This is why I’m learning Latin

Many moons ago, I was an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. I was part of a travel and teach movement that preceded the digital nomads. In other words, I travelled to different countries to teach English, writing, and a conversation club.

I also taught English for business in companies, mainly to executives. This included the discussion of whatever technologies were trending at the time.

That was before a change of career to journalism.

As you can see, the use of words has always been part of my life in one way or another. I was fascinated by the etymology of the words. I still am.

For those who may not know, etymology is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.

Etymologies are not definitions; they’re explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.

Thinking about this brought me a memory from a teacher who was working at a publishing house. He was a regular speaker at conferences organised by Longman, the publishing house.

Once, he said he had a dictionary of synonyms on his bedside table and that every night, before sleeping, he read a few entries.

This amazed me back then and it still amazes me today.

Of course, those were the days when traditional dictionaries were still a common thing. Writing, teaching, and learning were all linked to good reading habits and with learning grammar and spelling properly.

Those were the days before GPT and that Grammarly AI software. Those were the days when writing was exclusively a human skill. That’s a whole different story for some other time.

But, where was I?

Yes, why considering all the languages I decided to learn Latin, a dead language used by no one. However, some knowledge of Latin becomes useful when learning any other language, which is how this all started.

You see, when social media became too toxic and woke, and after being suspended from Twitter, the wokest of them all, (before it became X) because I dared to speak my mind and have an opinion, I decided to use my time doing something useful: learning languages for fun on Duolingo.

I added way too many languages to my list of languages. Quickly I realised that some languages are really difficult because I can’t figure out how they work, which is my favourite way of learning.

One day, I decided to add Latin to my list. I quickly became hooked. I find it truly fascinating. After a while, I noticed I was devoting more time to Latin than to any other of the languages on my list.

I found it more fun when I started noticing the influence of Latin on many of the other languages.

Did you know that about one-half of the words in modern English have been borrowed from Latin?

Studying Latin, with its highly organised grammar, makes us coordinate ideas, reflect on the various ways to say the same thing, and thus to write and speak better in English.

Perhaps what fascinates me the most about Latin is the word order and its flexibility. After I learned the correct word order and the accepted variations, learning new words in Latin became a piece of cake.

To be honest, I think learning Latin is a lot of fun. In addition, learning any language keeps the brain active and healthy. It’s like a gym for the brain.

Surprisingly, I am not the only one who finds Latin a fascinating language to learn as a hobby. I have found groups, YouTube channels, podcasts, storytelling, and entire Websites dedicated to the teaching and practice of Latin. And some applications as well.

My current favourite application is called Legentibus by Latinitium. Here, the goal is to listen and read Latin texts for 10 minutes a day. Later, I can change this to increase the time if I want. Because I know how language learning works, I enjoy this immersive system of learning in context very much.

I plan on putting my Latin to the test in real life. How? You may wonder, since Latin is a dead language. Yet, there is one place in the world where you can speak Latin and you have good chances to be understood: The Vatican City State, which is the official name of the Vatican.

Vatican City is the only country (surrounded by Rome, Vatican City gained its independence from Italy in 1929) where Latin is still one of the official languages. The other two are French and Italian. I have been to Vatican City once, and that was before I decided to learn Latin.

If I go again in the future, I will certainly impress someone if I go to a café and order a cup of tea or gelato in Latin.

I could say:

Velim poculum theae. (I would like a cup of tea.)

Velim gelatum vallinatum. (I would like vanilla ice-cream.)

Or, even order something to eat:

Velim placentam Margheritam cum olivis et fungi. (I would like a pizza Margherita with olives and mushrooms.)

After all, not many locals will expect a visitor to speak Latin. How cool would that be?

So, in case you got lost in the long story, why am I learning Latin? To keep my brain active and healthy, and to go to Vatican City and order tea, ice-cream, and pizza in Latin.

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