We often get the question of Why do you teach Latin? from prospective families. Why not Spanish or French? There are several reasons why Latin is worth learning and why it fits appropriately with Classical education.
- Latin is an inflective language.
We often get the question of Why do you teach Latin? from prospective families. Why not Spanish or French? There are several reasons why Latin is worth learning and why it fits appropriately with Classical education.
- Latin is an inflective language. This means that the root remains the same and the endings indicate who is carrying out the action. Because the endings change, the students learn the form of the endings by heart and thereby must carefully analyze the components of each word in a sentence. Latin helps students develop analytical skills, which transfer to other subjects like science and literature.
- Latin uses the same alphabet we do.
- Approximately 50% of English words come from Latin, which helps student in their mastery of English word meanings. Learning the Latin root of a single word can help a student decode the meaning of dozens of other English words.
- Students who have taken Latin score higher than students of other foreign languages on standardized tests, such as the SATs.
- Romance languages, such as Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, are all derived from Latin. Therefore, learning other languages after learning Latin is much easier for the student.