My name is John Avellar and I am a 44 year old man from Boston. I have a desire to learn many different languages-so many in fact that, until now, I have been unable to move forward to the study of any one language: So, as of today I have decided to focus solely on Latin for the next twelve months. Latin has always been one of my favorite choices but time and time again something about another language would catch my eye and I would be off on a tangent.
The book I have chosen to work with is INTENSIVE LATIN by Carl A.P.
Ruck who is a Classics professor at Boston University. I have spent a lot of time going over this and the two books he has written to teach ancient Greek and though I plan to study Greek using both his grammars, the complete answer key and texts found in this intensive Latin course will make the going a little easier (or so I hope). Ruck uses the inductive method in both his Greek grammars which, as he explains in the introduction to the two works, means teaching Greek from the perspective of Greek and not English. This has always seemed attractive to me but the beginners text he wrote has no answer key though plenty of short texts, and the more current volume has an answer key but no texts. I hope it is needless to say but anybody with any knowledge of any of his grammatical works in either Greek or Latin, please tell me what you think of them. I will still embark on their study nonetheless since I have spent a great deal of time building up my fortitude to tackle them, but I crave to know what you have to say.
I hope that it is all right to mention here how much I have enjoyed reading the ideas and comments found on the various boards. For instance, I was just as impressed with the person who found Hebrew a relatively easy language to learn as the gentleman who wrote to express his astonishment that anybody could find Hebrew to be so; as I was equally impressed with the arguments of the gentleman who found Wheelock’s textbook to be less than helpful to the furtherance of later study of Latin texts. These are the kinds of postings that make Texkit a dream come true.
As to my other interests I love beautiful women of the Latin American persuasion of whom East Boston has an amazing assortment; and I also enjoy eating good food and pretending to be on a diet so that I can enjoy undeserved compassion from other portly people.
Welcome here! We are glad that you have found us. Good luck with the latin studies, and be sure to make good use of the forums if you have any questions. 
Thanks a lot for your words of welcome. I think your nickname “klewlis”
is very funny. For a moment I wondered at the pronunciation, and then I got the joke. I think that inflected languages often cause those of us not reared in an inflected tongue-or sparsely inflected ones like English or Chinese-to feel a sense of “cluelessness” when confronted with the task of working through highly inflected ones like Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit.
take care
lol.
I’ve had “klewlis” as a nick for… 5 years. When I acquired it I knew no Latin, and have since been delighted to find that it is declinable as a latin noun. So I lucked out on that one. 
Welcome to textkit! Hehehe, sounds like you’re still undecided… Latin or Greek? Or maybe Spanish…
Good luck with you’re latin studies.
Hi John,
Welcome to Textkit! It’s been a few years since the last time I was in Boston, it’s a lovely city as long as one doesn’t attempt to drive in it. LOL. You should come out here to California, there are plenty of beautiful women here too, and I’ll bet some can even teach you Spanish… Good luck on your Latin studies…
Welcome, John!
I had the similar problem to what you had with languages and I had decided on Greek recently. A community full of decent people devoted to language studies like this is so invaluable especially to those who’s studying those ancient laguages by one’s self.
Those classical languages are not required to get a job or any advanced courseworks in college, let alone promotion, in Korea. In short, it doesn’t sell, so that there’s only limited amount of resource for the study. That’s a pity. But since there’s no pressure about it, you can, at least, fully enjoy yourself with studying those languages.
σχολή is a leisure time in Greek, but these days students “work - so hard” in school. I have an odd feeling about this: “what’s gone wrong?”
Thanks Mariek for the words of welcome.
Boston is a beautiful city and the drivers are #$%^$# idiots. I have not been well traveled, but I did go to Lima, Peru, and I was astonished by how much worse the drivers were there than Boston. I loved the Peruvians and Lima had beautiful weather even in April when Beantown’s weather is poop city, but, man alive, crossing the street was a exercise in
death-avoidance.
As far as California goes, I almost died at the beautiful sunset that was filmed on the eve of President Regan’s death. Like most New Englanders, I love to rail at the lunacy of Californians, but, truth be told, I love California in film, music, literature, and female/male beauty. It is a place I am afraid to visit for fear that I would never want to go back to the increasingly #$%%$# cold winters that have been assailing Boston in the last two years. If, through some miracle my so-dumb-I’m-almost-a rock-spending- stupidity somehow stops and I can one day retire, I will sing," California here I come…"
Take care,
Big John
Thanks for your welcome, mingshey.
As you may not be surprised to learn, I have a few books on Korean that are waiting on my shelf longing to be put to good use. I studied Chinese for two years and when I asked a fellow student what language he had studied, he answered that he had taken Korean in the Army and had found it to be a far more difficult language than he found Chinese to be. In fact, he had to discontinue his studies because he could make no headway at all. Given the native intelligence of my classmate and his studious nature, I became fascinated with this language that could drive him to quit his study of it before the course was over. Moreover, as the years have slipped by, I have heard many a person remark on the difficulty of Korean.
I once taught a Korean couple in my English class and they were wonderful students and people. They showed me the kind of respect that Noam Chomsky seldom receives, let alone a state college graduate with only a 4 year degree. I have read that there is a special artistic form that celebrates teachers and teaching which is unique to Korea. If you are familiar with this art form, please tell me what it is called as I brilliantly managed to misplace the article that dealt with this artistic expression.
When you speak of the pressure that Korean students must suffer through I can only illuminate your/their situation by comparing it to the public school at which I work at night teaching adults. During the day young students move through the halls using curse words-including the terrible F-and C- words- with an impunity that would astonish even the most jaded sailors. I once passed by a classroom where the children were so out-of-control that I feared for the elderly gentleman who sat amidst the free-for-all unable to control the students one bit. At another and even tougher school a teacher I know was deeply depressed at the MURDER of one of her young students just outside the school building.
In this sort of environment Albert Einstein could not have learned basic math, let alone the poor and unfortunate students who must deal with this nonsense each and every day.
It is true that Korea is legendary for its competitive and grueling school system but, all things being equal, at least the over-emphasis that is put on what we call ‘marketable skills’- and which is very much a part of the college system in this country as well- is much to be desired when measured against a system like that which currently exists in the United States where a massive amount of horrible behavior and outright criminal acts are the norm in all too many urban public schools.
Mingshey, congrats on your decision to learn Greek. I wish you luck. I know how hard it is to love to study what brings pleasure of the deepest kind when so many others deride the very same study as irrelevant or even selfishly indulgent.
Take care.
Big John
conversation I have just
I cannot grasp what kind of artistic form you have in mind. though I can recall a song for teachers that’s similar in sense with “To sir, with love(by Don Black & Marc London)”–if you happened to watch the movie. The lines go like this: “Teacher’s Grace is as great as Heaven, We cannot honour it too much, …who taught you to be true and to be good, …”, but it’s not unique to Korean, since it already has its counterpart in English.
If you mean an honorific title you call teachers, there is a couple. “Susung-nim(-nim is an honorific suffix)”, which refers to a teacher who is rearing your intellectual mind as well as your soul up–though I can hardly imagine what is the artistic sense in this title. “Sonsangnim” is a general title you use everyday, but it comes from the Chinese title like “Mister” in English. And it is also used in Japanese, “Sensei”. So this is not unique to Korean.
Sorry I think I couldn’t help you very much.
Thank you for your encouragement, big John!
Good luck to your Latin study, too!
Thank you for your response,
It was so long ago that it may have well been a different country and not Korea at all. In any case, when I get the chance I’ll look around and see if I can find out what artistic form the writer was talking about.
Take care,
Big John