[porpoisely]

We used to have a stepping stone to learn other languages. It was called latin. For some odd reason, we stopped teaching it in our public schools here. But the wealthy private schools still teach latin and give their kids and enormous leg up in their studies.

[ghaff]

As someone who took Latin in high school, the stepping stone argument always felt a bit disingenuous. There seemed to be a component of not wanting to admit it was being taught primarily because it was part of a traditional Classics education among Western upper classes. As opposed to a useful skill of some sort.

I have absolutely nothing against traditional Classics though I’m not sure how good a fit they are with typical US public high schools today. However I’m pretty skeptical that a few years of Latin—as opposed to Spanish, German, or French (which I also took) or something else entirely—is a uniquely good use of time.

[porpoisely]

I absolutely agree with spanish, german, french or any other language being a good stepping stone to learn other languages. Not only that learning another language helps you better understand your own language.

However, what makes latin special is that spanish, german, french, english and many european languages have significant history with latin as a language and has been tremendously influenced by latin. And it's not just language. Much of science, literature, music, math, etc has strong latin roots.

If there is one language that offers the most bang for the buck, it's latin. It's something every kid should be taught in my opinion, especially in the west since latin influenced nearly every language and academic field.

[em-bee]

any second language is a stepping stone to later languages. by the time you learn latin and then french, you might as well have learned french directly and then german or chinese.

esperanto is different because it is easier to learn, so instead of taking years to mastery, you are done in a few months, and teachers can focus on proper learning techniques without fearing that students get demotivated because it takes so long. then you can apply those techniques to the next languages and hopefully come out ahead

[ghaff]

To echo others, I would need to be convinced that learning a synthetic language that, for most of us, will never have any direct practical use has some unique pedagogical value. For me, learning an actual language, however imperfectly, that has a history, literature, and in many cases current speakers and culture seems far more interesting. But, then, I never had any interest in learning Klingon or elvish either.

[em-bee]

right, we need more research to verify that theory.