Latin, school and you.

[PDH]

Latin is a language, dead as dead can be.
First it killed the Romans, now it's killing me.

[Barrister]

I had enough trouble with French - why would I try and learn latin?

[The Larch]

I had it for one year when I was 15. I finished the course and never looked back.

[garbon]

I had enough trouble with French - why would I try and learn latin?

For me the only use was helping with word stems in English.

[Alexandru H.]

4 years in Highschool. I was able to fluently read Sallustius by the end of it...

[Maladict]

6 years, 4-5 hours a week. Combined with Dutch, English, German, French and Ancient Greek, it was heavy going. Well worth it, though.

[Valmy]

Why? One doesn't have to use Spanish.

Ok what exactly do you learn in school do you have to use?

Spanish is actually a useful foreign language to Americans.  It would also help our workers compete in a global economy as the majority of people in this hemisphere speak it...not to mention a huge minority in our own country (at least for awhile anyway).

[garbon]

Why? One doesn't have to use Spanish.

Ok what exactly do you learn in school do you have to use?

Spanish is actually a useful foreign language to Americans.  It would also help our workers compete in a global economy as the majority of people in this hemisphere speak it...not to mention a huge minority in our own country (at least for awhile anyway).

Totally agree that it can be useful - not sure why that translated into making it mandatory.

[Martinus]

Never took classes, picked verbiage here and there, mainly during the law school.

I was in a mathematics-physics profiled class in high school because I thought I would be a scientist.

[dps]

I took Latin in college but it wasn't offered in high school.  In high school our choices were Spanish, French, and German.  IMO Spanish should be mandatory in American public schools.

At my high school, the only foreign language choice was French.  Though they had offered German up until a couple or so years before I got there, and started offering Spanish a couple or so years later.

It does make one wonder exactly when high schools in the US quite offereing Latin, though.  When my mom was in high school, it wasn't just offered in WV, it was still a required course in order to graduate, though she and one of her friends got out of taking it by talking their principal into signing a waiver for them.

[garbon]

It does make one wonder exactly when high schools in the US quite offereing Latin, though.  When my mom was in high school, it wasn't just offered in WV, it was still a required course in order to graduate, though she and one of her friends got out of taking it by talking their principal into signing a waiver for them.

As far as I know the public school I went to still offers Latin (alongside Spanish and French).

[Monoriu]

No school in their right mind will teach Latin in HK.  We spend a huge amount of resources in teaching English and we still get very uneven results.  We need to make sure that everybody are fluent in both Chinese and English before we worry about obscure languages.

[Valmy]

Totally agree that it can be useful - not sure why that translated into making it mandatory.

Spanish instruction is very poor in Texas, which I find sorta funny in a sad way, so it would probably be a total disaster if they made it mandatory.  Not to mention politically unlikely.  But I think you could justify doing so here.

[dps]

Totally agree that it can be useful - not sure why that translated into making it mandatory.

Spanish instruction is very poor in Texas, which I find sorta funny in a sad way, so it would probably be a total disaster if they made it mandatory.  Not to mention politically unlikely.  But I think you could justify doing so here.

Listening to Texans speak, or reading things written by them, would seem to indicate than English instruction is also very poor in Texas.   :p:

[CountDeMoney]

Spanish instruction is very poor in Texas, which I find sorta funny in a sad way, so it would probably be a total disaster if they made it mandatory.  Not to mention politically unlikely.  But I think you could justify doing so here.

It would probably help a bit if Texas actually hired Spanish teachers that, you know, actually spoke Spanish.  But we know how Texas feels about minority/ethnic hiring.  Damned Mexicans taking our jobs.