After the talk about Latin vs. French last night, I came out in favor of Latin. I mean, if I were going into the sixth grade and had to choose, I would choose Latin.
I kind of wish I were going into the sixth grade.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
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Well, that would mean junior high was just around the corner. Yuck! (Different in Frankfurt, of course.)
I had the choice of German, French, Latin or Spanish in high school and chose, god knows why, French. My father wanted me to take Latin. He said it would provide a good foundation for my future education.
I wish now that I had.
I can't remember any of the French from my 4 years of high school or additional 2 years in college beyond:
Bonjour! Comment-allez vous? Je m'appelle Laurel.
Sigh.
Even Spanish would've been more useful.
Yeah, jr high is not so fun. but my daughter is in fifth grade and she loves school. My son is another story.
I can remember one whole dialogue from high school French, and otherwise i just butcher along.
We also had a choice among Spanish, French and German, and I took French. German and Spanish didn't interest me at all. I'm sure if they had offered Latin when I was in jr high that I would have laughed. My French name in class was "Sylvie," then "Sophie." I really wanted to be "Solange." oh well. i'm sure that over the last twenty-five years there have been scores of little french Sarahs. About ten years ago in France, the most popular boy's name was Kevin. Kevin.
LKD, I bet if you were to pick up a book in French, you'd be surprised how much is left in your brain after six years of learning it. That was my experience at least.
Latin is surprisingly very useful, underpinning a number of Romantic languages, not to mention if your kid goes on to study law or science, or write poetry or fiction. :-) Carpe diem!
mostly i think latin fosters an appreciation of grammar. which some people, like me, think is fun. of course it's also good for picking people up in bars. smile
french or latin sounds good to me. i was coerced into studying chinese for 13 years by my mom. boo. i rather regret not learning it now though.
congrats on the acceptances! and a huge wheeeeeee! for in posse review. thrilled to be in the same issue with you!
a.
in high school, i did english for 8 years, latin for 6, french for 4 and italian for 3 years. 6 years of latin is a bit much, and the accounts of how many soldiers or barrels of food or wine there were, did get boring after about two and a half pages, but the poetry was enjoyable, and latin *does* help with other languages, even english, whose vocabulary has so many words with latin roots.
in vino veritas!
m
is there a key in any of those latin texts as to exactly how many snakes were on the plane?
*LOL* oh yes, sarah. oh yes. gaius plinius secundus, naturalis historia. *G*
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