What language to teach my kids...

[Slartibartfast]

I had two years Latin force fed to me in high school, and I chose to take two years of german. I have mixed feeling about Latin. It is useful yes, but I think I would have preferred two years of a modern language.

Favorite Latin phrase:

'He secretly knows the faith'

translates in Latin as "fedim clam scit' pronounced as you think it should be.


favorite German phrase,

"Ich habe eine apfelkuchen in meine hose."

Some kids in my class convinced someone outside the class into thinking this was a pick up line to use on the German exchange girls that were visiting our school for two weeks. The guy had to be suspicous, but he used it anyway.

[wolf]

That's GOOOOOOD.

All the German that one of my friend's retained was the ability to shout "Dieser Pullover ist sehr klar!"

Not terribly useful, but funny.

To show off my lack of Latin:

Illegitimi non carborundum.

[Pi]

Actually both sentences (I mean the german ones) don't mean anything

[staceyv]

i think it's great that you want to teach your kid a foreign language so early. it's so easy at that age!! at the bottom of my post, i put a link to the site where you can get videos to instruct very young children in a foreign language.
a common stereotype in russia is that americans are the only people who never learn to speak foreign languages, because they think everyone should know english. joke: what do you call someone who speaks two languages? bilingual. what do you call someone who speaks more than two languages? multilingual. what do you call someone who speaks one language? american.
that bothers me!! so anyway, i think you're doing a great job as a parent, and i think a lot of people were right when they suggested spanish, because it is the second most prevalent language in the U.S, and learning it would make it easier to learn portuguese, french, italian- even russian! i took 4 years of spanish in high school, and now that i'm learning russian, it is so much easier for me because i understand things like verb conjugation and gender of nouns...

http://www.russianmeetingplace.com/f...&threadid=1188 (the forum where i discovered these stereotypes about americans)

http://thetoyhunt.com/litpeopvid-bil...OVMTC=standard (videos to teach young children foreign languages.)

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by Pi
Actually both sentences (I mean the german ones) don't mean anything

hmm,

'This sweater is very clearly'

is what wolf's seems to mean.

With the help of babel fish I have tacked on what look like the correct suffixes for words in my sentence to get

'Ich habe einen Apfelkuchen in meinen Hosen'.

Word endings suck.

[BrianR]

I have an apple cookie in my pants?

I don't get it.

[perth]

Originally posted by marichiko
Plus, I know all these cool Latin phrases like "Ad astra per asperum" and "Cave canem!"

How weird. Those are the only 2 phrases I remember from my year of Latin. I don't even remember how the first translates, but I couldn't forget the "cave canem" to save my life.

[Happy Monkey]

My first Latin teacher was named Mr. Cave. Fun.


Veni, vidi, vincit concat concidi!

[jinx]

Is that an apple cookie in your pants or are you just.... oh never mind...

Originally posted by BrianR
I have an apple cookie in my pants?

I don't get it.

Originally posted by perth

How weird. Those are the only 2 phrases I remember from my year of Latin. I don't even remember how the first translates, but I couldn't forget the "cave canem" to save my life.

"Cave canem" does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" My Latin text book had a picture of a piece of ancient Roman marble that had been dug up with those words inscribed on it and a picture of a dog with lots of teeth. The other phrase means 'to the stars through difficulty."

My Latin teacher was named Mrs. Galley, and we all called ourselves "Galley slaves."

[Happy Monkey]

Actually, my second Latin teacher was named Mrs. Payne. I wonder if this is a Latin teacher tradition.

[perth]

Originally posted by marichiko


"Cave canem" does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" My Latin text book had a picture of a piece of ancient Roman marble that had been dug up with those words inscribed on it ...

Holy shit! I remember that! This one, I think.

Edit: Actually, this one looks more familiar.

[wolf]

Originally posted by Pi
Actually both sentences (I mean the german ones) don't mean anything

They have meaning. They just don't make sense.