• Skunk@jlai.lu
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    12 days ago

    Cum gallo et gladio.

    That’s the only thing I know in Latin cause I want it to be my family coat of arms.

    It means “with a rooster and a sword”, but you need to understand French to discover the power of that sentence: “Avec un coq et une épée”, or as famously said in slang, “Avec ma bite et mon couteau suisse” (with my dick and Swiss Army knife).

    It a saying we use to say that we don’t need preparation or equipment to do something.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    12 days ago

    I learned Latin in school for several years; I only learned to understand and translate it, not actively speak or write it, and have by now forgotten some of it.

    I do not know any Ancient Greek at all, I might recognize some words from other languages.

  • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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    12 days ago

    Latin: I can still bang out the five declensions and the four conjugations in my sleep. Trying to read a text, the sentence structure always finds ways to trip me up.

    Greek: very patchy, I know a lot of words but my grammar is shite

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    The only Latin I know is from the thaumcraft mod

    Surprisingly it gives you a lot of the roots you need to figure out words in other languages

  • Vanth@reddthat.com
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    12 days ago

    Millennial. I had to take a root words class in grade school, with the promise it would help us become lawyers and doctors. It did not. It has helped me win a couple pub trivia rounds.

  • Metostopholes@midwest.social
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    12 days ago

    Older millennial here. I know a few random words and phrases in Latin. A couple examples:

    “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
    “Who will watch the watchmen?”
    Thanks to the comic Watchmen. Meaning it is difficult to regulate the actions of people in power.

    “Alea iacta est.”
    “The die is cast.”
    Attributed to Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon river, guaranteeing there would be a civil war. Meaning the outcome is uncertain, but you’ve passed the point of no return (“crossing the Rubicon” is also used to mean that).

    I don’t know any ancient Greek though.

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
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    12 days ago

    I am a native Spanish speaker which makes me able to pick up the meaning of about 30-40% of words in Latin, although the semantics often confuse me. As for Ancient Greek (and some Latin words that look nothing like Spanish too) I’ve picked up a fair amount of terms from scientific terms, names and mythology.

    I don’t know how much all this translates into, I’ve never formally studied either.

  • Binette@lemmy.ml
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    12 days ago

    A bunch of abreviations, like etc., eg., and some others like quid pro quo