Latin Continuers

2 units for each of Year 11 and HSC

NESA Developed Course

What background knowledge do I need to study Latin Continuers?

200 to 300 hours study of Latin, or equivalent.

Why study Latin Continuers?

The study of Latin provides students with a wonderful opportunity to investigate the culture, thought and literature of Ancient Rome. It also allows students to read the works of outstanding Roman authors in their own language and thus to develop an appreciation of the continuing influences of Latin on the languages, cultures, literature and traditions of the modern world.

Course description:

Year 11 Course

Students continue to study Latin grammar, while being introduced to the work of original Roman authors such as Catullus, Cicero, Horace, Pliny and Tacitus.

HSC Course

Students study a prose text from Cicero, and a verse text, from Virgil’s Aeneid. They study extracts in the original Latin and the rest of the text in translation.

Areas of Study include:

• Language and linguistic features

• Literary features

• Social and historical context

• Historical, religious and cultural references

• Ideas, beliefs, arguments and practices within the texts.

HSC examination structure:

One three-hour written paper:

• Section I Questions on the prose text (translation, grammar, comment)

• Section II Questions on the verse text (translation, grammar, comment)

• Section III Unseen translation

How is Latin Continuers relevant to tertiary studies and career choice?

Latin is an excellent foundation for many areas of study. The linguistic understanding it provides is an ideal base from which to learn many modern languages, both European and Asian as well as other ancient languages and access the field of linguistics itself.

A good knowledge of Latin enhances and improves a student’s understanding of English, which is a great benefit not only in study but also in most fields of work. Latin vocabulary and phrases continue to be used in the fields of law and medicine, and a considerable proportion of scientific terminology is derived from Latin. The literature studied is some of the greatest ever written and is an excellent basis both for appreciation and critical analysis of later works and for the student’s own writing, creative, professional or academic.