Today we’re chatting with Jesse, resident Latin tutor extraordinaire! From graffiti and translation to declensions and puns, Jesse describes the Latin tutor life at Reed.
H: Could you say a few things about yourself (major, interests, etc.) and how long you’ve been studying your language?
J: I am a Comp Lit major, and a Latin minor. I have been taking Latin since I started at Reed, and I love learning other languages. It’s so enjoyable to learn how a language works. I guess I should mention I’m from Philadelphia. I took French in high school, which is actually part of the reason I ended up taking Latin here; I’d never taken Latin before Reed, it wasn’t offered at my high school. My OWL recommended it to me as the intersection between history, English, and literature.
H: You said you enjoy learning other languages; are there any in particular you have in mind?
J: I’ve studied Italian, which I will be forever mournful is not taught at Reed.
H: How did you start to learn your language?
J: First semester Latin at Reed was very technical, and very different from learning any other language. I had never learned a language with declensions or Subject – Object – Verb order before, and I really began to enjoy it. It was a little bit of a puzzle.
H: What resources would you recommend to students?
J: I have two sets of recommendations: 1) Reed is a lot of grammar and fast — I would say use Anki for digital flashcards, and Logeion, which is an online compilation of 7 Latin dictionaries. 2) Reading adapted Latin texts at an appropriate level. I understand why there’s not as much of that when taking Latin as compared to other language courses here; that’s the difference between teaching ancient & modern at Reed. But I would say it’s very beneficial.
H: Do you have a favourite work in your language?
J: I was actually dreading this question. For my all-time favorite, I would say Ovid’s Metamorphoses — it’s confusing, it’s violent, it’s hard to make good sense of, it’s very difficult all around. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. But I suppose the work that I enjoyed the most was Catullus 63; it’s a tender poem, and different from a lot of his other works.
H: What’s something you find interesting about your language? It could be a favorite word, grammar concept, or anything else.
J: I found Latin graffiti in Pompeii very interesting, and they teach some of it in Latin 101. Looking at the graffiti for the first time is like going from reading only Shakespeare to jumping on Twitter — you can actually see Latin as emerging from individuals, and not as just a dead construct or a set of rules. As for a favorite word, I guess I’ll say quaecumque; it means whichever, but it sounds ridiculous, and I guess that’s enough for me.
(Many good Latin jokes were exchanged)
H: What has your experience been like as a tutor?
J: It’s really nice, actually. I’ve really enjoyed helping students. I’m also the department assistant, so I get to feel nostalgia for being in the classroom again. When I took Latin 111, I really thought I would be trapped in the forest of the Latin textbook forever—no light, no way out, about to die—but now I’m out, so I can look back on it fondly.
H: What current class are you enjoying the most?
J: Right now, I would say Russian 370, Literary Translation with Ivan Sokolov — it’s an amazing class. The works that we study are just fascinating. We’re looking at a lot of interesting theorists and works, and we get to work on our own projects.
H: That sounds wonderful. I just wanted to mention that you’ve been very helpful for me as well as other students in finding Latin resources, and I’ve really enjoyed talking to you.
If you would like to talk to Jesse in person, swing by the Language Lab any old Wednesday from 6-8 pm when he’s tutoring Latin.