{"id":58128,"date":"2019-05-22T16:03:06","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T20:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=58128"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:03:06","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T20:03:06","slug":"latin-students-translation-skills-among-top-in-north-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2019\/05\/latin-students-translation-skills-among-top-in-north-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Latin student’s translation skills among top in North America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSurrexit!\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Fourth-year Classics student Aleks Mirosavljevic could tell you that\u2019s the past perfect form of Brock\u2019s motto \u201c<\/span>surgite<\/span><\/i>,\u201d Latin for “push on.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And <\/span>surrexit<\/span><\/i> is exactly what Mirosavljevic did when he surpassed Latin students across North America to place in the top 9 per cent in the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) Latin Translation Contest (Advanced). Mirosavljevic received a certificate and book award last week in recognition of his accomplishment.<\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span> peer mentor<\/span><\/a> with the Department of Classics since 2017, Mirosavljevic didn\u2019t start studying Latin until he began his Classics degree at Brock. He has since put a lot of time and work into his Latin training.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPutting in extra time to practise translation and study grammar and vocabulary will raise one\u2019s marks steadily while taking Latin,\u201d says Mirosavljevic. \u201cI did extra translation with peer mentors and professors throughout my second and third academic years of Latin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to his regular course work, Mirosavljevic worked independently with Associate Professor Fanny Dolansky to translate additional texts and authors over the summer and during the Fall and Winter terms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese sight translation contests can be challenging but also great confidence-boosters as students see the rewards of their hard work,\u201d says Dolansky. \u201cThey provide important external validation for students that their efforts are paying off.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The CAMWS translation contest is open to students in Canada and the United States. Of the more than 300 university students who participated in the contest, Mirosavljevic was the only one from a Canadian university to win an award.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAleks\u2019 success shows that Canadian Classics students are just as competitive, capable and accomplished as their American peers,\u201d says Dolansky. \u201cBrock\u2019s Department of Classics has some very dedicated faculty members who not only organize the contests for our students, reaching out and encouraging them to participate, but who also help students build and develop their language skills beyond regular class time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Making his achievement even more impressive, Mirosavljevic wrote the advanced exam, usually intended for students with three or more years of university Latin, despite only having studied Latin for two and half years. The exam tests students\u2019 comprehension of Latin vocabulary and grammar and their ability to accurately translate it into English. This year\u2019s advanced exam was a prose passage from Aulus Gellius\u2019 <\/span>Noctes Atticae<\/span><\/i>, which Mirosavljevic had just one hour to translate with no dictionaries or study aids.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mirosavljevic, who will be starting his Master of Arts at McGill in the fall, is not the first Brock student to excel in the CAMWS competition. Matt Ludwig (BA \u201916) scored in the top 3 per cent in 2016 and is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Toronto.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would suggest that students give Latin a shot, because they may find it comes more easily to them than other things,\u201d Mirosavljevic says. \u201cThe department at Brock is very approachable and supportive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSurrexit!\u201d Fourth-year Classics student Aleks Mirosavljevic could tell you that\u2019s the past perfect form of Brock\u2019s motto \u201csurgite,\u201d Latin for “push on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":58129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,3319,37,1,4],"tags":[7926,7927,144,1583,30,7928],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58132,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58128\/revisions\/58132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}