LATI 2010

During the first half of the semester, we read selections from Caesar's "Gallic Wars" and in the second half we read parts of Ovid's "Metamorphoses", both entirely in Latin. Quizzes usually consist of short passages (taken from that week's homework) that you have to translate in their entirety from Latin to English, and certain words in the passage will be underlined meaning that you have to parse them (e.g. for a Latin verb you'd give person, number, mood, voice, tense, function). To do well on quizzes, make sure you can parse EVERY word in the homework, because you never know which ones will be on the quiz. Everyone in the class participates - meaning the teacher randomly selects names from a stack of notecards, and you WILL get chosen - so you have to do your translation homework or your instructor can take off prep and participation points.

HELPFUL HINT: Start memorizing your verb endings and noun declensions NOW. It will make things so much easier for you during the semester.

Peter Moench is an incredibly kind, down-to-earth teacher. Reading Latin - particularly Caesar - can be dry, but part of the way through the semester Peter started incorporating interesting facts about Roman life and mythology that made the course much more enjoyable.

Run. Do Not Walk. RUN. Prof. Moench is super nice and very approachable, but the speed and depth of content covered as well as the style of tests and quizzes makes this class absolutely impossible. If you're just trying to fulfill the language requirement, there are easier ways to do it. The quizzes and tests consist of literal verbatim translations of paragraph-long sentences that test your ability to parrot a translation more than your ability to actually understand Latin. There are a metric shit ton of vocabulary words, and the amount of review done at the beginning of the semester is so so so lacking. Especially if you took Latin 1030 and are still getting the hang of syntax because that class spends like five seconds on it, DO NOT take this class. I have no idea how anyone could ever get an A in the class unless they devoted at least 2 hours a day to it.