Greetings from a new Latin learner

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Maneck
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 5:13 am

Greetings from a new Latin learner

Post by Maneck »

I have come to learning Latin (and if I persevere, later, ancient Greek) in mid-life, as part of a longtime quest to give myself the broad education in the humanities, and specifically in the Western classical languages, that I never had.

Why the humanities? The simple answer is that I have always liked to read, travel, and learn about other times and places. And as my formal education was in maths, sciences, and engineering, I wasn't schooled in the fundamentals, so I was constantly feeling left out when references to the classical world came up - whether in a Shakespeare play, in a book on political philosophy, or while touring in the Mediterranean. So I thought I should read more of the foundational texts - the ones that I see referred to over and again - and I am finding among them some of the best stuff I have ever read.

Why classical languages? Well, I suppose I thought that, eventually, perhaps, it would be nice to read Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Ovid, Cicero, etc. in the original languages. But, even if this doesn't happen, I've always enjoyed learning languages, purely for the new viewpoints and ways of thinking that they introduce me to.

Why now? One reason: a career change, so that now I can actually use (tangentially) the knowledge I gain in my job, so that gives me an excuse to spend some time in study. Another reason, I think, is that I recently started raising a family, and, consequently, thinking about what makes a good education. I don't want to force anything on my kids, but I want to be able to introduce my kids to a wide range of knowledge pursuits - sciences, arts, literature, history, etc. - and let them pick up what they find interesting.

I started learning Latin last year using the D'Ooge text from this site. I wasn't sure I would persevere, but here I am 15 months in, progressing slowly but steadily in my 30 minutes per day, almost every day. I have come to the point where I have a backlog of questions I'd like to ask. So I thought it time to become a member.

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