• Skunk@jlai.lu
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    1 month ago

    Cum gallo et gladio.

    That’s the only thing I know in Latin cause I want it to be my family coat of arms.

    It means “with a rooster and a sword”, but you need to understand French to discover the power of that sentence: “Avec un coq et une épée”, or as famously said in slang, “Avec ma bite et mon couteau suisse” (with my dick and Swiss Army knife).

    It a saying we use to say that we don’t need preparation or equipment to do something.

  • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    Latin: I can still bang out the five declensions and the four conjugations in my sleep. Trying to read a text, the sentence structure always finds ways to trip me up.

    Greek: very patchy, I know a lot of words but my grammar is shite

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 month ago

    I learned Latin in school for several years; I only learned to understand and translate it, not actively speak or write it, and have by now forgotten some of it.

    I do not know any Ancient Greek at all, I might recognize some words from other languages.

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    The only Latin I know is from the thaumcraft mod

    Surprisingly it gives you a lot of the roots you need to figure out words in other languages

  • Vanth@reddthat.com
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    1 month ago

    Millennial. I had to take a root words class in grade school, with the promise it would help us become lawyers and doctors. It did not. It has helped me win a couple pub trivia rounds.

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
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    1 month ago

    I am a native Spanish speaker which makes me able to pick up the meaning of about 30-40% of words in Latin, although the semantics often confuse me. As for Ancient Greek (and some Latin words that look nothing like Spanish too) I’ve picked up a fair amount of terms from scientific terms, names and mythology.

    I don’t know how much all this translates into, I’ve never formally studied either.

  • DerEntenjager@feddit.nl
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    1 month ago

    Millennial here. I got a degree in Classics so I learned both in college. I continued to take Latin in grad school. Unfortunately I never used them, because, you know, there are no jobs in Classics, so I realistically have lost both. I could probably identify nouns/verbs/articles/etc and some vocabulary in a sentence. But that’s it. Plus, I’m learning Dutch now, and that has kicked out all other languages rattling around in my head.

    I really enjoyed learning both! And doing so taught me a lot about grammar, linguistics, and etymology that I’ve carried with me through life even if the languages themselves didn’t stick. Would recommend if you have the time.

  • MoonMelon@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    I was forced to take 4 years of Latin and I’ve basically reverted to “Salve Magistra, Italia Peninsula Est” levels. It never clicked with me. Every week was a struggle, I was a terrible student, and I remember jack shit. At best it helped me remember the names of stuff in anatomy class, which was actually interesting. I think the way it was taught is the worst fucking way to learn a language, like most 19th century educational theory.