Iris was kind enough to share an entertaining item about school, so it would only be fair to share one of mine.
I received awards in art, sports, German, science and math in high school. But the distinction I am proudest of is the "Adios, muchachos!" award given by my Latin teacher to the student who skips the most classes and still manages to pass. (I know that is Spanish, but he taught both Latin and Spanish and gives one award per class.)
The whole point of dumping German to study Latin was because I longed to be freed of all the myriad grammatical rules. Latin was even worse. After learning the fourth declension, I saw that there were three more to go. It was too demoralizing.
Someone should tell all those kids studying Latin to help raise their SAT scores that mine went down after I took Latin. That should be proof that English makes no sense.
Latin Links:
A Dead Language That's Very Much Alive
Are We Rome? Tu Betchus!
And I have some great stories to tell about me and Shakespeare!
My poor husband was required to learn latin in school too. I think all italian school children were subjected to it for obvious reasons. Although I never took Latin, German never appealed to me because of all the rules. I'm lucky that Italian is the language I have to try to learn for my in-laws. It's relatively simple with clear rules and is completely phonetic. The only sticking point is a weird tense (passato remoto) used in literature and in the southern regions of Italy. Thankfully, my in-laws are from Lombardia, so I don't hear it much in casual conversation. :)
ReplyDeleteBut you should be proud of your Adios, muchachos award. Definitely an accomplishment :)