Latin anyone?

[ROCKet_gurly]

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I was thinking about taking Latin I this Fall. Did anyone take it and did they find it helpful? Was it difficult? Thanks all 🙂

 

[Doctora Foxy]

My student host at an interview said one of her med school classes was hard because she hadn't taken Latin, so I assume it would be helpful. I have heard that it is difficult; maybe you can take it pass/fail just in case?

If you have had any of the romance languages in school it could also help you a bit in med school.

 

[Diogenes]

I took one quarter of it (couldn't take 2nd quarter becuase of scheduling conflict; therefore could not take 3rd either). If your school has a good Latin class, AND YOU WANT TO TAKE IT, then do so. Don't take it just because you think it will help you. There is too much Latin that is NOT used in medicine to make studying Latin just because of the medical applications worthwhile. You'll pick up what you need to know as you go along, I believe.

 

[imtiaz]

You should ask rxfudd, he's taking a crapload of Latin.

 

[Catalyst]

I'm in 3rd semester Latin right now and took Latin in high school and middle school for 5 years... I don't think it has really helped me at all with remembering a lot of biology terms, maybe a select few, but not many to warrant someone taking it for that reason..

Sachin

 

[ROCKet_gurly]

Thanks guys! I took 4 years of Spanish and 2 years of German in high school/middle school. I'm going to take more Spanish as an undergrad but I'm kinda interested in taking Latin so I thought I'd try a semester. I've heard people say if your going into Medicine you'd probably benifit from it but either way I think I'll try a semester just for the heck of it. Thanks!

 

[Barin]

Go for it. Latin is actually a lot of fun. A dead language you know.

 

[NE_Cornhusker1]

It might come in handy if you study abroad in Latin America.

 

[rxfudd]

I'm in my fifth year of latin now - it's awesome stuff. It can be a bit challenging at first, but it gets easier as you become better at it. Keep in mind that you will never learn to "speak" latin, and probably won't write much. Latin is mostly read nowadays (since the late 1800's), so be prepared for that.

My formal writing style has DRAMATICALLY changed as a result of having taken latin. Contrary to popular belief, you don't increase your vocabulary as much as you learn to dissect a word. A more prominent change you will notice is in your grammar. Latin is about 30% vocab and 70% grammar - which is indeed what makes it so difficult. My writing (and even my speaking) has been greatly enhanced by this.

If you have any more questions, feel free to email me ---> [email protected]

 

[Vasiley Zaitsev]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by rxfudd:
•I'm in my fifth year of latin now - it's awesome stuff. It can be a bit challenging at first, but it gets easier as you become better at it. Keep in mind that you will never learn to "speak" latin, and probably won't write much. Latin is mostly read nowadays (since the late 1800's), so be prepared for that.

My formal writing style has DRAMATICALLY changed as a result of having taken latin. Contrary to popular belief, you don't increase your vocabulary as much as you learn to dissect a word. A more prominent change you will notice is in your grammar. Latin is about 30% vocab and 70% grammar - which is indeed what makes it so difficult. My writing (and even my speaking) has been greatly enhanced by this.

If you have any more questions, feel free to email me ---> [email protected]•••••actually rxfudd,

you can learn to speak latin. The world's best latinist is @ Uni of Kentucky, and the classics dept there is world-class. You can go there and learn to speak Latin. OR..another EXTREMELY excellent school for Latin is New St. Andrews up in Idaho..a small classical christian school with world class humanities. Perhaps go to england. I was fluent in the ancient form of latin (as opposed to ecclesiastical), way back when. No more now :-(

Advice: take latin! It does wonders for your life (but not for online grammer! =D)

owcc16

 

[leorl]

Latin is a WONDERFUL language. It's not that difficult if you're good at learning grammar rules...and once you're past that, the literature is amazing. Those poets (esp. my fav. lyric and elegaic poets) were so crafty and so ingenious that it's really unfathomable sometimes how someone could be so gifted.

Jesus, this is my 10th year studying Latin works (one of my majors is classics), and I am still really involved in the Junior and Senior Classical Leagues. (The JCL is actually the largest academic organization in the world). I took Greek as well, which is also a beautiful language, but way more a pain in the butt than Latin.

In college, the focus is more on literature rather than on conversational latin. A few years ago, high schools started changing their programs to shift away from a literature focus to a conversational one. Just wait til you get to study poetry, it's so beautiful there's no English that could ever describe the sentiments they express.

