How to prepare for the Latin exam

Once again this year, Latin language and culture has been chosen as the second written examination paper for classical grammar schools. This reaffirms the central importance of knowledge of the Latin language and literature – and therefore of the culture of ancient Rome – as one of the cornerstones of the curriculum that characterises the classical grammar school.

This comes as no surprise given the Italian educational tradition, which – in accordance with a long-standing practice – bases its teaching to a very significant extent on the comprehension and interpretation of classical literary texts, first and foremost Greek and Latin works, but also those from more recent periods and in living European languages, starting, of course, with Italian. The educational model centred on the study of significant texts from the past has remained in place for centuries and has formed the basis of Western European education right up to the present day. Over time, Greek and Latin have ceased to be spoken and have been used less and less to write new texts, although Latin in particular was long used as a lingua franca for communication amongst intellectuals and men of letters. However, in order to understand the classical languages, there has been an increasing need to translate them from the original into the languages of new readers. Translation has therefore become the primary means of engaging with the classical literary heritage and has characterised its study for centuries, not only in schools, to the extent that it is regarded as the defining feature of the study of Greek and Latin.

This tendency to equate translation with classical languages has not been without consequences in the field of education, given the extraordinary educational value of the act of translation, which requires knowledge of both languages – the source and the target – whilst also enhancing linguistic proficiency in one’s own language. Those who translate, even the simplest of texts, stimulate and develop considerable intellectual flexibility and specific cognitive skills, refining them ever further. The exemplary value on the one hand, and the effectiveness of translation as an educational and formative tool on the other, continue to make translation from Greek and Latin a particularly useful exercise.

Translation does, in fact, require a precise understanding of the text to be translated: this enables the creation of a new text that faithfully reflects the original but within a different linguistic and cultural context. Anyone undertaking such tasks must be capable of both understanding the original text and rendering it accurately in their own language: it is not enough simply to understand the text to be translated; it is necessary to produce a new text that is itself correct and comprehensible – one might say ‘true’. The translation must therefore not be purely literal, nor should it result in a text in the target language that is incorrect or incomprehensible.

First and foremost, however, a full understanding of the text to be translated is essential. Even the title given to the passage can be very significant in understanding its overall meaning, not least because it is usually accompanied by a few explanatory sentences.