I did a little 'improve your Latin before starting an MA where It might be needed' course as well as the o-level.
I did it straight after an immersion course on Welsh, with the result that the professors gathered around to listen to me reading Latin, as they couldn't work out how I'd got such a good accent. Unfortunately, they were dissapointed to learn how much of Nennius and Gildas I could actually understand.
I got my Latin O-level by noting that the Unseen Translation was usually one of Pliny's letters, and memorising the lot of them. Also because in our syllabus, in addition to seen and unseen translation, you could either do more of the above, or a literature/culture question, and one of the questions was the atrium of the house of the brothers in Pompeii: I think at that point I had memorised the excavation report and just reproduced it.
I'd like to take the opportunity to recommend The Roman House and Social Identity - S. Hales, 2003 and 'Colour and Light in a Pompeian House: Modern Impressions or Ancient Perceptions' Penelope M. Allison in A Jones and G, MacGregor (eds) Colouring the Past. The Significance of Colour in archaeological Research 195-207. I do wonder if that latter paper has had any influence on Dr Who. Probably not, but it would be nice if it did!
I passed my 3rd year high school exam in Latin in much the same way as muuranker passed her O level. I now remember (completely literally) only about 3 lines of Latin, probably the first 3 we learnt (one was "Caecilius est in via"). Not even what famous phrases often heard in general conversation mean, because we were busy learning about what Caecilius got up to, I imagine.
What was the dog called in those books? It's on the tip of my tongue.
I haven't had much need to know Latin, however, personally, and can look things up if need be, so never mind eh? Personally I think that learning 3 languages for 2 years with few lessons in each did me no good at all, since I can't remember my year of German either. That would have been useful to remember. Only the French, somewhat, which was begun in Primary school, and studied to GCSE.
Nb. I am not knocking classics one bit and think that it's a shame that they are not offered in schools as much now. Just the specificity of my experience ie. the way it was organised in my high school.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 12:02 pm (UTC)I did it straight after an immersion course on Welsh, with the result that the professors gathered around to listen to me reading Latin, as they couldn't work out how I'd got such a good accent. Unfortunately, they were dissapointed to learn how much of Nennius and Gildas I could actually understand.
I got my Latin O-level by noting that the Unseen Translation was usually one of Pliny's letters, and memorising the lot of them. Also because in our syllabus, in addition to seen and unseen translation, you could either do more of the above, or a literature/culture question, and one of the questions was the atrium of the house of the brothers in Pompeii: I think at that point I had memorised the excavation report and just reproduced it.
I'd like to take the opportunity to recommend The Roman House and Social Identity - S. Hales, 2003 and 'Colour and Light in a Pompeian House: Modern Impressions or Ancient Perceptions' Penelope M. Allison in A Jones and G, MacGregor (eds) Colouring the Past. The Significance of Colour in archaeological Research 195-207. I do wonder if that latter paper has had any influence on Dr Who. Probably not, but it would be nice if it did!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 03:32 pm (UTC)What was the dog called in those books? It's on the tip of my tongue.
I haven't had much need to know Latin, however, personally, and can look things up if need be, so never mind eh? Personally I think that learning 3 languages for 2 years with few lessons in each did me no good at all, since I can't remember my year of German either. That would have been useful to remember. Only the French, somewhat, which was begun in Primary school, and studied to GCSE.
Nb. I am not knocking classics one bit and think that it's a shame that they are not offered in schools as much now. Just the specificity of my experience ie. the way it was organised in my high school.
the dog
Date: 2008-04-14 09:29 pm (UTC)