Studying the Latin language really does help in your analysis skills, in your ability to break down passages until they become manageable. But since you're just beginning Latin, it's really not going to be all that hard for you. In first semester, you just cover basic endings and simple grammatical structure.

As far as med practicality...it's not really all that useful, I mean there are some roots that will make naming easier for you, but it's not essential. How it helps though, is getting used to memorizing names which are completely foreign sounding. While everyone else is like, "HUH?" you'll just accept it and be that much quicker in committing it to memory.

 

[Vasiley Zaitsev]

my fav latin quote is:

Fecisti ad nos Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te.

We are made unto Thee, and our hearts are restless, until we rest in Thee.

St. Augustine, Confessions, Liber I, Caput I

 

[THE instiGATOR]

I took 4 yrs of Latin in HS. My school's program was one of the best in the area, which is pretty disturbing (I thought it sucked). I'd say about 1% of everything you learn in Latin is useful.

I now know:

1) Prostitutes wore yellow togas. Avoid the yellow sheets if you are going to a toga party with a bunch of geeks who might know this!

2) agricola = farmer ( i think <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> )

3) -a, -ae, -ae, -am, -a...-ae, -arum, -is, -as, -is

Is that it? Hmmmm.... Yep, that's about it! <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />

Don't waste your time unless you want to learn a bunch of not-so-useful facts.

 

[Trek]

Back when i was a young man growing up on a different continent, Latin was required for 3 frickin years!!! The only think i now remember is "Caecelius est mendax". Can anyone tell me what that means? I seem to recall something to do with liars??? --Trek

 

[Firebird]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by SwampMan:
•I took 4 yrs of Latin in HS. My school's program was one of the best in the area, which is pretty disturbing (I thought it sucked). I'd say about 1% of everything you learn in Latin is useful.

I now know:
2) agricola = farmer ( i think <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> )

•••••Yes, that is correct. I always thought it sounded like a soft drink, though.

One time our class competed in a Language Fair. Some of us chose to do a video for submission. We did SNL (Saturday Night Latin).

We basically took all the popular Saturday Night Live skits and threw in some Latin twist. We did Dulces Dulcam (Delicious Dish), The View (which involved the whole group...including the 'lawyuh'...interviewing Cleopatra, and we also did some form of Weekend Update that dealt more with the political happenings in Rome.

We didn't get first, second, or third place...even though there were only two teams that submitted a video. I don't think they appreciated our humor. I can just see a bunch of really old, really stiff Latin professors sitting around the TV, watching our video, and wondering what in the world we were doing.

Oh well...we had a fun time doing it.

 

[rxfudd]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by owcc16:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by rxfudd:
•I'm in my fifth year of latin now - it's awesome stuff. It can be a bit challenging at first, but it gets easier as you become better at it. Keep in mind that you will never learn to "speak" latin, and probably won't write much. Latin is mostly read nowadays (since the late 1800's), so be prepared for that.

My formal writing style has DRAMATICALLY changed as a result of having taken latin. Contrary to popular belief, you don't increase your vocabulary as much as you learn to dissect a word. A more prominent change you will notice is in your grammar. Latin is about 30% vocab and 70% grammar - which is indeed what makes it so difficult. My writing (and even my speaking) has been greatly enhanced by this.

If you have any more questions, feel free to email me ---&gt; [email protected]•••••actually rxfudd,

you can learn to speak latin. The world's best latinist is @ Uni of Kentucky, and the classics dept there is world-class. You can go there and learn to speak Latin. OR..another EXTREMELY excellent school for Latin is New St. Andrews up in Idaho..a small classical christian school with world class humanities. Perhaps go to england. I was fluent in the ancient form of latin (as opposed to ecclesiastical), way back when. No more now :-(

Advice: take latin! It does wonders for your life (but not for online grammer! =D)

owcc16•••••Sure, you can find universities that teach you to speak it. This is common in Europe, where they still teach latin in the classical style. In fact, you can go to cafes in Italy where the old-timers speak latin ONLY (I've heard this is quite an experience). However, it is certainly not the norm and I would be surprised if many U.S. universities had even a whole course on it. Odds are that if this person takes latin, he will learn to read only - something most people don't realize when they decide to study an ancient language.

