Sunday, July 10, 2011

English stripped Naked

I very much indeed enjoy studying Latin and its marvellously paradoxical two sides; complexity and simplicity.
By the end of the previous sentence I've used at least four strong words in English with non-English origin. Can you guess which of the following belongs to what language? 

Study
Marvellous
Paradox
Complexity
Simplicity

Study actually derives from Old French estudie, but for our sake lets deal with studium from Latin.
What about marvellous? Latin? Greek? Not at all, to my surprise, it actually is from Old French as well in the basic form merveille.
So, Paradox then, sure this could be Latin but by dissecting the word we can get the Ancient Greek prefix para-, and suffix -orthodoxos, indicating that this is of Greek origin. As commonly seen, many Greek words adopted a Latinized form and Paradoxos became Paradoxum meaning: 
"a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth" or "a self-contradictory and false proposition".
Complexity and Simplicity are English words with pure Latin origin; in its naked form rather complexus and simplex.

Latin at first sight is as complex as any new language (except Czech that is, which seem to origin from the green man "a planeta confusa") but as one embrace it and digs deeper it actually makes a lot of sense.
It's a language of great structure, at least if you have the honour to follow Prof. Svobodova's text book, and it can be broken down in an organized matter with, mostly, strict rules that can be applied to whatever sentence you'd like to create. This is the part of simplicity.

To give a brief indication of how a task and its translation might look like I'll give you an example from the book at page 172.
Translate:
- Superficial wounds in the pubic region.
- Bruises of the soft parts of the body.
- In the state after a severebilateral inflammation of the lungs.
- Sufficient doses for children.
And the solutions, in order:
- Vulnera superficialia in regione pubis.
- Contusiones partium mollium corporis.
- In statu post pneumoniam bilateralem gravem.
- Doses pro infantibus sufficientes.

I wish not to seem posh or act as some kind of Smart Aleck, nor will I in any way conceal my gratitude towards the Latin course - gratitude, when from my side expressed, has mostly been getting dull half-witted responses with little or no enthusiasm.
 Anyone that have had Prof. Svobodova, might not share my view - and so be it. You might even think I am vastly exaggerating by saying that she was indeed the best teacher during the first year. Again - so be it.
My opinion might echo alone but I believe that the facts speak for themselves; the structure and discipline of her lectures were always high and, if ever so often threaten, well maintained. She spent time explaining and made us practice in between - to me that is true teaching.
 The fact that she actually wrote the book, covering more than well the medical perspective of Latin, is something not to forget.
 This greatly shows itself in the way the course is built up, step by step until the rope is tightly shutting the sac closed. Unfortunately, for our group but mainly for the professor herself due to some family matters, we missed out on the last two lessons dealing with numericals and verbs but with some set aside motivation that was a part not too demanding, however, using the word "easy" would be a lie.


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2 comments:

  1. Hej! Hittade din blogg på studentum.se och jag är själv intresserad av att plugga till läkare utomlands. Jag har några frågor som jag undrar om du kan svara på?
    Bland annat vad det är för betygskrav, vad inträdesproven handlar om och var man gör proven någonstans.
    Tack på förhand
    // Bella

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hej Bella,
    Betygskraven ser olika ut på olika universitet, ofta spelar de till och med mindre roll än själva intagningsprovet.
    I regel kan man säga att G i Naturvetenskapliga ämnen (bio, kem, fys, mat) är grundläggande och givetvis ger bättre betyg högre chans.
    Notera att det är som sagt inträdesprovet som ofta spelar störst roll.
    Även intagningsprov skiljer sig åt mellan universiteten. Vissa universitet är endast grundläggande kunskaper i de ämnen jag nämnt, medan vissa universitet (som e.g. Charles) går så långt att intagningsprovet innefattar grundkunskaperna+fördjupning och även en del grundläggande från första årets curriculum, d.v.s med medicinsk vinkling.
    Jag har ett par prov liggande som jag kan skicka via mail alternativt posta här eller på annan domän om det skulle uppskattas.
    Vad gäller var proven skrivs så har de olika universiteten ofta representanter som åker ut till städer (ofta huvudstaden) där man kan skriva proven samt göra intervjun.
    Ofta arrangeras detta genom agenter (som även håller i PreMed kurser) såsom Sonan's, PreMedInternational och dylikt.
    Efter en snabbtitt på www.plugga-utomlands.se/
    ser jag att de verkar ha bra information samt listar länder som är tillgängliga.

    Hoppas du fått ett kort svar på dina frågor.
    Jag finns även på tom.j.johansson(at)gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

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