In some countries, high schools are required to teach a foreign language for at least two years before students can enter college. And most of these languages students choose are French, Spanish, Japanese, and most likely German. However, one of the most important language that is always overlooked by many is Latin. So what’s the deal with the Latin language anyway?
Latin is now considered a “dead language” by some. Meaning, it is a language that is no longer spoken in our day to day lives. What others didn’t know is that Latin has continually evolved even to this day, which inspires most of today’s language, with English, not an exception. Here are three good reasons why Latin should be taught in our schools more often.
- Makes Learning Romance Languages Easier
- Romance languages consist of Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian. And teachers believed that learning Latin eases the transition into learning romance languages. If you take a look at these romance languages today, you will see the similarities between each of them by their pronunciation, vocabulary, and also, grammar styles.
- To give you an example of a
comparison between Latin and romance languages, take a look at the word “art.” In
Latin, it’s pronounced as “ars,” wherein romance languages such as Spanish and
Italian, it is called “arte.” As you can see, from the spelling and the way it’s
pronounced, both of them share similarities with each other. Which makes
learning Latin and romance languages easier.
- Improves Thinking and Analytical Skills
- A lot of subjects taught in schools are there for one sole purpose: to improve your critical thinking and analytical skills. Among all of them, math is the perfect candidate for such where students are tested by solving complex problems and come up with creative solutions to get the right answer. Just like math, Latin can also help in improving these kind of skills as well. But how?
- Latin is a highly
inflected/synthetic language, which means it is a language that involves using
various words signifying number, person, gender, and other components to
construct a sentence. The challenging part of learning Latin is by memorizing
different forms of declensions (a variation of a noun, pronoun, or adjective)
to come up with a sentence. Which means students must identify the proper
declension or conjugation of each word of a sentence to know what it exactly
means. Doing so requires patience and persistence, thus, improving your
critical thinking and analytical skills.
- Enhances English Grammar Skills & Vocabulary
- Students are required to purchase textbooks about Latin grammar when learning the language. In addition to that, most Latin classes also require students to have textbooks on English grammar as well. Which means when learning Latin, grammatical concepts in the English grammar is a common thing because you already came across them in your regular English classes.
- We now get a picture where
students have already instilled the English grammar in their minds. The
challenging part is remembering the exact grammatical terms to incorporate in
writing. It’s a hard task to do, but Latin is here to save the day, which acts
as a secondary English class that helps on reinforcing their knowledge of the
language students were used to. Learning Latin grammar is like relearning the
English grammar and improve your skills as you go on. Not only that, but it can
also expand your vocabulary and word diction as well.
As you can see, the importance of Latin still contributes to the well-roundness of students. That’s why schools should implement Latin in their subjects as it can help students learn valuable skills that they can use on whatever path they take in the corporate world. Fun fact: The Latin phrase “curriculum vitae” translates to “the course of life.”