Today's article will be about Latin grammatical rules (so much informations so far).
"Oh no! Not that. I'm so bored already!" I hear you yelling in front of your screen.
But wait...
Uhm no don't... I hate those things too!
Yes that's right, I love Roman civilisation and yet I can't stand the idea of writing and reading in Latin. When I studied Latin in high-school, I've never opened my books to learned grammatical rules. The things that interested me back then, were Mythology and History. However our teacher never really spoke about this and our exams were only about translations and vocables. So I quite it before the twelfth grade.
In spite of all my bad marks, I truly regret quitting. And now I feel like a jerk not being able to translate a simple sentence after 5 years of Latin.
I know I'm French and it is difficult to learn it because of all the exceptions. But, it's easy to say you don't have exceptions when you have so many rules!
For instance, the declensions... There are like thousands of them. NO JOKES!
Quick overview of Latin declensions :
- They obviously depend on the TWO grammatical genders: singular and plural
- FOUR types of words have their own ones: adjectives, nouns, verbs and pronouns
- There are FIVE declensions for nouns, grouped by ending and gender
- And SIX cases of declension : Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative and Ablative
Latin Pronouns Declensions
Latin Nouns Declensions
Moreover, in the conjugation, each verb is described by FIVE forms and are affected by the person, the gender, the number, the tense, the mood and the voice.
All this cases make the latin translations very hard.
To sum up, Latin grammar is tough to learn and why the hell do we care about this when it's a dead language and translators can do all the work?! ;)
Post Scriptum : Next time, I promise I won't bother you with this nerdy language.
Citations :
Book Latin for dummies, Daniel ROBERT and my old latin lessons
Photos from Wikipedia
Hello Remi!
RépondreSupprimerI have to admit it: when I was young, I studied Latin too, and I felt exactly like you described it in your article. Too many unpleasant topics on grammar and declensions, and not enough " interesting" topics like the Mythology and the History of Rom. I think almost all students in latin classes have this feeling, but you described it with a lot of humor, it was really pleasant for me to read this post.
But I disagree one one point : If we don't practise latin grammar anymore, this language will be forgotten quickly, that would be quite sad.
Moreover, I noticed one small mistake: you certenely meant bother instead of bather, don't you ?
Sincerely,
#12
Hey hey! I'm sorry I didn't write any comments since you wrote your first post. I obviously didn't understand the "obligatory blog" principle. I apologize for that and I promise to flood your blog with comments from now!
RépondreSupprimerYou obviously did change your writing style since your last article, and to be honest I love this one! You managed to write an interesting and pleasant article on a quite boring topic as you said yourself. Also, you gave an interesting point of view on the topic "latin at school", and I'm really glad you did!
I would like to find a negative point like Lucas, but I agree with your point of view and you made me laugh, so I will only considered the positive things I found in your article!
Also, I'd love to put the #correction, but I didn't find any big mistake!
So keep it up and I'm looking forward to read your other articles!
ID9