Latin

Zoodlebop

I was just wondering if anyone here will be joining me and the other 149 of us in the country next Wednesday? Any predictions or Chief Examiner relations? Me, I think the unseens will be Virgil, Livy, Sallust and Catullus/Horace. yuk!
The rest of the paper is a doddle. Any one doing the Livy prepared section, not the Virgil?

Attractive Nun

I don't know anyone that does Latin, but it all sounds very cultured. Out of curiosity, may I ask, to what extent does it involve learning the language, and to what extent is it reading the classics?

Zoodlebop

Attractive Nun wrote:

I don't know anyone that does Latin, but it all sounds very cultured. Out of curiosity, may I ask, to what extent does it involve learning the language, and to what extent is it reading the classics?

You may ask...

Well, you have to be able to translate from latin to english fluently. We don't speak it or anything. It is actually a great subject for that as it can replace your foreign language for matric. requirements, and there is no aural or oral.

As to the reading, the only thing you have to read is 500 lines of the Aeneid, and you get asked 20 lines from anywhere in it, so you have to know it PERFECTLY, off by heart. It helps with unseens to have read some of the authors' works, as you get accustomed to their style, and this makes it easier to translate them in an unseen.

I was gonna do it for college, but not any more. I don't wanna get stuck in uni. in a 5 person class with a wacky classics prof.

Edit: Ooops. sorry, you didn't ask for my life story.

Matthewthebig

heh. 149 in the country and i know about 20 of them...

Zoodlebop

How so? Where is this community of like minded others????? 20 latiners all in the same place!! Wow!

Matthewthebig

yeah. My school is a big latin school. We also have 2 out of the <10 people doing Ancinet Greek

helles belles

what school do u go to?

Attractive Nun

Zoodlebop wrote:

You may ask...

Well, you have to be able to translate from latin to english fluently. We don't speak it or anything. It is actually a great subject for that as it can replace your foreign language for matric. requirements, and there is no aural or oral.

As to the reading, the only thing you have to read is 500 lines of the Aeneid, and you get asked 20 lines from anywhere in it, so you have to know it PERFECTLY, off by heart. It helps with unseens to have read some of the authors' works, as you get accustomed to their style, and this makes it easier to translate them in an unseen.

I was gonna do it for college, but not any more. I don't wanna get stuck in uni. in a 5 person class with a wacky classics prof.

Edit: Ooops. sorry, you didn't ask for my life story.

Hmm, seems like a decent enough subject. I would much prefer doing something like that to, say, business. They should push random subjects a bit more I think, and I hear Latin is supposed to be a good base for learning other European languages. Interesting.

Zoodlebop

Matthewthebig wrote:

heh. 149 in the country and i know about 20 of them...

You're in John Scottis in Dublin, right?



As to Attractive Nun's ceist, yeah it is useful with all languages, especially English. It helps my vocab, as if I don't know a word, I might know it's roots in Latin.

Matthewthebig

no. I'm not.

I did Latin for junior cert it is rather helpful

NADA

I think Latin would be cool. They are also bringing in modern greek now as well as ancient greek. I wonder where they are going to get the teachers for these subjects. They are probably going get a load of freaks from somewhere. Imagine a teacher who didn't speak English at all. Just Latin. Why is it that I think there would be more people iinterested in learning latin that there would be Irish?

abercrombie

Matthewthebig wrote:

no. I'm not.

I did Latin for junior cert it is rather helpful

i did Latin for the junior cert too

Pythia

Matthewthebig wrote:

yeah. My school is a big latin school. We also have 2 out of the <10 people doing Ancinet Greek

Gotta be John Scottus, Belvo or Zaga.
I did Ancient Greek, only girl in 04 AFAIK, woot!

Zoodlebop

NADA wrote:

Why is it that I think there would be more people iinterested in learning latin that there would be Irish?

I'd say that is because latin is more useful, even though NO ONE speaks it. All Western european languages are at least partially derived from it (Eng, French, Spanish (thus 400 million people), Italian). German is read with the exact same intonation as you pronounce latin with. Thus latin is useful if you speak, or want to speak, any of those languages. It increases your communicative ability with about 1 billion native speakers, at least. Irish increases this ability with what, 10,000 people. No contest.

NADA

Zoodlebop wrote:

I'd say that is because latin is more useful, even though NO ONE speaks it. All Western european languages are at least partially derived from it (Eng, French, Spanish (thus 400 million people), Italian). German is read with the exact same intonation as you pronounce latin with. Thus latin is useful if you speak, or want to speak, any of those languages. It increases your communicative ability with about 1 billion native speakers, at least. Irish increases this ability with what, 10,000 people. No contest.

