Spanish vs. Latin

[Guest Gardenia]

I have not taught Latin as suggested in the early years. I had planned to have my children (ages 14 adn 11) begin Spanish this year, but I amk pondering if the Latin would do them more good in understanding SPanish and if it is that helpful for doing better on college entrance exams--if they just learn the Latin prefixes, suffixes, etc won't this do them just as much good? I was hoping they could become fluent enough in conversational Spanish to assist in a ministry our church has to Spanish-speakers in our community.

 

Please share your advice, thoughts.

[nmoira]

 

I amk pondering if the Latin would do them more good in understanding SPanish and if it is that helpful for doing better on college entrance exams--if they just learn the Latin prefixes, suffixes, etc won't this do them just as much good?

If vocabulary enrichment is your primary goal wrt Latin, then roots study will suffice. Latin will not help in the learning of Spanish enough to warrant studying it before starting Spanish. Another way to look at it is that Spanish would be just as much a head start in learning Latin as Latin would be for learning Spanish.

[Guest Gardenia]

Thanks for your post. Yes, my primary reasoning for Latin is vocabulary enrichment...for Spanish it is practical to use in possible ministry now and someday perhaps even in a job. It's certainly a practical language for those of us in the U.S. to know. So, you do believe the study of the roots will help in that regard? Good.

[TracyR]

The study of the roots would help in English vocabulary. A program such as Latin from the Roots Up would be a good study of Latin and the roots.

Learning Latin does help in learning other languages such as Spanish , French , Portuguese, Italian and Romanian.

There are similar Latin words that mean the same thing. Such as the word Casa in Latin , which means house , is the same word in Spanish for house,, Casa. Other words such as :

 

Scribo in Latin is Escribo in Spanish ( I am writing)

Pater in Latin is Padre in Spanish ( father)

and so on.

Actually 21 centuries ago the Romans had gained control of Spain therefore brought over their language as well. Hence the name Latin America.

So really by studying Spanish your children will know a little Latin as well.

[WTMindy]

I have not taught Latin as suggested in the early years. I had planned to have my children (ages 14 adn 11) begin Spanish this year, but I amk pondering if the Latin would do them more good in understanding SPanish and if it is that helpful for doing better on college entrance exams--if they just learn the Latin prefixes, suffixes, etc won't this do them just as much good? I was hoping they could become fluent enough in conversational Spanish to assist in a ministry our church has to Spanish-speakers in our community.

 

Please share your advice, thoughts.

If you just want vocab enrichment, then I would definitely do a roots program and learn spanish.