The most esteemed and beautiful Latin language has long bewitched the mind of your humble blogmaster. I first came across the language after changing high schools in my junior year. I had previously (read: lackadaisically) attempted to fulfill my language requirement for graduation by means of Spanish, yet, due to a lack of desire to learn the language and a general lack of desire to apply myself, this never quite worked out. Upon changing high schools however, I was presented with a larger option of languages (my previous high school only offered--you guessed it--Spanish). French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Hebrew, Latin, all these languages swirled in my head each calling out to me to try to surmount their individual difficulties.
The choice was a hard one.
My mother though, had taken both French and Latin when she was in high school and thus could give me recommendations with those languages. After slogging through a semester of Spanish, I wanted something different. Different yet familiar. Being the eccentric person I am, I had no choice but to go for the geekier lingua latina. This was my first real attempt at a language, and soon I fell in love. I was charmed for the first time by the old Roman myths I had held such distaste for previously. The language itself seemed to make so much more sense than my native English, and was taught by a hilarious, flamboyant Irish man who spoke more languages than I had fingers to count! Combine my interest with the language and a very engaging teacher, and I was sold.
My Latin learning, however, was very fragmentary in nature. Seeing how I was a second semester junior heading into my senior year, I didn't exactly have much time to cram my head with this language. So I finished up Latin I with little difficulty and had to make the decision to teach myself Latin II or summer so I could come into the AP Latin class in the fall, or to wait for fall to come around and enter into Latin II. Out of my class of 20 or so students, I was the only one to make the jump to AP. A new year and a new class. The kids in AP Latin were some of the best I ever had the pleasure to meet in high school. We struggled with the new syntax brought about by Latin poetry and pulled our hair out at finally being confronted by 'real' Latin (a problem I have with the way Latin is taught in most American schools). We somehow managed to pull through for the whole year and sit the AP exam with great confidence. Somehow I managed to pull a 5 on the exam although having little Latin experience in comparison my classmates.
In my excitement for applying and getting into college, I left Latin by the wayside. I had spent countless hours struggling with it for almost two years, and wanted nothing more than a break. So it was no surprise that in my first semester at college, I opted to try something new and try my hand at Mandarin (to be discussed at a later date). However, come spring semester I could no longer resist the temptation that Latin hung in front of me. So for my ISP (independent study project) I chose to go back to my lingua patria and translate a never-before-translated Medieval Latin epic poem. Now there were a couple of things that hindered my ability: 1) I hadn't worked on Latin for almost a year, 2) it was a much later form of Latin than I was used to, and 3) I was a lazy first-year college kid. I plan on going back and revising my work and will probably post it on here when I get around to it. After struggling with my half-forgotten Latin for a month straight I was thrown into the metaphorical pot of boiling water: Juvenal.
Now for the unknowing, Juvenal was a Roman satirist who has the horrid reputation of being basically the hardest Latin writer to read in the history of everything.
And I am tempted to agree.
We read all sixteen of his satires in one semester, but only translated/read in the original Latin, the first six of them. These six satires are still probably the most awful Latin writings I have ever had to struggle through. I don't know how I managed to pull through and pass the class, but I sure did better my Latin skills. With that under my belt, I moved on to summer, and my second year of college.
(continued in lingua latina pars secunda)
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