Dante Alighieri Chch
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  Dante Alighieri Chch

An Introduction to their language and culture

What do we do?
The course offers a full immersion experience of Roman life, in a mix of grammar, history, literature, poetry, music and drama.

Who is it open to?
Lessons are for beginners and intermediate level, all ages from teenagers to seniors.

How do we study?
The course will be interactive, with a part of lectures (Aesop’s tales, Aeneid..) and group discussions on politics and society (Republic vs Empire, slavery, war tactics…) movies and videos (by Mel Brooks, Marlon Brando, Asterix and Obelix…).
We will recite Shakespeare, Catullus and Julius Caesar and listen to classical and modern music and admire art masterpieces inspired by Roman history. Our teacher, Dale Wang (graduated at the Canterbury University), will conduct us through 3 or 4 focus points in each lesson, following a historical progression.

Where and when we meet?
The venue is to be confirmed, in the City Centre, near Victoria Street. The meetings will be held in the afternoon, day to be agreed with the students (from 5.15 to 6.15/6.30pm).

Cost: $80 per term of 8 lessons
Starting: end of February    

For more information and any question, please email Silvia Maggioni.

The beautiful and the useful: 3 good reasons to study Latin

  1. History and Politics: the Roman Empire is the first European example of the union of peoples from different races, cultures, civilizations and religions, the first 'melting pot' in which coexistence and shared laws have allowed periods of prosperity and harmonic development of the society. This is really important for integration in our modern global, multiethnic world.
  2. Cultural and Philosophy: studying Latin language opens the doors of the past, and into the deepest roots of Western history. Learning Latin improves our understanding of the present (who we are) and analyzing our past (where we come from). In addition, the Latin language includes a large part of the etymology of the Italian language and many European languages, including English. You can say that Latin is a ‘young Italian language’, since it is the origin and evolution of the language used by Dante and Manzoni, even up to the current era.
  3. The Logical and Formal aspects: the translation from the Latin allows you to set in motion a series of mental mechanisms. These help build our logic, intuition and intellectual structures of thinking.
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