Unit 1

Hi guys!!

Rosetta Stone came in the mail earlier this week! I was very excited to start to use it! There are four units in the first of three CDs of Rosetta Stone. I was set-back on my goal because Rosetta Stone came halfway through the first cycle. I will have to spend a lot of time with Rosetta Stone this cycle to meet my goal of completing all four units by the next block day. I finished the first unit tonight, and hope by the end of the week to finish the next two units.

I've already learned a lot from the program, through listening, speaking, writing, and grammar lessons. Rosetta Stone has many different exercises. In listening sections, one of the exercises is that they will play a word while you pick the picture that it is associated with. In speaking sections, one of the exercises is they have you speak to complete a sentence. In writing exercises, they have you type out vocabulary words. In grammar lessons, they have you fill in a sentence with the correctly conjugated word.

With my experience of French, I was able to recognize a lot of words. I find the influence that Latin had on other languages interesting, and now it is showing it's benefits with my French and English.

I cannot bring Rosetta Stone into school, which means that I have to put in more time at home to make up for the lost time at school. That's fine with me, though, because I find an extreme interest in the language, and enjoy spending time learning it.

In the first unit, I learned basic words. I learned genders, numbers, colors, food, clothing, animals, settings, actions and on and on. Here's a picture of the program, and some of the words that I was learning.

I thought it would be helpful to translate some of the words seen:
femina - woman
ambulant - (to) walk
oryzam - rice
luna - moon
sol - sun
caelum - sky

I learned that I have difficulty with pronouncing Latin words, and am glad that it is mainly read and not spoken. I learned that my past with French helps me remember Latin words. I'm really happy with the project that I chose, and I find a lot of interest in it. I hope that I will be able to meet my goals by the next block day.

Comments:
I commented on David Weiss, Lizzy Cutler, and Christy Yang.

Ordering

Hi!

During the break I finally ordered Rosetta Stone. After first previewing the system, my mom helped me order it online. I'm upset that it won't come until the end of the week, but in the meantime I will continue to research Latin and its influence not only on the English language but on others as well. This delay in getting the program does mean that I will have to spend extra time to meet my goal of having the first level done by the block day after the next one, but I think that I can do it. I'm very excited to start to study the language itself, after researching the background of it. Of course now, because of ordering Rosetta Stone with my email address, all of the commercials on YouTube are from Rosetta Stone. The main subject being "Boring Bill" who has a choice to learn a new language. That's alright, however, because it makes me feel more accomplished with making the same choice as Bill and learning a new language. 

Research

I wanted to learn about the effects of Latin on English speakers. Latin is still used in medicine and science, for scientific names. English has Latin roots, which shows that Latin can help with the development of English vocabulary, as well as other languages. French, the language that I take in school, has Latin roots, and is the root of many English words as well. 


I also wanted to research a final book that I could read as an ultimate test of my knowledge, so that is what I wanted to spend some of my time researching. Hopefully Rosetta Stone will come soon!

Some books that came up were:

• Latin Vulgate Bible
• Metamorphoses by Ovid
• The Aeneid by Robert Fitzgerald Virgil

Benefits:

• Learning about culture (reading classic works shows the culture of the time period)
• Personal growth and fulfillment
• Helpful with other languages
• Latin grammar is helpful with English grammar
• Makes you more careful about English
• SAT scores
• English accuracy increases

Again I didn't learn about myself through the research yet.

Future

I am planning to start the Rosetta Stone application as soon as I get it, which will be my next step in learning Latin.

(Who Says Latin's Dead? Digital image. Myenglishkey.com. N.p., n.d. Web.                                <http://media.withtank.com/512c92d8b6/latin_expressions_460_wide.jpg>.)

Links:

http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/student-voices-12/classics/

(Ruccolo, Cara. "A Case for Classics in Middle School." Johns Hopkins, June 2004. Web. <http%3A%2F%2Feducation.jhu.edu%2FPD%2Fnewhorizons%2Fstudent-voices-12%2Fclassics%2F>.)

https://www.uta.edu/english/tim/courses/4301w99/lge.html

("Latin, Greek, and Their Non-descendant English." Latin, Greek, and Their Non-descendant English. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2015. <https://www.uta.edu/english/tim/courses/4301w99/lge.html>.)

http://www.unrv.com/culture/latin-language.php

(Heaton, Chris. "Latin Language." Latin Language. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2015. <http://www.unrv.com/culture/latin-language.php>.)

http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/pedagogy/latinbenefits.html

(Pauvr, Claude. "Some Leading Benefits of Latin (and Classical) Studies." Benefits of Latin. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2015. <http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/pedagogy/latinbenefits.html>.)

The Beginning

The Beginning



When I first heard of the genius project, I immediately thought of sign language. I love to be able to communicate through my hands, and it's always been an interest of mine. However, I also have an extreme interest in Latin, and that language could help me to expand my English understanding and of course help me with learning new languages, because many word roots come from the Latin language. 

After long consideration, I realized that Latin would be more beneficial to learn now, because my SATs are coming up, and it would be wonderful if I learned something that could help me improve my SAT scores.





Here is a chart just to show the benefits of learning Latin on SAT scores.




I have decided to learn Latin through Rosetta Stone, however my decision is different from my parents. My mom is on board with me learning Latin through Rosetta Stone, and my dad knows that I want to take Latin, and has been willing in the past to buy me a language learning program. Because of this, I was not able to start to learn the actual language of Latin, but I was able to do a little bit of research about its history.

My Research



Through my research, I learned that :

Latin was originally spoken in Latium, a region around Rome. 80% of English words come from Latin. Latin was the learned language for science and politics, for over a thousand years. It was replaced however by French and English. Latin is still the formal language of the Roman Catholic Church, and is one of the official national languages of Vatican. Latin is also used for classifying living things in science. 

Some English grammar was influenced through Latin, but they don't have the same grammar rules. During the 16th to 18th century, English writers created many words through Latin roots. They were known as "ink pot" words, as if they were spilled from an ink pot.

This just gives me background on where the roots come from, and how it affects English. This shows me why it's important to learn Latin now.

Here are the links from where I found the information:



http://www.latinlanguage.org/latin/history.asp




("Latin Language." History of the Latin. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.)

http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/ling450ch/reports/latin.html




(Hallen, Cynthia L. "Latin." Latin. Brigham Young University, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.)





What I learned

So far this hasn't really taught me about anything about myself, other than I find an interest in a dead language and that I like to build a foundation of learning before I expand upon that foundation. From here I want to start to learn the language, and I hope that my parents will let me download the Rosetta Stone kit, so that I can begin to learn Latin ASAP.



My goals



By every 2 block days I want to finish one of the sections of Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone tests your knowledge as you progress, which is my way of testing my skills. I will measure my progress through having one section finished by 2 block days. 


Comments


I commented on Lizzy Cutler, Christy Yang, and Sieanna Rahatt's blogs.