Top Five
Latin
Myths
Choosing a language to study at home can be stressful. No matter what you pick there will be a heavy time and mo-
ney investment due. The study of Clas-
sical languages is alive and well among
homeschool families, so no doubt you
have considered Latin. Is it just a pass-
ing trend? Some wonder what’s so great
about a dead language when resources
and patience are so limited. Others start
Latin at home as soon as toddlers can
hold a flash card. Latin, they assert, must
be started as young as possible. Have you
already missed the boat with your older
children? Let’s look at the top five myths
about learning Latin, and then you can
decide for yourself if Latin is a good
choice for your crew at home.
Myth #1: A child must start Latin
young to be a success.
If you want to keep college on your
child’s horizon, her transcript must in-
clude a minimum of two reasonably
hearty years of the same foreign language
at the high school level. Three years looks
even better to the admissions dean. A
challenging fourth year might win her
college language credits by succeeding
on the AP exam. Students can choose
from Chinese, French, German, Italian,
Japanese, Spanish, and Latin. Aside from
the pleasures of academic success, most
of us want our children to adeptly use
and enjoy a foreign language, but we fear
time has flown by too quickly. There is
so much pressure to start new languages
extremely early. Can a person start Latin
late, in high school, and still be a success?
Absolutely yes.
Parental guilt about early language instruction (or lack thereof) is common
and often crippling. Such guilt is generally unwarranted. If your child wasn’t
accurately conjugating his Latin verbs at
age six, please don’t despair. While there’s
normally no harm in starting Latin early,
the ideal time to start is closer to grades
8-12. Give him some strong background
in English language mechanics and then
The
Classical
Homeschooler
Amy Barr
If one is only going to learn one other language in a lifetime,
Latin is an excellent choice.
