Benefits of learning Latin?

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It doesn't; I'm pretty sure an actual Roman would have been insulted if you called him a dog. But what the other poster was getting at is, if you were looking for "*****," and not just "dog," "canis" isn't quite the right word.

Implication calling someone a dog isn't insulting, but being female is?

In English, anyway; I think other cultures would disagree. But yeah, calling someone a "dog" in English has several implications, only a few of which are negative, and it depends entirely on context. Calling someone a "*****" is pretty much exclusively an insult. Some feminists have tried to reclaim the term (along with "****,"), but they're really barking up the wrong tree on both counts; you don't see men trying to reclaim the terms "bastard" or "dick."

 

[Zeema]

you can understand Caesar's Legion better

<----Plays ALOT of New Vegas

 

[Mimssy]

I've been in Latin at my high school for three years. Mostly I've only stayed because I enjoy the class and learning all of the history (we spend much more time on that than the actual language) and because French and Spanish look really boring. I was just wondering what real world applications it had, since whenever I tell people I'm in it the first thing they always ask is "Well why? It's a dead language."

All the cool kids know a dead language (I know ancient Greek). It's also the base for so many other languages and the gateway to a lot of ancient literature and history. Keep up with it and maybe take some classics classes in University.

 

[Bob Hoss]

Personally, I learned more English in 3 years of Latin than I did in 12 years of English class.
Latin is excellent at helping you learn Italian, also.

Latin est bonus quoque , tamen is est a mortuus lingua.

 

[kaveradeo]

Romantic languages such as english, french, german, and spanish are based from latin therefore learning latin will make it much more easy to learn the other languages. Also, if you find any really old texts in latin, you could read them. It's a dead language in the sense that people don't speak it, but the history is still there waiting to be uncovered.

German is not based on latin.

 

[Scarecrow]

Hell yeah...that's what I would do.

Awe. True to Caesar.

It's "ave", not "awe".

Looks like someone here needs to learn some Latin basics...

But seriously, knowing Latin is pretty cool, it was basically the foundation of the modern day romantic languages, whcih is pretty cool. Personally, I think Latin just generally sounds cool so now you can go around sounding like a badass member of Caesar's Legion.

*bangs head on desk* Dammit dammit dammit. Oh well...thanks for pulling me up.

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

You could join Caesar's Legion and contribute to the capture of Hoover Dam.

Vale!

You can also exorcise demons. Or exercise them, if you're that way inclined.

 

[Tselis]

Latin (English pronunciation: /&#712;læt&#618;n/; Latin: lingua lat&#299;na, IPA: [la&#712;ti&#720;na]) is an Italic language[3] originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the Ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and many schools and universities continue to teach it.[4] Latin is still used in the process of new word production in modern languages of many different families, including English. Latin and its daughter Romance languages are the only surviving branch of the Italic language family. Other branches of the Italic languages are attested in documents surviving from early Italy, but were assimilated during the Roman Republic.

There you go. That explains everything you need to know about why Latin, even though a dead language, is still relevant today.

 

[Ham_authority95]

If you're doing things with languages, it's a good basis to learn them faster because you know where words came from.

If you're doing anything else, fuck all.

 

[JSF16]

Well, you can sound really noble and wise if you speak it in a rather solemn tone. You could probably tell someone to go jerk off a horse and, if the tone's correct, it'd sound very wise and honorable.

 

[Odysseous2]

Romantic languages such as english, french, german, and spanish are based from latin therefore learning latin will make it much more easy to learn the other languages. Also, if you find any really old texts in latin, you could read them. It's a dead language in the sense that people don't speak it, but the history is still there waiting to be uncovered.

No. The Romance languages are Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. German is a Germanic language, which is why they call it German. English is Germanic, too.

While most languages in the world do have some sort of influence from Latin (however minor), the only places it's particularly prevalent are in the five Romance languages. If you know Latin, you shouldn't have any trouble communicating with people of those tongues.

 

[bauke67]

I've had that for three years too, glad I'm rid of it now.
You may one day end up in a time machine, that wil somehow place you in Italy, or somewhere else around the Mediteranean, than it's very handy to know how te speak a bit of Latin... O! That's right, you don't actually learn to speak it.
So it's useless.

OT: It may help you better understand other languages like German and Greek etc.

 

[Viral_Lola]

It makes it a good foundation for learning French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and to a certain degree Romanian. You can use it for sciences and law. You can exorcist demons with it. Read old manuscripts. Become the pope. Write awesome medieval fantasy novels.

That's pretty much what I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[crimson sickle2]

You can be the Pope...

and then excuse yourself from the game(old as dirt reference).

 

[Samuel Lombardo]

semper ubi sub ubi

 

[balanovich]

Romantic languages such as english, french, german, and spanish are based from latin therefore learning latin will make it much more easy to learn the other languages. Also, if you find any really old texts in latin, you could read them. It's a dead language in the sense that people don't speak it, but the history is still there waiting to be uncovered.

What's ROMANTIC about German ??? ...
English isn't a Latin based language... and I don't think german is either.
Learning latin will barely help you learn french or spanish or italian.
If you find an old latin text, you can easily find a translator.

...
so you're pretty much wrong most the way.

 

[Cazza]

Having a completely private conversation. Being able to read latin text. Knowing what is said in random movies when the religious person says something in latin and there isn't subtieles for it.

 

[Slowpool]

You get to sound fucking awesome. I studied it as a kid and even a rudimentary knowledge made my peers think I was too cool for school.

 

[Shilefin]

Well, you know, quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

 

[Shilefin]

Well, you know, quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur.