Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Rory McGrath is an absolute star!

AS latin lessons these days seem to consist of drink tea and tucking into biscuits as much as actually working! They are the highlights of my timetable.

Exactly why IS Latin still taught ?

Even in my day, it was referred to as a 'Dead' language.

I don't think Doctors even use it now.

Latin helped me a heck of a lot with other languages...

It also means I can be a smart alec at work when explaining word meanings!

Great Plum wrote:Latin helped me a heck of a lot with other languages...

It certainly does that, and instills a logical and organised approach to learning grammar.

For example, if young Ludwig were to spend less time slurping tea and munching biccies, and a bit more time learning about ablative absolutes and suchlike, he might even find it possible to correctly construct a sentence in English, should he so desire.

Richard Ruck wrote:

Great Plum wrote:Latin helped me a heck of a lot with other languages...

It certainly does that, and instills a logical and organised approach to learning grammar.

For example, if young Ludwig were to spend less time slurping tea and munching biccies, and a bit more time learning about ablative absolutes and suchlike, he might even find it possible to correctly construct a sentence in English, should he so desire.

Oooh... rather mean of you!

Emma Jane wrote:

Richard Ruck wrote:

Great Plum wrote:Latin helped me a heck of a lot with other languages...

It certainly does that, and instills a logical and organised approach to learning grammar.

For example, if young Ludwig were to spend less time slurping tea and munching biccies, and a bit more time learning about ablative absolutes and suchlike, he might even find it possible to correctly construct a sentence in English, should he so desire.

Oooh... rather mean of you!

Oh, I don't think so. I'm only defending one of the few subjects I was ever any good at.

I DO know that I've just ended a sentence with a preposition, though.

More gin, I think.....

You didn't spot my split infinitive, then? Neither did I, for a while.

Richard Ruck wrote:Oh, I don't think so. I'm only defending one of the few subjects I was ever any good at.

I DO know that I've just ended a sentence with a preposition, though.

More gin, I think.....

You didn't spot my split infinitive, then? Neither did I, for a while.

Ummm... Latin was never a strong subject of mine. Art, Chemistry and German was more my cup of tea.

And enough with the gin.. I've got a tonic with a bit of lime here to make myself feel better

Emma Jane wrote: Ummm... Latin was never a strong subject of mine. Art, Chemistry and German was more my cup of tea.

An unusual combination!

latin was the easiest gcse i did, finished the exam bout an hour early!

I now consider myself almost bilingual in Spanish, having been in Latin America and Spain since 1970.
When I started Spanish in 1970, I only had a few classes in Guatemala before being thrown in at the deep end as a teacher in Costa Rica.
I discovered that I could get by with a combination of my basic spanish and when stuck for a word, I would think of an english word that probably had a latin origin. 9 times out of 10, when I said this word, my colleague would say, "Oh, you mean ....." using the correct word, and so the conversation would continue.
Like most people, I thought Latin was a waste of time, but it served me very well in learning Spanish, and I am sure the same could be said for learning Portuguese, Italian etc.
I also did some Dutch classes, where Latin was not useful, but my smattering of German was.
Maybe I am better at Spanish than Dutch because I passed Latin and failed German "O" levels.
At the end of the day, most things taught can be used sometime, even if they seem irrelevant in the class.

I really enjoyed Latin and I have found it helps with other languages like jhopgood says!

Of course, it's hard to remember anything which seems immediately USEFUL about latin, except perhaps jhopgood's case... perhaps the benefit is merely part of making one a 'good rounded character'...



unfortunately i seem to have forgotten all of my latin in the course of the last six months (since exams last summer), except a few of those tables of noun endings so drummed in by the great CHK (servus, serve, servum, etc etc... not the most useful stuff)

Mark1 wrote: (servus, serve, servum, etc etc... not the most useful stuff)

Oh Servant / Oh Slave!

In day-to-day use, surely?

well, "bibit servus cum ancilla" came up in the last Angus Ross concert...