Learning Latin FAQ

Latin is an amazing language, but sometimes even exploring how you might learn about that language can be frustrating. Below are some frequently asked questions that we receive from students, and some rarely asked questions that we wish students asked more often.

Why should I even learn Latin? Isn’t it a dead language? Does that mean it’s only useful to dead people?

Yes, Latin is a dead language, but all that means that no one raises their children to speak it from birth (ok, some people we know do, but they’re eccentric Classicists and anyway there’s not enough of them to count). Latin is still insanely useful to the living, and possibly to the dead, too. There are many reasons that Latin has been taught for millennia, depiste the fact that it is no longer a living language. Admittedly, 90% of these probably can be traced to cultural imperialism, which is a tragedy, but the other 10% or so are really important too. To learn more, check out our post Julius Caesar Explains: Why Study Latin.

I’ve taken Latin before. Can I take a placement test?

Not really, but we have a workaround. Currently, we offer two courses in Latin: CLAS-L 131 Beginning Latin I in the fall and CLAS-L 132 Beginning Latin II in the spring. If you have extensive experience in Latin and feel confident about it, we recommend trying CLAS-L 132. If not, CLAS-L 131 is probably a better choice. Generally speaking, college Latin classes move much faster and go into more detail than high-school classes. In addition, our classes spend plenty of time exploring Roman culture, including religion, literature, and history. So even if you have a background in Latin, chances are you’ll still learn lots of new information.

I’ve taken Latin before, and I’ve had quite enough of that, thank you very much. Plus I’m wicked busy. Can I pass out of Latin?

It is not possible to “pass out” of a language at IU-Indianapolis, for reasons no one has ever deigned to explain to us. However, if you take a language course and pass it with a sufficient grade, you can “buy” the credits from preceding classes at a drastically reduced rate. In our case, this means that if you do sufficiently well in CLAS-L 132 Beginning Latin II, you can “buy” the 4 credits offered by CLAS-L 131 Beginning Latin I. At this point our eyes glaze over in confusion, so for more details, please talk to your academic advisor.

I’ve taken Latin before, and I’m loving it. I’m all in. Do you offer anything beyond first year Latin?

Unfortunately not at the moment, but again we have a workaround. In certain circumstances, IU-Indianapolis students can take courses at other local universities for the same cost as they would at IU-Indy. So if you want to continue your Latin past the first year, you can do so at Butler or Marian University. We hope eventually to offer second-year Latin, but so far the enrollment gods have been too angry to procure sufficient numbers of students for us to do so.