How much will Latin help me learn English?

Question

I knew Latin is the mother language of many European languages, i.e. Italian, German, English, etc.

I'm a medium learner of English. I've grasped suffixes, prefixes, roots, and basic rules of grammar.

Except for the etymology of words, grammar, how will Latin help me?

Please advise. Thank you!

Blue Jay · Accepted Answer

Latin is the parent of the Romance languages, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Romanian, as well as some less widely spoken languages such as Occitan and Catalan. However, German is not a Romance language. See http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196 for an interesting representation of the relationships. English is considered a Germanic language, although it contains many words of Latin origin which entered the language either directly from Latin, or indirectly via French.
I studied Latin in school, and very much enjoyed it, but (unless you are planning to study Latin anyway) I'm not sure how beneficial it would be for you as an English learner. Studying another language usually means learning more about grammar in general, as you've never needed to know grammatical labels to speak your own language. However, if you have already gone through this learning English, I don't think learning Latin grammar will help you much with English grammar. They aren't alike. I do find that knowing some Latin occasionally helps me understand unusual English words when I see them, but most native speakers get by without this, and it can lead me astray when the English meaning has shifted from that of the original Latin word.
By all means study Latin if you are interested in doing so. It will add to your store of knowledge in ways that may occasionally help you with English, but don't expect too much from it.

Minnaloushe · Answer

Blue Jay I do find that knowing some Latin occasionally helps me understand unusual English words when I see them, but most native speakers get by without this, and it can lead me astray when the English meaning has shifted from that of the original Latin word.

Thank you for your input. I solved this issue via looking up online etymology dictionary.

Then, I won't go to study Latin.

Have a good one!

Cool Breeze · Answer

English grammar has little to do with Latin grammar but according to some estimates about 60 percent of English vocabulary is derived from Latin, either directly or through French. The amazingly high figure is true only if the entire English vocabulary is included. That includes countless learned and scientific words which are unknown to the average native speaker.

You can easily gain an excellent knowledge of English without knowing any Latin at all, but in my opinion knowing some Latin makes learning other languages more interesting. I do understand that not everybody is like me, though. I get a kick out of knowing that the underlined parts of transfer and translate derive from the same Latin verb. Fer comes from the present tense and late from the past participle. It is obvious from those two forms that the verb is irregular.

I holidayed in the Canary Islands for the first time in 1968 and I was sitting in a bar in Santa Catalina Parque in Las Palmas with a friend of mine. Someone had left a newspaper on the table and I took a look at it. To my surprise, I was able to understand some of the Spanish in the paper even though I had never studied Spanish and didn't have a clue as to what for example you or he was in Spanish. I had taken three years of Latin in school and had to go on studying it at university just to become an English Philology major. Latin was on the syllabus for students of English and the students had to pass a Pro Exercitio examination in Latin.

These days things have turned around. I think nowadays English helps me remember Latin words more often than Latin helps me with English.

That's because Latin isn't really spoken anywhere and I have forgotten most of what I knew. The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) broadcasts news in Latin, though.

I suppose Latin can occasionally be a disadvantage. I find it very difficult to say media is in English because I automatically think of media as a second declension plural, which is what it is in Latin.

Minnaloushe · Answer

Thank you for your reply, Cool Breeze.

English grammar has little to do with Latin grammar but according to some estimates about 60 percent of English vocabulary is derived from Latin, either directly or through French.

Then, virtually well-educated native speakers grasp sizeable Latin vocabulary on the other way around. I've understood the relation between Latin and English.

Have a nice day!

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