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Resurrecting my Latin first? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Randwulf Newbie United States Joined 4703 days ago 32 posts - 93 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 8 16 November 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm about ready to start my conquest of the major Romance languages (I'm hoping for at
least French, Spanish, and Italian) but I'm wondering if re-learning Latin before tackling these would make sense. Back in High School I took Latin for four years. I barely remember any of it now, but looking at some Latin material, I already felt it coming back a little. Basically, I have this suspicion that if I bring my Latin back up to about where it was (shot in the dark here but: 200 hours?) this could possibly shorten my acquisition of other Romance languages by enough to be worthwhile even if Latin knowledge itself had 0 value for me (which isn't true, I actually would like to be able to read Latin). I was wondering if anyone well-versed in Romance languages has some insight here or could say something about this hypothesis. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4820 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 8 16 November 2012 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you want to learn Latin, learn it. Other than that, you will either learn living
Romance languages easier after Latin OR you will learn Latin easier after a living Romance language. I chose the second option but left Latin later as it wasn't so much fun for me. There are people who swear Latin is the best start for all the European languages, but I don't think it is such an advantage. As the vocab from Latin is quite the same in all the Romance (and quite a lot of it as well in Germanic and Slavic) languages, you will have the same start anywhere. When it comes to grammar, I believe Latin would be a better bridge to German or Slavic languages, due to having both declinations and conjugations and different syntax than English. So, if this is the only reason why you would like to learn Latin, I'd advice you not to do it. Choose one of the languages you really want to know and start there. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 16 November 2012 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think you should go directly to the modern Romance languages. Romanian shares some quirks with its non Romance neighbours, but apart from that they have more in common with each other than they have with Latin, not only in their vocabulary, but also in morphology, syntax and ... one thing that often is overlooked: in the fact that they are used NOW and not long ago by people with totally different mindsets. I have ONE dictionary on paper which mostly has the words I want, all the others seem to be made with the sole purpose of helping me to translate some dusty textbook samples into Classical Latin.
And then there is the question about having a living community out there. There are some valiant attempts out there to keep Latin alive as a spoken and written language, but the community behind these activiti9es is minimal compared to the millions who speak and write the modern languages. Unless you are seriously interested in history Latin will only become relevant AFTER you have learnt a couple of Romance languages and can enjoy getting some common background for them. And at that stage I would definitely recommend you to relearn your Latin. I did so, and it was worth the effort. Edited by Iversen on 16 November 2012 at 10:32pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6258 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 8 16 November 2012 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Your first Romance language will help more with the second one than Latin ever could. The main Romance languages have more in common with each other than they have with Latin. Your English is sufficient for the lexical and cultural connections as it is already loaded with Latin and French. I think most learners rush through several Romance languages way too quickly. Latin as a bridge to Slavic languages or German is a waste of time. I see a theoretical advantage only if oyu're determined to study Latin on its own merit.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 8 17 November 2012 at 12:56am | IP Logged | ||
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I had an extremely strict Latin teacher (who also speaks several modern Romance and other languages and told us a lot about general Indo-European tendencies), and I had a fairly good level by the time I started learning Portuguese.
Some time I later went through a book for Romance philology students. I loved learning about the development of Latin :) I've also had a lot of input in Italian and Spanish, purely to get used to the languages as I thought. Much sooner than expected, I was actually learning them:))) I think your choice should depend on your learning preferences. Is there a specific course you're excited about? Like French in action for example. Do you want to speak from the beginning? If you do, I recommend starting with Spanish as you can practise it easily in the USA. In addition to that there's nothing wrong about having passive input, especially in Italian if you do Spanish, or vice versa (you'll need a bit of study before you can understand French). Listening won't make you confused. Even speaking won't necessarily cause confusion, you just need to avoid going into a "general foreign/general Romance" mode. In general, the benefits of learning related languages are more noticeable if you go passive first. If you attempt to speak at once, you might feel the new language is frustratingly different, but if you listen (and read) you'll see more of the similarities:) The differences are mostly in the basics and then in some advanced stuff like the subjunctive... the similarities are in between. Another factor is that there are plenty of materials for the native speakers of the modern Romance languages learning Latin, but obviously far less materials to go from Latin to the modern ones. And same with the modern Romance langs helping each other - I especially like the Spanish/Italian resources I have, in both directions. BTW if you like etymology, there's a book that seems great, called "Spanish Vocabulary: An Etymological Approach". Also, if you've had the same amount of exposure to Spanish as most Americans do, it might seem more logical to you than Italian or French simply because the words and word forms will be familiar, even if you've heard them without really understanding. (same will be true if you've had a significant exposure to French or Italian, e.g. music, original movies with subtitles) You have tons of options, really. Just decide what you want most and whether you see your priorities changing (are you likely to decide not to learn Italian when you're already fluent in French, etc). For some reason, you strike me as being very set on your decision to learn many languages. You seem more motivated than most people asking similar questions, although I really know nothing about your motivation:) Sooo... tell me more and I'll tell you more! :) Edited by Serpent on 17 November 2012 at 1:09am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Randwulf Newbie United States Joined 4703 days ago 32 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 8 21 November 2012 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you for the reply. As far as immersion opportunities, it's not quite so simple as Spanish, because a lot of the time spent learning this next language, depending on when I start, could be spent in Germany, and back in the USA I live a couple of hours from Quebec and an hour or so from some of the francophone communities in northern New England. I think I've probably had more exposure to French than to Spanish but not a ton to either. But I don't think I want to start with French. After spending so much time on German I feel hungry for something with a little bit simpler grammar, although I certainly am interested in French as a language. Spanish doesn't really interest me a ton but the material available and learning opportunities are indeed vast... I'm tempted to start with Italian because of the literature and because I particularly like Italian history. I think I would like to start speaking early though. With German I made the mistake of neglecting speaking for far too long. So I'm leaning towards Italian basically but I'm going to have a look at what sort of learning opportunities are available and I may swing to Spanish. I have heard though that learning Italian and then Spanish is easier than vice-versa. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4518 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 8 21 November 2012 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | ||
It doesn't matter whether you eat steak or potatoes first, they're both tasty! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 8 21 November 2012 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Seems like Italian is definitely the right choice for you!
Don't be afraid to read or listen whatever you come across in Spanish, this won't hurt your Italian but this will build a foundation for your Spanish! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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