Duo lingo learn english11/8/2023 Even when you reply to someone’s email, you’ll see that Re: on the subject line - that’s Latin for “on the matter of.” Latin surrounds us. comes from Latin et cetera (“and so on”) there’s also i.e. Latin sayings are found throughout a lot of different languages ( carpe diem, caveat emptor). That’s Latin for Out of many, one, a reflection of the American philosophy of pluralism and multiculturalism coming together to make a single nation. In the United States, you might be familiar with the slogan E pluribus unum, which can be found on American currency. Knowing Latin may also help you understand a little more about what’s around you. Latin gives you the tools you need to be able to read books loaded with unfamiliar terminology and ace those verbal tests. This is probably a big part of the reason that Latin students do well on the SAT : when someone who knows Latin sees an unfamiliar word, they can recognize the roots and break down its meaning. This is especially true when it comes to vocabulary that you don’t encounter in your daily life. When the profession of dentistry emerged, it wasn’t the English tooth that was used to name the profession - it was the Latin dentis.Īs a result, English has an enormous number of words that come from Latin. Consequently, while English words (like “father” and “two” and “tooth”) ended up being used for practical, everyday items, Latin words were used in formal settings. Why is someone who works on teeth a dentist, and not a toothist? Why do we describe someone as paternal, and not fathernal? Why do we talk about things being dual instead of twoal?Įven after the Roman Empire disappeared, Latin was maintained as a formal written language across the world. In the next section, we’ll discuss the benefits of learning Latin for English speakers looking to understand English a bit better. You also may gain a better understanding of your own mother tongue if you speak a Latin-influenced language. Learning Latin won’t just help you get better at understanding new languages. Additionally, Latin’s grammar resembles the grammar of other case languages, such as Russian, Sanskrit, and even Turkish, which makes learning them easier. For example, it will help you build vocabulary in the Romance languages, which can give you a start on learning them or boost your existing proficiency even more. A knowledge of Latin will help you build your knowledge of a number of European languages. įor aspiring polyglots, Latin is an excellent language to learn. The secret is this: once you’ve learned two languages, it’s easier by far to learn a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. Polyglots - people who can speak multiple languages - have a secret. Latin is a great fit for aspiring polyglots Eventually, these language varieties evolved into the Romance languages - Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, et cetera.Ĭlassical Latin, meanwhile, lived on in the courtroom (many legal terms come from Latin), the science lab (every species has a Latin name), and the medical field (Latin has been used used to describe a vast number of medical conditions). Over time, the casual spoken version of Latin changed, with every group of speakers making the language their own. This was a multinational, multilingual state to speak to one another, people used a casual, spoken form of Latin sometimes called “Vulgar Latin.” (It wasn’t called “vulgar” because it was full of swear words or anything - it’s because the word vulgus means “the people.”) Meanwhile, the writers and orators and scientists and lawyers of the Roman Empire used a more formal version of the language, now known as Classical Latin. (And if these reasons are enough to catch your interest, you’ll be happy to hear that learning Latin is free and easy with Duolingo’s new Latin course.) The story of Latinįor hundreds of years, the Roman Empire governed a swath of land stretching from the British Isles to the Caspian Sea. In this blog post, we’ll outline a few reasons why you might want to explore learning Latin. But some languages, like Sanskrit and Latin, have no native speakers currently living. You might learn Hindi, for example, so that you can talk with your cousins who don’t speak English, or maybe you’d study Korean so you can chat with fellow K-pop enthusiasts online. The most obvious reason to learn a new language is so that you can use it to speak to people.
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