Yeah and I reckon about 9999 of those speak English anyway!:D

Kwekubo

NADA wrote:

Why is it that I think there would be more people iinterested in learning latin that there would be Irish?

Because the vast majority of people come out of the system not fluent despite more than a decade of formal education. End of. Thing is, it's actually the other way around - numbers studying Irish are rising, while Latin is now in danger of disappearing, and the Department of Education has drawn up an emergency committee to revise the syllabus (the format of the exam is more or less still the same as it was in the '60s).

I'm glad I found this thread actually - I'm missing lines 529 to 535 of Aeneid VI. Could a fellow Latin scholar help me out? It's shocking actually, our teacher forgot to translate the occasional three or four lines here and there throughout the book! I managed to plug the other holes, but the only online translations I can find for this one are in poetic English.

Matthewthebig

Pythia wrote:

Gotta be John Scottus, Belvo or Zaga.
I did Ancient Greek, only girl in 04 AFAIK, woot!

that is correct

punka

Zoodlebop wrote:

I was gonna do it for college, but not any more. I don't wanna get stuck in uni. in a 5 person class with a wacky classics prof.

It's more fun than you'd think....

Kwekubo wrote:

'm glad I found this thread actually - I'm missing lines 529 to 535 of Aeneid VI. Could a fellow Latin scholar help me out? It's shocking actually, our teacher forgot to translate the occasional three or four lines here and there throughout the book! I managed to plug the other holes, but the only online translations I can find for this one are in poetic English.

here's 528-535, with a literal translation:

quid moror? inrumpunt thalamo, comes additus una
hortator scelerum Aeolides. di, talia Grais
instaurate, pio si poenas ore reposco.
sed te qui uiuum casus, age fare uicissim,
attulerint. pelagine uenis erroribus actus
an monitu diuum? an quae te fortuna fatigat,
ut tristis sine sole domos, loca turbida, adires?'

"Why do I delay? They burst into my chamber, the son of Aeolus (i.e. Ulysses) accompanying them, the instigator of crimes. Gods, repay the same to the Greeks, if I ask for vengeance with pious lips. But come tell in turn what chance has brought you here alive (casus is plural but easier translated as singular - "twists of fate" if you want to preserve the plural). Do you come driven by the wanderings (ie the currents) of the sea, or at the behest of the gods? Or what fortune tires you, that you should visit these sad sunless homes, these turbulent regions?"

That brings me back, I did the LC last time Aeneid VI was the set text.

jimi_t

Matthewthebig wrote:

no. I'm not.

I did Latin for junior cert it is rather helpful

That said, latin was compulsary for us @ Junior Cert level - stop doing the whole intellectual thing matt

Also, out of the (largeish) group of people you mentioned at least 4 of them aren't sitting their exam through lack of preparation - most of them are going on the razz from after the economics exam onwards

Matthewthebig

good point. But sure we know a lot ¬_¬

Kwekubo

punka wrote:

It's more fun than you'd think....



here's 528-535, with a literal translation:

quid moror? inrumpunt thalamo, comes additus una
hortator scelerum Aeolides. di, talia Grais
instaurate, pio si poenas ore reposco.
sed te qui uiuum casus, age fare uicissim,
attulerint. pelagine uenis erroribus actus
an monitu diuum? an quae te fortuna fatigat,
ut tristis sine sole domos, loca turbida, adires?'

"Why do I delay? They burst into my chamber, the son of Aeolus (i.e. Ulysses) accompanying them, the instigator of crimes. Gods, repay the same to the Greeks, if I ask for vengeance with pious lips. But come tell in turn what chance has brought you here alive (casus is plural but easier translated as singular - "twists of fate" if you want to preserve the plural). Do you come driven by the wanderings (ie the currents) of the sea, or at the behest of the gods? Or what fortune tires you, that you should visit these sad sunless homes, these turbulent regions?"

That brings me back, I did the LC last time Aeneid VI was the set text.

Thanks punka, that's brilliant! Yes, book VI has some memorable images, but I think I prefer book II that I had last year. Can't beat a bit of the ol' Trojan Horse.

Kwekubo

So how did your latin exam go?

As usual I knew absolutely no history after the battle of Actium, so I just faffed on a bit about Augustus being in control. Arch and art questions were doable though. The rest was more or less Ok.

GretchenWieners

JC Latin, how could I forget!! WOuld've done so much better overall if I hadn't done it!