take Latin. If you enjoy finding parallel patterns in languages, Latin is a must for you. It will create a strong foundation to build your subsequent language studies on. Furthermore, if you are looking to go past undergraduate studies in Romance Languages, it is a requirement. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I started off with Spanish, then French, then Italian and then Latin. I wish I would have taken Latin since I was a kid, it would have been extremely beneficial to me. If you have any questions you can im/pm me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Funnily enough, language hasn't changed much.
[/quote]
Language hasn't but our knowledge of language learning and linguistics has.</p>
<p>
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If you think that learning a language to help another is all about learning terms, well... I'm sorry. It's about seeing the structure of language -- seeing how it works, how you can manipulate it, etc. That is what the quote is saying: it gives you a strong sense of syntax.
[/quote]
I don't think learning a language is about learning terms, the post where you were throwing around grammatical terms like nobody's business gave me the impression that you were saying that learning Latin will teach you these terms and thus make you more proficient at learning languages. That said, I still don't believe learning Latin is necessary for the OP learn to read/speak/write the Romance Languages simply because the syntax of Latin is actually different from most if not all Romance Languages. For example, Latin has quite free word order while French and Spanish (the two I'm most familiar with) are more rigid. It appears to me that you are trying to say that Latin will give the OP a better sense of syntax in general. Sure I guess thats the case if you aren't already familiar with syntax. But the OP was talking about being a linguistics major, she'd get that same sense of syntax from the intro course.</p>
<p>This is what I'm saying, I'm not saying that the OP shouldn't learn Latin if they want to, it just isn't a necessity for learning the Romance Languages. Personally, I don't think the benefits outweigh the time that would be spent learning Latin.</p>
<p>BTW I am also majoring in Linguistics.</p>
<p>
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Language hasn't but our knowledge of language learning and linguistics has.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not in this area -- learning a mother language still helps learning daughter languages.</p>
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the post where you were throwing around grammatical terms like nobody's business
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</p>
<p>I wasn't throwing around grammatical terms; it was a quote, you see, and I attributed it. And the focus, again, isn't so much on the grammatical terms, but on the fact that Latin helps and is the ultimate teacher for the subject of Romance languages.</p>
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thus make you more proficient at learning languages.
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</p>
<p>Not at learning languages per se, but at learning Romance languages.</p>
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That said, I still don't believe learning Latin is necessary for the OP learn to read/speak/write the Romance Languages
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</p>
<p>It's not necessary of course, but it's very, very helpful.</p>
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simply because the syntax of Latin is actually different from most if not all Romance Languages.
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</p>
<p>Er, no it's not. Gender, noun marking, cases, voices, inflection -- all that is common in Latin and other Romance languages. The syntax is going to be altered, yes, but they are direct descendants of Latin, so most of it is going to be very, very similar.</p>
<p>
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For example, Latin has quite free word order while French and Spanish (the two I'm most familiar with) are more rigid.
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</p>
<p>Yes, but much of the grammar that one must focus on in Latin is the same for other Romance languages (as above).</p>
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It appears to me that you are trying to say that Latin will give the OP a better sense of syntax in general.
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</p>
<p>In a way, yes, but the focus was on its relation to Romance languages. Latin has many syntactic properties that are common not just in Indo-European languages, but other families and isolates too. On top of that, it gives you a strong sense of what syntax is, and while other languages may have variations in syntax, you see a pattern -- it's the same principle in a different form.</p>
<p>
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it just isn't a necessity for learning the Romance Languages.
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</p>
<p>I'm not saying it's a necessity; I'm saying it's helpful, as a counter to what you said:</p>
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To tell you the truth I don't think learning Latin will be helpful enough in your quest to learn all the Romance Languages that it would be worth the time taking it.
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</p>
<p>And I disagree with that. I think it'd be immensely helpful. It has for me in learning Spanish, Italian, and French.</p>
<p>I hate to change the direction of this thread, but I my daughter is very interested in languages and is trying to figure out which college programs are best. She is currently in her 7th year of French, 4th year of Spanish and 3rd year of Hebrew. Are there any rankings of language programs. We know that Middlebury is known for theirs, but my daughters SAT's won't get her in. Any links out there for the best language (French and Spanish primarily) colleges.</p>
<p>Note, we have already read the Rugg lists.</p>
<p>Latin is a great language for some things, but I think the best way to learn all the romance languages is perhaps to start with one first and get an elementary education in it before you start onto another.</p>
<p>But I will say, if you wanted to learn Italian, knowing spanish would be a much greater help than learning Latin.</p>
<p>Although romance languages descended from Latin, they are all very different from Latin and more similar to eachother.</p>
<p>However, I believe Latin can help with learning romance languages too, but no to the same extent as knowing other romance languages. It is simply unreasonable to believe that Latin would help you learn Italian better than spanish would. </p>
<p>If you are intersted in Classical cultures then go ahead. I personally will be taking latin in college btw, as well as italian, spanish, and french, and hopefully portuguese in grad school</p>
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It is simply unreasonable to believe that Latin would help you learn Italian better than spanish would.
