That’s it.
That’s all I had to say for today’s BEDA post.
Jk.
I’ve always loved studying languages.
I’m slightly obsessed with grammar structures (I LOVE GERMAN GRAMMAR!!11!, for example), semantics, the history of how the language has changed throughout the years, everything! One can learn so much about another culture by knowing the language spoken by its people! Studying languages is probably the only hobby I’ve consistently practiced, instead of abandoning due to boredom, lol.
I got the language thing from my dad.
He became fluent in French by studying on his own during a summer break when he was 14. Then he started learning German and eventually got a scholarship to go to Germany, and became a German professor. He even taught German to two of my professors in Law school. He learned Mandarin because of mum, and he could read/write waaaay better than my brother and I, who grew up speaking Mandarin!!!! There also are Italian, Russian and Greek grammar books in our library at home because of him.
Because I’ve always admired that about him (along with many other things, but that’s not the point here), I decided to copy him. Hehe. However, he didn’t really have patience to teach me French or German when I was about 10, so I had to do it on my own, *insert crying emoji here because dad prolly thought why the heck is my daughter so dumb n slow*.
ANYWAYS.
I remember when dad started studying Latin for realz.
I was a teenager, around 13, and he’d gone to a second-hand bookshop (his favourite kind) and came back home LOOK I GOT AAAAALL OF THESE LATIN GRAMMAR BOOKS FOR i dont really remember so *SUPER CHEAP PRICE HERE*!!!1. It was always a good day at home whenever dad discovered hidden gems in second-hand bookstores.
Two of those little books (the blue and the red ones from the picture above) were small enough to fit in his work bag, so he carried them everywhere and would study them whenever he was waiting for something or while he was in the bus on the way home. They’re the books I browsed through a little while after he passed away – I wanted to see if I could find random notes or his handwriting anywhere in them. I couldn’t, but going through those pages sparked my interest in Latin, the mother of basically every language I study.
I didn’t get started on it back then because I wanted to become better at the other languages before taking on a new one. It would get messy, like trying to learn both Spanish and French at the same time (pro tip: don’t!).
So, a couple of weeks ago, I started studying Latin.
It’d always been a wish of mine and when a professor I knew started offering a “Latin for legal purposes” course, I thought why the heck not, amirite. T’was the little push I needed to get started, despite usually going for the self-learning path when dealing with languages. I could get started by following his course syllabus and then keep going on my own.
I had already gathered all them Latin grammar books I could find at home in February, so having a professor lay out a study schedule was the best. 90% of the time I spend on learning languages is trying to figure out a study schedule, lol. Also, his course is called Latin for legal purposes but he’s not teaching random Latin expressions used in the legal profession. Nope. He’s teaching grammar and vocab from zero, so we gotta sit our asses down, memorise declinations, translate sentences, write homework, the whole shebang.
This is what it looks like when I’m trying to translate some sentences:
The biggest challenge? It is a dead language. D-E-A-D.
It’s not hard to pick up French, Spanish, German or whatever language when you have TV shows, podcasts, websites, apps, songs, books and loads of people online you can practice the language with.
With Latin?
Well, unless I wanna watch the Vatican TV channel, listen to Gregorian chants and read either the Bible or the Corpus Juris Civilis (aka Code of Justinian) it’s kinda hard to practice Latin. I suppose I could do those things… But, let’s be honest, a sci-fi book or an exciting TV show are way more interesting ways to interact with a language, right?
I have found good content online to help me with Latin, though. And, aside from those books pictured above (all for Portuguese speakers), I’ve also been using Lehrbuch der lateinischen Syntax und Semantik, and, as a dictionary, I use Dictionnaire latin-francais : Le grand Gaffiot – because then I get to practice both German and French, heh.
I also use Trello to organise my studies. I haven’t finishing adding the course syllabus to my board, and afterwards I still have to add studies from the different grammar books, but this is what is looks like so far:
IT IS FUN.
The easy bit about Latin is that ALL LANGUAGES I KNOW except Mandarin ARE VERY SIMILAR TO IT. Gee, I wonder why. So, for example, I’ve barely used the dictionary, because of cognate words.
Moreover, it’s really fun to go OOOOH GERMAN IS LIKE THIS BUT SIMPLER, so it gave me a whole new perspective when it comes to declinations in German – I no longer bitch about them. I bitch about the ones in Latin! Yay!
QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS
Do you like languages? Which ones? Human languages or computer languages? Heh. Would you ever study Latin? ALSO do you prefer taking courses with other people or studying on your own? Why? AND AND what works for you when you’re learning a new language?
(as you can see, I am quite passionate about the whole languages topic, so you might see more posts on it here in the future)
Vale!
(It means bye! in Latin, according to my dictionary.)
ps. I might be obsessed with these lil’ leaves.
pps.: Amazon links are affiliate coz I gotta pay for host/domain and keep this blog ad free somehow!