Latin Continuers/Extension Course Questions? (1 Viewer)

[samouree]

Hey guys I have a few questions about the Latin Continuers/Extension course:

1) Do the people who do Latin know it beforehand or do they know absolutely nothing about it and learn all of the grammar/vocabulary/punctuation and what not when they're doing it. What I'm trying to say is do most people have a background in it or do they choose it to learn it?
2) Is it really as difficult as most people say? I enjoy content over skill, so I was wondering which of the two it mainly purposes and what important features would I need personally to excel at the subject.
3)Can you do Latin Extension without Latin Continuers or do you need both?
4)Is it actually fun? I don't want to do a subject were I'll be bored out of my mind with theory stacked on top of theory. Is it interesting to learn. What would you rate it to your other subjects?

Thanks guys in advance for answering and good luck to all Latin students with HSC

 

[p0llex]

1) I'm not quite sure what you're asking here - I would think that almost everybody takes it up for the first time in yr7 or 8 and ideally you would know all the grammar by the time you begin prelim. You can't just start doing it in year 11 if that's what you mean.

2) Difficulty depends on your strengths. Personally I find latin fairly content heavy in the amount of translations you go through, and some of the unseen translations can be quite difficult, requiring you to apply all of your knowledge of grammar, sentence structure, and vocab, as well as knowing about the style and tropes of the author. That said, I don't find most of the short answer or essay questions too hard to get a grasp on. Some people are the complete opposite to me and are really good at unseens but struggle with the analysis. Everybody I know found the grammar through year 8/9/10 pretty difficult (which is probably why it has such a reputation for being hard), but latin in 11/12 is much more about studying texts than the language itself.

3) You need Continuers to do Extension

4) Obviously it's a matter of opinion but I enjoy latin more than any of my other subjects (physics, chem, 4u maths, 2u english). For me the main reason for this is that the texts you study are really very interesting works in themselves, especially if you do extension. You definitely won't find "theory stacked on top of theory", but what most people are surprised by is the amount of literary analysis you do. You need to enjoy looking at different interpretations and thinking about what the authors would have thought at the time they wrote the texts, and how that differs from our perception today.

 

[mreditor16]

1) I'm not quite sure what you're asking here - I would think that almost everybody takes it up for the first time in yr7 or 8 and ideally you would know all the grammar by the time you begin prelim. You can't just start doing it in year 11 if that's what you mean.

2) Difficulty depends on your strengths. Personally I find latin fairly content heavy in the amount of translations you go through, and some of the unseen translations can be quite difficult, requiring you to apply all of your knowledge of grammar, sentence structure, and vocab, as well as knowing about the style and tropes of the author. That said, I don't find most of the short answer or essay questions too hard to get a grasp on. Some people are the complete opposite to me and are really good at unseens but struggle with the analysis. Everybody I know found the grammar through year 8/9/10 pretty difficult (which is probably why it has such a reputation for being hard), but latin in 11/12 is much more about studying texts than the language itself.

3) You need Continuers to do Extension

4) Obviously it's a matter of opinion but I enjoy latin more than any of my other subjects (physics, chem, 4u maths, 2u english). For me the main reason for this is that the texts you study are really very interesting works in themselves, especially if you do extension. You definitely won't find "theory stacked on top of theory", but what most people are surprised by is the amount of literary analysis you do. You need to enjoy looking at different interpretations and thinking about what the authors would have thought at the time they wrote the texts, and how that differs from our perception today.

+1 to these insights. so much! spot on!!