+++
title = "Learning Latin the wrong way, an argument against ignorance."
author = ["George Jones"]
publishDate = 2022-01-29T00:00:00-05:00
lastmod = 2022-02-26T07:57:04-05:00
tags = ["latin"]
categories = ["blog"]
draft = false
+++

I'm doing some of the Duolingo Latin course. Who knew you could shop, converse
and joke in Latin? Certainly not the classics professors I learned from.
Quid pudor est.

> There is no reason why learners should be made
> to treat every Latin text as puzzle to be deciphered into translation,
> rather than a specimen of normal human communication to be understood as
> such.

<http://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/argumentum-ad-ignorantiam.html?m=1>

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A longer quote from the article:

> The fact that there aren't any Romans to chat with anymore didn't stop
> people like Erasmus from using it as a conversational language with other
> educated people. Even though there is little practical need for spoken
> proficiency in Latin anymore, there is no reason why learners of Latin
> today should be railroaded into the kind of semi-literacy that academic
> classicists often acquire. There is no reason why learners should be made
> to treat every Latin text as puzzle to be deciphered into translation,
> rather than a specimen of normal human communication to be understood as
> such.

There's a lot more.  Very cogent.   Makes me sad I (halfway) learned
Latin the way I did.  Duolingo is good.

Lingua latina vere vivit.

---George Jones