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Latin and the Romance language Family | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5832 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 25 of 36 25 September 2009 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
I totally agree. I speak 4 Romance languages and have only a rudimentary knowledge of Latin. Edited by stelingo on 25 September 2009 at 9:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6846 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 26 of 36 26 September 2009 at 7:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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The keyword is 'mastery'. Since the question is about mastering the Romance language family, and Latin is the base upon which the Romance languages developed, I would argue that you have not truly mastered this family until you have mastered Latin. My 2 cents. Edited by Americano on 26 September 2009 at 7:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Frankette Diglot Newbie American Samoa Joined 5536 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, Polish | Message 27 of 36 28 September 2009 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I studied Latin at school and university, but no modern Romance languages: it made learning to read and converse (badly, but enough) in Italian a doddle..
Except I still often say "facere" for "fare" :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snesgamer Groupie Afghanistan Joined 6611 days ago 81 posts - 90 votes Studies: English*, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Scottish Gaelic | Message 28 of 36 30 November 2009 at 11:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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Eh, most Romance languages are on the easier side of the scale when it comes to learning, and once you know one (any one, not just Latin) the rest become even easier.
Latin is still very useful for a myriad of reasons, but the argument that it makes other Romance languages easier is becoming a little obsolete. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5983 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 29 of 36 30 November 2009 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't see how it's important at all -although it is fascinating.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pookiebear79 Groupie United States Joined 6030 days ago 76 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Swedish, Italian | Message 30 of 36 30 November 2009 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I voted not important at all. For me, at least, this is the case. If I want to learn a living Romance Language, it makes more sense (for me, anyway) to just study that language. I've never had any interest in Latin. I understand some people still have to learn Latin in school, luckily by the time I was in school, where I live, it wasn't a required subject anymore, at least not in public (read: not religious) school. I know my late stepfather and my high school best friend were raised Catholic and had to learn it in parochial school, though.
I'm not terribly interested learning in "Ancient" languages as a whole, that's just me, because I have a limited amount of learning time, memory problems, and several other languages I am interested in squeezing into my brain, so that's the way my priorities fall. I would personally have zero personal use for Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Church Slavonic, etc, even in the use of studying a modern related/descendant language. However, if I were doing a thesis or some other scholarly work on one language group, then my answer probably would be different. I can of course see how it would be useful to someone who, for example, wants to make a comparative study of a specific language family. Or someone who has a religious motivation to learn the language, or whatever. But for my interests and goals, the answer is a definite no. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6122 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 31 of 36 01 December 2009 at 12:15am | IP Logged | |||||
I would agree with you. I study Ancient Greek due to my interest in being able to study and read the New Testament in the original Koine Greek. If I didn't have this specific use for it, it would hardly seem worth the considerable effort required to learn this difficult language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6316 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 32 of 36 26 April 2010 at 11:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's interesting, reading this thread, I had always assumed a great benefit in knowing Latin that would help substantially with the descendant Romance languages. I'm assuming Vulgar Latin was significantly different from the Classical form then?
I know French pretty well, and my Spanish is coming along very nicely. I was tossing up between Latin or Italian as the next language, but it seems it would be pointless studying the former to make the latter easier. Ridiculous, even. I recall ProfArguelles greatly stressing the importance of Latin as a reference point for all the other Romance languages, so perhaps there would be a big benefit to knowing it if one wanted to take the whole family? By Latin, I am referring to the classical form here. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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