FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS STARTED LEARNING LATIN

Thus, our first-year students guided by Mariya Denisova started learning Latin. Though this language is considered to be an extinct one, specialists often use Latin terms. The majority of international words also have Latin roots. However, our future translators are mostly interested in it because such knowledge structures linguistic thinking.

They are to learn Latin from the first year of studying in order to understand the language better. They are going to study it for a year and then have an exam.

For now the students had several lectures but they already know the history of Latin, its influence on other languages, and its development. The lecturer described features of Latin vowels and phonetics on the first days of studying. They discussed stress shifts, verbs and their conjugation. The students also tried to read Latin texts. At first it was difficult.

Anna Ezhova, first-year student, the Faculty of Linguistics:

'I really enjoyed our lectures on Latin. I thought that it would be much harder. I learned English, German, and French before, so I managed to pronounce unknown words correctly. Of course, it will be more difficult in future but I'm pretty optimistic about it.'

Dmitry Timenkov, first-year student, the Faculty of Linguistics:

'Before entering the IGUMO I studied as a programmer. That is why I didn't expect to learn Latin. It is a new discipline for me but it's also very interesting. Latin words have common elements with English ones and I didn't have any difficulties with pronunciation.'

There is a famous Latin proverb: 'Veni, vidi, vici' ('I came, I saw, I conquered'). We are sure that our first-year students will be able to love such an entertaining language!

Good luck!

Yulia Golovanova, fourth-year student, the Faculty of Journalism

Translated by Irina Nikishina