Many of us have been there. Learning a new, unfamiliar language, but feeling confident in our progress—until confronted with a solid block of text on a homework assignment or course assessment. Several things then tend to occur: first, icy terror, followed hard by an urge to start writing, leading ultimately to a wild race through the text and the attempted definition of every single word on the page. Because, of course, if the words are not all defined in the first thirty seconds of an exam, their meanings will be forgotten…

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Source: Asterix the Gladiator, book 4

Excellent reasons for studying Latin have been given elsewhere on this blog: knowledge of the ancient language can boost your standardized test scores, enrich your understanding of European culture, and make you stand out in college admissions. As a long time Latin tutor in Boston, I’d like to add to these reasons two of my own.

Reason #1: Latin will make any language easier to learn

You’ve probably heard that Latin helps you acquire its modern descendents, the Romance languages. In fact, by enriching your understanding of grammar, Latin will help you learn any foreign language, not just those of the Romance family. Let me explain.It’s only reasonable that teachers give scant attention to Latin as a spoken language (although doing so can be fun and instructive), and instead, their assignments explicitly focus on Latin grammatical structures, or on translation. Latin students have no choice but to become well acquainted with hairy grammar topics like contrary to fact conditions, participial phrases, tense sequence, and the subjunctive mood. Read More

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