Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-09-18 09:15 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-09-18 09:15 pm
Teeth and Latin. :D
My lower wisdom teeth are coming in. It hurts, but no more than my twelve-year molars did when they came in--there seems to be enough room for them and all. Still irritating, though, especially when I'm eating. I'll have to ask the dentist about them next time I go.
*regards trembling hands* Christ, I think I should invest in some decaffeinated tea.
My Latin teacher is so much fun. He's the biggest language geek I've ever seen--on the first day, we spent about five minutes on Latin and two and a half hours on the history of the Indo-European language family, during which he demonstrated what a cognate was by writing the words for the numbers one through ten on the board in about twelve different languages. During the break we chatted about Finno-Ugric languages and the existence of the Altaic language family. XD And then in the second class we actually got into Latin and he started explaining, without being prompted, all the mental shortcuts I'd been using to learn languages so obscenely fast. o_o It's like he can see my thought processes. At the end of class he mentioned that of course most of us were native English speakers, but if any of us preferred to turn in our translation exercises in French, Spanish, or German, he'd grade them just the same. I may take him up on it to keep people from begging to copy my homework. (He also warned us against copying homework, because "I spent most of grad school studying which ancient document was descended from another. I'm good at telling these things.")
So yeah, in short, my Latin teacher is made of win.
*regards trembling hands* Christ, I think I should invest in some decaffeinated tea.
My Latin teacher is so much fun. He's the biggest language geek I've ever seen--on the first day, we spent about five minutes on Latin and two and a half hours on the history of the Indo-European language family, during which he demonstrated what a cognate was by writing the words for the numbers one through ten on the board in about twelve different languages. During the break we chatted about Finno-Ugric languages and the existence of the Altaic language family. XD And then in the second class we actually got into Latin and he started explaining, without being prompted, all the mental shortcuts I'd been using to learn languages so obscenely fast. o_o It's like he can see my thought processes. At the end of class he mentioned that of course most of us were native English speakers, but if any of us preferred to turn in our translation exercises in French, Spanish, or German, he'd grade them just the same. I may take him up on it to keep people from begging to copy my homework. (He also warned us against copying homework, because "I spent most of grad school studying which ancient document was descended from another. I'm good at telling these things.")
So yeah, in short, my Latin teacher is made of win.
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Ooo, comparative linguistics is the yay. It sounds like an amazing class. I wish I could take Latin... *scowls at unforgiving English-major schedule*
Anyway. A bit OT, but have you seen the website that has the animation of the different stages of the evolution of the Roman alphabet throughout history? This is it, if you're interested. I absolutely love it. And for some reason I just thought of it when you mentioned comparing numbers. Er. Yes.
:-D *goes away*
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Nooo, don't go!
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Also, your Latin teacher is a thing of love, why are there not more men like this in the world? *bewails this to the heavens*
And incidentally, what tricks do you use to learn a language quickly? I pick things up easily, but turning something one studies into another language one knows well is a different matter entirely. Tips would be v. appreciated! ^__________________^ ♥
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