As I've already mentioned in my previous blog entry, my latest interest has been studying Latin. Latin is basically a dead language in the modern society, but Latin terms or phrases can still be seen everywhere, especially in scientific literature.
I have always had interests in learning foreign languages, but Latin never came across my mind until this past summer. One day out of no reasons I did a search on amazon.com and found a cheap but popular Latin textbook that was being sold for less than $15. These were my thoughts at the time:
Wow, $15 for a textbook. Cheap!
Maybe I was stereotyping, but I thought the ability to read Latin = intelligence. Smart guys always seem to know Latin.
It might help improve my vocabulary since 60% of the English language is based on Latin.
Anyway, for a simple-minded person like me, these justifications were enough for me to commit the purchase. As usual, it took a few months for me to start reading it.
Indeed, Latin is not an easy language to learn. So far the grammar rules themselves are not too difficult to understand. It's just that there are many of them. Verbs need to be conjugated just like many other European languages (French, for example), but the things is, nouns and adjectives need to be changed to different forms as well! So once again the good old model of "practice makes perfect" is being applied. I do the exercises faithfully and am making good(?) progress. I am pretty sure that I will forget these grammar rules sooner or later, but as of the moment, I feel satisfied. :)
Post a Comment