 

[Hercules]

Latin is great! I am slightly biased since I was a classics major in college and took 3 years of it. To be honest, it is helpful in med school, but not essential. Many of the terms used now are in English instead of Latin. I would still recommend taking Latin, though. It's a good language, which teaches good grammar and analytical thinking, not to mention Roman culture is really cool. As an aside, it impresses a lot of the older docs (a.k.a. attendings) when you tell them you know Latin. It was much more common in their day to learn Latin. I was shadowing a doc one time, and when I told him I was a classics major, he actually went out to his car and came back with a book in Latin and wanted to go over some translations in it with me.

 

[leorl]

LOL Caecilius est mendax means "Caecilius is lying."

Among the European universities, especially the famous ones, classical scholarship is still very traditional. You're not going to find many conversational classes there either, it mainly happens among schoolkids growing up and the method in which they are taught. I actually completed some of my classics degree at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland (famous for humanities and classics) - the students were quite amazing. We were expected to be able to sight translate 100 lines per class, and then in ensuing discussions, extrapolate all sorts of meaning and interpretations - their abilities were really amazing.

The American Classical League puts out a video every so often, of a news program completely spoken in Latin. The Sibyl comes and predicts the weather, etc, and they go so fast! 🙂 Iam, ninget. &gt; 🙁

In Italy, Latin is only kind of predominant in the Vatican...I believe there's a McDonald's where the menu appears in Latin. But we should clarify and say there is a pretty large difference between church Latin and ancient Latin. (church latin being essentially "wrong," hehe!)

Every year, each state (or almost each state) holds a convention where high schoolers compete against each other in terms of academic knowledge (tests and jeopardy-like contests called certamina), graphic arts, and performing arts. In Ohio, 800+ students attend every year. Once you get to college, you don't have to take tests anymore but instead, help run the events. And then every year in the summer, there's a national convention that 2000+ classical scholars attend, both high school and college. It's the same thing, only much more intensified...and they add sports contests to it. This year, it's in Kentucky...last year was New Oreleans, sometime soon it's San Diego. Check out <a href="http://www.nscl.org" target="_blank">www.nscl.org</a> or <a href="http://www.njcl.org" target="_blank">www.njcl.org</a> if you want to see what's being done actively in the world of classics today 🙂 .

THe college group also has an unofficial event at New Years. We pick a city every year, and it's like a 3-day drunk fest 🙂 . You do touristy stuff during the day, get drunk at night with the culmination being on new year's eve. We start toasting/drinking when Rome hits midnight (this could be anywhere from 3 pm to 6 pm depending on where in the US we are), and toast every hour until we hit midnight, and after that you drink more to see who can make Guam's midnight (because I think Guam is the last time zone to hit midnight) - that ends up being til around 6 am 🙂 .

 

[Mystique]

OMG, I want to join the ranks of the SDN Latin scholars!! I, too, took 4 years of Latin in high school and a semester in college. Of course, now all I can remember is -a,-ae,-ae,-am,-a (with a long sign, -ae,-aerum,-is,-as,is...and a few other random things.

Leorl, I remember the state conventions! In fact, one year I won a ribbon in the mythology category I think. Gosh, those were the days of golden glory... :wink:

In high school, we also had "Slave Day" where you got to bid on the Latin people and pay them to be your slave for a day... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Wowie]" title="" src="graemlins/wowie.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> Those were always a bit wild... 🙂

 

[THE instiGATOR]

In high school, we used to have a Latin day. Everything was labeled with latin words. Well, some dumb a$$ decided to cover the Wo in Women on the restroom door. I was in quite a rush and quickly popped into the restroom. I was confused when I didn't see any urinals, but didn't catch on. I then went to the restroom in a stall. When I looked down into the trash, you can imagine what I saw. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> I sat there trying to time a favorable exit. Fortunately, nobody saw me leave the room.

<img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />

Stupid Latin day!

2nd place regional award in the subject Caesar. Yeeeeeah buddy! 😀 Do ya think I put that one on my AMCAS app?!? <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />

 

[mma]

I started taking Latin in the 7th grade, majored in Classics in college, and received my MA in Latin Literature. All told, I studied Latin for 12 years...

Actually, in grad school, because I was a Classicist, I TAed medical terminology--so, yes, Latin is very, very useful...

I say take it. (I always say, "take it.")

mma