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</p>
<p>Er, of course -- Spanish and Italian are extremely similar. But does Latin not help in Spanish? Does Latin not give you a firm grounding if you plan to learn all the Romance languages? I think so.</p>
<p>Kyledavid is right in that Latin will help you with vocabulary, because it'll allow you to see all the common roots that exist between the three/four major romance languages and will allow you to guess at unfamiliar words. But I would take issue with the fact that Latin grammar will help you with any of them- because Latin is just so inflected and so weird with how it does the passive voice, it's not really going to help you master the grammatical points any better. You would do well to take Spanish as preparation for either French and Italian grammar- Spanish is the easiest, and a lot of the concepts will transfer over relatively easily.</p>
<p>Yes latin does help with vocabulary, but also realize, spanish, french, and italian all share very similar grammar patterns, and many similar words, whereas Latin grammar really isnt similar.</p>
<p>You know kyledavid, I am not opposed to Latin. I am going to take it next year, and hopefully lots of it. To be truly "educated" in the intellectual sense, knowledge of the classics (specifically Latin and/or Greek) are the sure signs of an overall smart person, imo.</p>
<p>Latin grammar is indeed more complex in essentials. But just by mastering Latin, all the grammar of the Romance languages will be a breeze. Not to mention there are many syntactic similarities, though they may not be "glaring." And of course, the vocabulary is all derived.</p>
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but also realize, spanish, french, and italian all share very similar grammar patterns
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</p>
<p>Yes, because Spanish, French, and Italian are the only Romance languages, right?</p>
<p>they're the only ones that really matter- Portuguese and Romanian aren't quite as important, and the former definitely shares a grammar pattern with them</p>
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they're the only ones that really matter- Portuguese and Romanian aren't quite as important
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</p>
<p>Why don't you tell that to the 300+ million people (that's the entire population of the US) who speak a Romance language other than French, Italian, or Spanish?</p>
<p>What's your measure of which ones "matter," anyway? The most speakers? The most widely spoken? For what it's worth, Portuguese has more speakers than all of them except Spanish. Next comes French, lagging by a few hundred million.</p>
<p>List</a> of languages by number of native speakers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
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and the former definitely shares a grammar pattern with them
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</p>
<p>Even in terms of grammar, they all "matter" individually, as they have different syntax descended from Latin. Thus, once again, Latin fills the role of "umbrella" much better than French, Spanish, or Italian.</p>
<p>At any rate, whether certain ones "matter" more than others is irrelevant, as the OP clearly wants to learn them all.</p>
<p>Hi everybody! </p>
<p>Blinkangel44, you can either opt for Latin or the other Romance languages.
Each of them has their pros and cons.
The good thing is, whatever you choose to learn first, there's a wealth of resources for it.</p>
<p>I'm saying this because you seem to be interested in the Romance languages.</p>
<p>I have a good amount of knowledge of Malay/Indonesian, Germanic, and Romance languages, and I also learned Latin quite early (some basics).
Sure it can help you to some extent, but in the case of most Asian languages, and some European ones, like Hungarian, Latin won't be much of a help.
Neither does it help much in learning the Germanic languages. At the most, it'll only help you understand the case distinction in German better (all other Germanic languages lack any notable case distinctions).
In the case of Romance languages, Latin will help you much concerning the vocabulary, and the conjugations to some extent, depending on which Romance language you're learning, but in most other aspects it doesn't contribute much.</p>
<p>I'm not discouraging you from learning Latin. It has many advantages, of course, just don't bear too much expectation from it. :-)</p>
<p>Good luck in whatever you choose!</p>
<p>Xlng</p>
<p>Hi!</p>
<p>Blinkangel44, I forgot to write:
The Romance languages are structurally and lexically (with Romanian being quite different) closer to one another than they are to (Classical) Latin.
This is due to the fact that they all descended from Vulgar Latin, so as the name says it, from the "vulgar" spoken Latin plus centuries development.</p>
<p>Since you said that you already know Spanish, you can compare Spanish and Italian. They are both descended from Vulgar Latin, and they are much closer to each other than they are to (Classical) Latin.</p>
<p>Again, I'm not discouraging you from taking Latin.
Just sharing the facts.</p>
<p>Xlang</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sure it can help you to some extent, but in the case of most Asian languages, and some European ones, like Hungarian, Latin won't be much of a help.
Neither does it help much in learning the Germanic languages. At the most, it'll only help you understand the case distinction in German better (all other Germanic languages lack any notable case distinctions).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, of course not -- they're all in different groups. Heck, Asian languages are in their own *family<a href="some%20of%20which%20are%20isolates">/I</a>. Germanic ones are Indo-European, but have nothing to do with Latin (and thus the Romance languages).</p>
<p>PLANTREE: I might be a bit biased, but if your daughter isn't opposed to all women's schools, have her check out Wellesley, Smith, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, and Mount Holyoke. They have a wide variety of languages to study plus very good study abroad (well-known overseas). I'm hoping to double major in Linguistics and East Asian Languages and Cultures next year, and I chose Smith partly for its intensive language programs.</p>
<p>Also, look into Kenyon, which has a very interesting approach to teaching languages. Lawrence University might be a good safety for her as well, and it has a huge variety of majors for languages. :)</p>