Latin: I’m reading at a level of a second year student. Noun and adjective declensions are solid, but I am trying to hone in on different tenses of complicated verb forms, such as imperfect passive conjunctive. I can only speak Latin with small phrases derived from vocabulary and familiar texts I’ve read. My speech is quite limited since there is no one around me that has an interest in Latin, so I have to piece together and memorize what I want to say before saying it.
Ancient Greek: I know only the alphabet.
Both: I am a self learner in my adult years and did not take either language via schooling.
I know like less than 10 phrases:
Etcetera Ad hoc Vice verca Veni vidi vici Carpe diem Spiritus Santus
And some other I forgot how to write them and correect pronunciation because I never use them. Generally I only know words or phrases, not even a full sentence.
Memento mori = Remember you will die
Learned it while playing persona 3.
latin, a little bit. it was a required 7th grade class. it’s been 25(!!!) years and I’m neither a lawyer or a catholic clergy so my retention of it is almost non existent. the things I do still hang on to are from my exposure to spanish and french at work where I can remember a few base words.
A bunch of abreviations, like etc., eg., and some others like quid pro quo
That’s most people tbh
Null
I know too much. Somehow the ancient greek teacher talked me into taking it. I wonder if there is any ethics violation in an advisor advising his advisees to take his own class… It’s a great way to convince the bosses that there is a lot of interest in your subject and thus you should continue to be employed, I suppose.
After all this time, I wouldn’t be able to walk up to the ancient athenian murder speeches and understand them, but give me a dictionary and two days and I probably would be able to pick it all up again.
Cum gallo et gladio.
That’s the only thing I know in Latin cause I want it to be my family coat of arms.
It means “with a rooster and a sword”, but you need to understand French to discover the power of that sentence: “Avec un coq et une épée”, or as famously said in slang, “Avec ma bite et mon couteau suisse” (with my dick and Swiss Army knife).
It a saying we use to say that we don’t need preparation or equipment to do something.
Heh. Cum.
cum cum et cum
I learned Latin in school for several years; I only learned to understand and translate it, not actively speak or write it, and have by now forgotten some of it.
I do not know any Ancient Greek at all, I might recognize some words from other languages.
Latin: I can still bang out the five declensions and the four conjugations in my sleep. Trying to read a text, the sentence structure always finds ways to trip me up.
Greek: very patchy, I know a lot of words but my grammar is shite
Semper Fidelis Tyrannosaurus
Always faithful terrible lizard?
Gen X here,
Older millennial here. I know a few random words and phrases in Latin. A couple examples:
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
“Who will watch the watchmen?”
Thanks to the comic Watchmen. Meaning it is difficult to regulate the actions of people in power.“Alea iacta est.”
“The die is cast.”
Attributed to Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon river, guaranteeing there would be a civil war. Meaning the outcome is uncertain, but you’ve passed the point of no return (“crossing the Rubicon” is also used to mean that).I don’t know any ancient Greek though.
I know some dinosaur names …
Millennial. I had to take a root words class in grade school, with the promise it would help us become lawyers and doctors. It did not. It has helped me win a couple pub trivia rounds.
I still have the .pdf of that textbook, promising myself that one day I’ll go through it again.
HA!