Three Doubts Parents Raise About Latin

Parents are sensible to ask questions before they enroll a child in anything. Latin draws three questions more often than any others, and each deserves a straight answer.

Is Latin a dead language?

No one speaks it as a mother tongue, and that is the only sense in which it is dead. In every other sense it is among the most alive things a child will study. A large share of English vocabulary comes from Latin, directly or through French, and the share grows as words become longer and more formal. A student who reads Latin is reading the source of the language she already uses, and she begins to see how English words are built.

Will it be too much work?

It depends on the class, and this is why we hold a real conversation with every family before enrollment. Every class runs two hours and follows one shape: a certamen opens the class, homework is reviewed, there is a Latin Q&A, and then the class reads. A child always knows what the two hours will hold, and a child who knows what is coming works with less dread.

What does it have to do with her future?

Some families enroll with the AP Latin exam in view, and we are glad to prepare students for it. But the better answer is about attention. Latin asks a student to look at every word in a sentence, to decide what each is doing, and to be wrong in a way that can be corrected. That habit transfers to every subject that matters later.

If your doubt is not on this list, send it to us. We would rather answer it in person than leave it to guesswork.