There are no benefits - except now I can swear incoherently at people in Latin.
Pestis! Furcifer! Tu est canis! Ego est et tu mater.
Pestis! Furcifer! Tu est canis! Ego est et tu mater.
Benefits of learning Latin?
- Thread starter renegade7
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I've been studying Latin for 6 years now, and my own personal reason for picking it was etymology; essentially, I love language and I was so intrigued to find out where a generous portion of the English alphabet comes from. It's also fun to walk around my college campus and read the Latin inscriptions on all the buildings (and actually understand Latin phrases whenever a professor asks - being a smartass has its benefits).
Learning Latin has a number of real-world applications, more than you'd think. A lot of school districts want to offer Latin as a language for its students to take, but there aren't many Latin teachers out there. Where I live, at least, there's a huge market for Latin teachers (happy accident since I'm also an Education major). Like many people have said, a lot of scientific terms are Latin, so almost any career involving the life sciences and medicine would benefit from a knowledge of Latin (even just a rudimentary vocabulary). In graphic design, I also come across a lot of home-grown law firms looking for a good Latin motto for their business, because they feel like it makes them more "legit" and that has occasionally helped me get a job over some other designers who had been contacted for the job. The only downside is they ask me to translate the Lorem Ipsum I use on templates.
Besides, it works really well as a secret language if you translate it into IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) because the people who understand Latin rarely know the IPA, and the linguists rarely know Latin. #nerdwinning
Learning Latin has a number of real-world applications, more than you'd think. A lot of school districts want to offer Latin as a language for its students to take, but there aren't many Latin teachers out there. Where I live, at least, there's a huge market for Latin teachers (happy accident since I'm also an Education major). Like many people have said, a lot of scientific terms are Latin, so almost any career involving the life sciences and medicine would benefit from a knowledge of Latin (even just a rudimentary vocabulary). In graphic design, I also come across a lot of home-grown law firms looking for a good Latin motto for their business, because they feel like it makes them more "legit" and that has occasionally helped me get a job over some other designers who had been contacted for the job. The only downside is they ask me to translate the Lorem Ipsum I use on templates.
Besides, it works really well as a secret language if you translate it into IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) because the people who understand Latin rarely know the IPA, and the linguists rarely know Latin. #nerdwinning
Canis means a dog without gender - you'd have to add a feminine adjective first - may I suggest fatua (it means foolish).FateOrFatality said:
Also, "Ego est et tu mater" literally translates to "Your mother is me" and the 'et' means nothing. If you wanted to say something like "Your mom belongs to me" you should have used "mihi" instead of "ego". Otherwise you shouting "Ego est et tu mater" is only insulting because you don't care enough to make an articulate sentence in two languages.
I is/it is and your? mother?. My Latin is a tad iffy, but that doesn't make much sense to me.FateOrFatality said:
...
Oh, Italian and Spanish are just Latin with accents, more or less.
EDIT: Argh, ninja'd...though why does the dog have to have a gender for it to be insulting?
Like I said, incoherently. I actually intended to say "I am in your mother", but I know so little about Latin that was the closest I could get._Depression said:
Bit of a nit-pick here: at it's core, English is actually a Germanic language (you know, like what the Gauls were speaking at the time Latin was a living language), and not a romance language. It picked up a lot of vocabulary from French after the Norman invasion of England, but it's still technically a Germanic language, just one with really mixed up grammar rules and way more loan words than most languages have regardless of what family they reside in.SilentCom said:
OT: Off the top of my head, I can think of a few uses. The most obvious is just reading Roman, Medieval, and Renaissance works in their original language. No translation ever captures the full meaning of a piece, so being able to read stuff in the original language is nice. The other ones are more career focused. Lawyers, doctors, and scientists still use a lot of Latin in their day to day jobs; in law you have terms like "de jure" and "de facto", and in medicine and science, most of the technical terms are either Greek, Latin, or a mixture of the two (example: haematoma (bruise, in case you didn't know) is Greek, while I'm pretty sure "Medula Oblongata" comes from Latin.) You aren't going to be using it conversationally, but it will help you pick up the technical terms.
It doesn't; I'm pretty sure an actual Roman would have been insulted if you called him a dog. But what the other poster was getting at is, if you were looking for "*****," and not just "dog," "canis" isn't quite the right word.thaluikhain said:
I took almost 2 years of latin and Now im in the college environment. What I've noticed from taking it is, yes it can benefit you in certain medical/biological class. It also helps you understand languages, even with english, I've found myself reading something and not knowing what a word was and simply by remembering a latin word/phrase I was able to deduce what it meant. Its not completely useless, I did however completely hate taking latin lol.
I took latin for three years back in high school. The only real-world application I've found for myself was that it was a HUGE help on my SATs. Then I went on to major in art in college, so you can imagine how many times it came up there. Come to think of it, that whole Calculus thing ended up being a waste of time too...
Buuuut, I also took 4 years of Spanish in high school, which is very useful. Latin is a fun class to take, but I can't say it was a great idea for you to take it in lieu of Spanish or French.
I only know one guy who went on to major in latin in college. Your only options are to be a translator (of ancient text), a historian, or a teacher. Or you could travel abroad to Rome and see where it all began.
Buuuut, I also took 4 years of Spanish in high school, which is very useful. Latin is a fun class to take, but I can't say it was a great idea for you to take it in lieu of Spanish or French.
I only know one guy who went on to major in latin in college. Your only options are to be a translator (of ancient text), a historian, or a teacher. Or you could travel abroad to Rome and see where it all began.
In current English slang, a guy can be called a "dog" and have it be a good thing (see: people who recently had sex, being congratulated by friends [immediate example, Big Bang Theory Season 4, Disc 3, "The Herb Garden Germination"]). Just sayin'.thaluikhain said:
If you discover/invent a new species of something, you can give it a really dirty name that people don't realize translates as "horse shit."