Latin: why?

[Bonsoir]

Latin was my most important subject at school. I did years and years of it and have never felt it was anything more than a waste of time.

I know not everyone feels this way and I would be grateful if you could share your opinions as to the useful skills Latin develops in school pupils.

Underpins language learning especially since basic English grammar isn't taught as formally and also forms part of British culture, semantics and insitutions such as Law and Medicine.

I found it very useful for helping to learn other languages and understanding the origins of words. It is also useful for a career in medicine.

I have a degree in it. It has served me no significant use whatsoever other than:

1. i'm pretty good at Scrabble.

2. People think I'm much cleverer than I am.

3. When my mum was in hospital in France it helped me understand what was going on because, as others have said, there's a lot of Latin in medical lingo.

Spent many years studying latin and hated it but it helped encourage a delight in the english language when i started to see the roots of words and development.
it also helped me with other modern languages (and still helps) as i can use my knowledge of latin to spot roots of words in order to come to some hazy translation.
also agree with LIZS

What do you mean by "My most important subject"?

The subject I spent the most hours learning and the one with the highest weighted average in my bac.

I did Latin at school and a little bit in my degree and I loved it. For me it was like getting the keys to the kingdom of Romance languages and English and it just enriched my world.

"Underpins language learning especially since basic English grammar isn't taught as formally"

That for me is an argument for teaching English grammar, not for teaching Latin.

I did Latin and ancient greek at school (in Spain) and I didn't think it was very useful at all. But I read in the papers (many years ago) that an Sudy in the USA found out that students that did latin were better at business, or to see the "bigger picture". They thought that becasue mainly they way latin was taugut, ie. translation of texts, the students had to read the hole test before starting the translation to see where the verb etc, were, so the students who did latin in Secondary school, had learn to have a look at all the aspects of the business.

"For me it was like getting the keys to the kingdom of Romance languages"

I enjoyed learning French, Italian and Spanish so much more than I enjoyed learning Latin. And modern Romance languages have, crucially, stayed with me whereas Latin has evaporated.

Studying Latin improved my understanding of grammar etc - I also learned French but in a way where they tried not to "bother us" by actually explaining the grammar we were picking up, which left me fairly confused (I like rules...). So it improved both my French and my English - I now understand why language works the way it does.

It's also very helpful practice for guessing working out what words mean, whether that's words you don't know in English, or completely foreign words, as you have an idea how to break them up, compare them with parts of words you do know, work out what prefixes and suffixes mught be doing there, etc.

"They thought that becasue mainly they way latin was taugut, ie. translation of texts, the students had to read the hole test before starting the translation to see where the verb etc, were, so the students who did latin in Secondary school, had learn to have a look at all the aspects of the business."

That is an argument for the merits of teaching translation, which I completely adhere to. But translation can be taught much more efficiently and usefully, IMO, through MFL than through Latin.

My DD is doing Latin at Secondary school and she loves it. I see it as a good way of learning the basics of language. If she wasn't enjoying it, I might think differently.

AMumInScotland - surely, though, English grammar, including morphemes, can be taught more efficiently without, rather than with, Latin?

"I see it as a good way of learning the basics of language."

This seems to be the main argument in favour of Latin. But I think that there are better ways of teaching the fundamentals of language.

Latin does help to understand he origin of a lot of English words. I did it at school and never felt relevant until had children and teaching them to read and write now I do a bit of Latin and Greek now and again especially as they are taking languages and it really underpins the understanding.

It's an excellent language to start off learning, because it introduces children to the idea of learning a language (and remember that learning ANY second language makes it easier to acquire a third, fourth, etc.) but, crucially, doesn't require a specialist teacher who can speak it fluently with a correct accent. in fact I think that in the UK we'd be better served teaching primary children Latin than giving them half an hour a week of really bad French taught by a non-native speaker and deluding ourselves that we are teaching them MFL. It would lay the foundations for teaching them MFL properly when they get to secondary school.

Also (related point) it is a very useful tool for getting to grips with grammar. I learned more aout English grammar from Latin lessons than from English lessons.

So many words in English and Romance languages have Latin roots that it's useful in later life as an entry pointnfor deciphering meaning.

That doesn't mean that it's a great choice for a main subject if you weren't enjoying it, but SOME Latin is useful.

I thought it was pretty useless, more of a status symbol these days than anything else!

DD is learning it now, and we were told that it makes learning other European languages so much easier. So on that basis, I am more supportive of it. We have been doing a lot of travelling in Europe over the past three summers, and switching between three or four languages in a few weeks can be bloody difficult, so I do wish I had studied Latin as a child!

I got the joke in Life of Brian about the graffiti that's meant to say 'Romans go home' without John Cleese as the Centurion having to explain. Apart from that... it was vaguely useful to me in my degree in Archaeology and Ancient History, and it means I can help my dds with their latin homework, and I understand the structure of languages better than I would without, and a few times it's helped me puzzle out words in Romance languages when I've been abroad.

With the right teacher it gives an almost spiritual connection to the past, not just the ancient past, but all the generations of writers and thinkers who were brought up learning very little else. Until the last third of the 20th century, ancient languages were the basis of education in this country.
I agree that it gives an understanding of the structure and elegance of language.

More time studying Latin than Maths or Science or ?

That's a bit mad.

Boinsoir the way latin is tought in other countries is just translation, no speaking. At least in Spain, that is the way the latin is tought, not as an MFL as you can't go to a country where people speaks Latin. I didn't have any conversation classes or anything similar. I don't know how latin is tought in the UK, and for what the study was saying, it was the same way taught in the USA. It might have change now, this study is at least 20 years old ( now that gives my age away . It might be taught as an MFL in the UK, and for sure when I visit a private school in the open day, the latin teacher almost make me want to study Latin.
In my opinion, Latin is useful to learn the roots of words, and I think that at least one year should be study in Secondary schools.

My year 7 DD does Latin, and can see the point (after 6 months of thinking it was bit rubbish) as the Latin words seem to form the roots of lots of English ones. I never did Latin and have only seen this from testing her for vocabulary tests. I think it's great she has the chance to try it and they do one hour a week, so same as French and Spanish. She is at a comprehensive school.

Well, DC can, in years to come, backpack Latin America and be able to converse with the locals.

I did latin for 3 years at school, and also O level in Ancient Greek (in my lunch hour - what a swat !). Latin is far easier than Greek.

I don't think you need to study either to understand that the roots of English come from them, especially scientific English. But equally learning German (or other Germanic language) will help understand other roots in English.

I think learning them is part of a rounded education, helps put the modern world in context.

The only place I can think it would be really useful is for medieval history where all texts were written in latin. But bear in mind that even then not everyone using latin was very good at it and it can get very mongrelised (is that a word ?!).