proxieme

Refresh my German
2 Years of College-Level German Later... 3 years ago

...And I remember almost none of it.
Isn’t that always the story?

I mean, 3 years of highschool Latin and I remember, “Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Amant!” (Thank you, Mr. Fern.)
Oh, and there’s, “Ecce! In pictura est puella Romana, nomine Cornellia.” (The first line to the first-year Ecce, Romani! primer.)

I hear a lot of German wives talk to each other and to their children – I can even pick out some of what they say (OK, mostly colors, days of the weeks, and numbers)...does that count?

Apr 21, 2006, 10:49AM PDT | 2 cheers


Comments:

MissyWombat

O me Hercule!

Once upon a time I was able to very slowly translate bits of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and read about Julius Caesar. Hard to believe that we also started with that same reader.
These days, I could have written your post. Except my language is French.

But Latin was certainly one of the most interesting subjects I took at high school and it did wonders for my English.

I find it amusing that you copped the same readers we did even though we did Latin in very different parts of the world.

Apr 22, 2006, 07:09AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

proxieme

I guess...

I guess they only have so many eager young minds to write for, eh?

My entry-level latin class consisted of 10 kids crammed into a broom-closet-sized room (and there were no other periods of the course, as opposed to 5 25-person classes for Spanish and French).

Re: Doing wonders for one’s English:
I will give it that…I doubt I ever would have heard “fatuus” (or even “fatuous”) in every-day conversation

May 04, 2006, 07:29PM PDT | Respond to this

SaraEMiller

Did you chant your Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Amant!? Because we did, and it looks strangly familiar when typed with such gusto? :-)

Aug 30, 2006, 08:33PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

proxieme

My teacher had a kid skip around a giant sombrero while we said it to the tune
Da-da, Da-da, Da-da, Dadadadadada…

Aug 31, 2006, 08:31PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

SaraEMiller

Sombreros in Latin eh?! Yes, that’s the same sort of chanting we did! Hoorah for someone else who knows a dead language….

Latin is a dreaded language
As you can plainly see
First it killed the Romans
And now it’s killing me!

GOod luck with your German—I’d like to pick more of it up myself. :)

Aug 31, 2006, 09:07PM PDT | Respond to this


proxieme has gotten 2 cheers on this entry.

 

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