Hey,
I'm considering taking first year intro to Latin (1Z03) as an elective. Anyone have any thoughts? Easy/hard, fun/dry, good/bad profs etc?

Thanks

First-year Latin is a great class. The Classics Department teaches this class, and from my experience with them, there isn't a bad professor in their midst. (Granted, the Department is very small) I'm not sure who is teaching it this year, but I assume it will be a good professor.

The textbook you use - Wheelock's Latin - is really easy to read and it explains some strange concepts quite well. Since Latin exists wholly in writing, the course focuses on readings, which are usually myths or ancient letters, and being able to grasp the grammatical rules and irregularities within the readings.

As long as you keep up with the translation exercises, which start off very easy, it is definitely a manageable class - of course, depending how good you are at languages and how much fun you can get out of learning a new language.

Oh, and the vocabulary? You'll be able to figure out the origin of 9/10 words in English, which is pretty friggin' cool if I do say so myself.

I took it last year as my elective but I ended up dropping it. I just found it to be too much work and maybe a bit difficult at times. I'm a science student, so it could be that it just wasn't too much of my thing.

My other friend also took it and she was in science as well. She didn't drop the course and continued with it. She said she absolutely hated it and that she ended up with a really mark at the end.

It's all subjective and people's interests are different. I may hate it but you could totally love it. I personally just found myself doing more work for it than my science courses without enjoying the material so that's why I ended up dropping it.

Well, I'm concerned about the workload. I'm going to be studying engineering which is pretty intensive on it's own. I like the idea of learning Latin (as Owen said) because a LOT of the English language is based on Latin, but I'm also looking for an easy elective to balance the rest of my schedule.

What kind of work is it that's involved with the class? Are there extensive writing assignments (like essays)?

Also, Ibrahim, what exactly did you find difficult about the course?

Originally Posted by Milka

Well, I'm concerned about the workload. I'm going to be studying engineering which is pretty intensive on it's own. I like the idea of learning Latin (as Owen said) because a LOT of the English language is based on Latin, but I'm also looking for an easy elective to balance the rest of my schedule.

What kind of work is it that's involved with the class? Are there extensive writing assignments (like essays)?

Also, Ibrahim, what exactly did you find difficult about the course?

Well one thing I found to be annoying was how we were supposed to read a chapter or so before each class (this could've changed after I dropped the course in the begining of the year though). Along with reading a chapter I think you had to do a few practice exercises. There were also online exercises you had to do (a bunch of them were due before each midterm from what I recall-but I recommend keeping up because they will pile up). I just found myself putting too much effort into trying to stay on top of the material for an elective.

I don't think there will be extensive writing assignments. Maybe very few simple ones or something (some one who actually continued on with the course would maybe clear this up).

I also found the grammar of latin to be a bit confusing and I just didn't think languages was my thing so I dropped the course. I hope this helped.

Originally Posted by IbrahimH

Well one thing I found to be annoying was how we were supposed to read a chapter or so before each class

.....isn't that what every class does? I don't think I've ever had a class where I didn't have to do readings before hand.......



The online section of the course varies between professors - some use it occasionally, others consider it essential to the course, and others don't use it at all. So, depending on who is teaching it this year, this potentially difficult/time-consuming part of the course may or may not be a problem.

The exercises you do for every chapter aren't too bad - they usually consist of 15 or so sentences, which grow in complexity with each chapter. As long as you stay on top of the new vocabulary and grammar of each chapter, the increasing complexity is certainly manageable.

There were never any writing assignments (ie, essays) in 1Z03 or 1ZZ3 - your mark is essentially composed of three parts: 1) roughly 5 biweekly tests, which primarily question your comprehension of the new grammar; 2) tutorial participation, which is really just reading passages, site-translating, and handing in written English-to-Latin translations; 3) a final exam, which is really just a longer version of the five tests, testing your understanding of grammar and retention of vocabulary from, obviously, the entire course. In short, this class doesn't throw any curve balls.

If you can keep up with the readings, which is really just about 4-5 pages of grammar-talk per class, you should be fine; just make sure you memorize those damnable Latin verbs!

While it is true that there are readings before every class - these readings are different.

They require you to memorize about 30 words a day, plus grammar rules, plus about 40 sentences of translating, + online homework that took me about 2 hours each set to complete.

It was enjoyable for me because I love languages but I put in at least 1-2 hours of latin every day including weekends to maintain a high average.