{"id":6257,"date":"2017-09-06T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T14:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mytutor.co.uk\/blog\/?p=6257"},"modified":"2021-08-18T12:11:26","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T12:11:26","slug":"is-latin-useful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mytutor.co.uk\/blog\/uncategorized\/is-latin-useful\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Latin useful?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you decide to study Latin, someone is bound to ask you \u201cwhy?\u201d, and \u201cwhat can you do with a Latin degree?\u201d Lots of people seem to think that if you choose to study Latin at university, you probably want to become a Latin teacher, because what else can you do with a Latin degree?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although I love tutoring, I am not planning to become a teacher. And yet I chose a Classics degree\u2026<\/p>\n

Why? Simple: Latin\u2019s utility<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Yes, you\u2019re right: I believe that studying Latin<\/a> is useful, whatever career you choose, and here are five reasons why:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. More than half of the English lexicon comes from Latin. Therefore, studying Latin can help you to make sense of unfamiliar English words. It can also help you to understand why certain English words mean what they mean. For example, the adjective \u201cpaternal\u201d doesn\u2019t look like the noun \u201cfather\u201d, but if you know that \u201cpater\u201d means \u201cfather\u201d in Latin, the English adjective \u201cpaternal\u201d, and other words such as \u201cpatriarchy\u201d, suddenly make more sense.<\/li>\n
  2. Studying Latin trains your mind. Latin grammar is far from easy, and mastering it will give you lots of transferable skills, such as the ability to analyse, spot patterns, and pay attention to detail.<\/li>\n
  3. Latin is the mother of what are referred to as the \u2018Romance languages\u2019, a group of languages which include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. If you\u2019ve studied Latin, you\u2019ll be able to pick up any of the Romance languages pretty easily. But studying Latin won\u2019t just help you learn the Romance languages – my knowledge of the Latin case system made learning German much less confusing that it would\u2019ve been otherwise.<\/li>\n
  4. Most scientific words are based on Latin or Greek words. Have you ever wondered why the symbol for iron is Fe? Or Au for gold? All the symbols in the Periodic Table come from Latin words (\u2018ferrum\u2019 means \u2018iron\u2019 in Latin, and \u2018aurum\u2019 means \u2018gold\u2019).<\/li>\n
  5. Likewise, lots of legal terms come from Latin – and I\u2019m not talking about English terms with a Latin root, but Latin terms used in English sentences. Even if you don\u2019t want to pursue a legal career, being able to understand terms like \u2018ad hoc\u2019, \u2018quid pro quo\u2019, \u2018de facto\u2019, and \u2018de jure\u2019, will help you to understand the technical language used in a contract.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"

    You really don\u2019t need to love the ancient world to want to study Latin. Latin is the foundation of Western culture, so if you are interested in understanding the world we live in, you can justify studying Latin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If you decide to study Latin, someone is bound to ask you \u201cwhy?\u201d, and \u201cwhat can you do with a Latin degree?\u201d Lots of people seem to think that if you choose to study Latin at university, you probably want…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[788,248,1,17],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs Latin useful? - MyTutor Blog for Students - A Tutor's Perspective<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you decide to study Latin, someone is bound to ask you \u201cwhy?\u201d, and \u201cwhat can you do with a Latin degree?\u201d But Latin is actually very useful.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mytutor.co.uk\/blog\/uncategorized\/is-latin-useful\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Latin useful? 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