Kay Neal's guest appearances

Kay Neal

Dead America

How Cool Is This?

Dustin Miller

David Katz

Richard Davies

Vince Vaughn

Ryan Pike

Erik Cabral

Tim Jones

Greg Edwards

Charlie Chaplin

Clara Barton

Ashton Kutcher

Steve Christensen

Beth Miller

Austin Thomas

Miguel Ortiz

OwlTail

Kay returns to the show with more information about episode 80, Kids Should Get To Learn Latin. “The people who love classics… they’re not marketers. They’re not thinking like marketers. They’re thinking ‘because this has so much value, there is no need to market it to anyone.” Kay has a Master’s in Latin from the University of Illinois and has developed a free resource for getting started with the language at latinforlife.com/whyyouareright. This episode was recorded live in Roomkey on April 27, 2021. Visit howcoolisthis.show/watch to catch the next Roomkey show.

Kay returns to the show with more information about episode 80, Kids Should Get To Learn Latin. “The people who love classics… they’re not marketers. They’re not thinking like marketers. They’re thinking ‘because this has so much value, there is no need to market it to anyone.” Kay has a Master’s in Latin from the University of Illinois and has developed a free resource for getting started with the language at <a href="https://www.latinforlife.com/whyyouareright" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">latinforlife.com/whyyouareright</a>. This episode was recorded live in <a href="http://roomkey.co/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Roomkey</a> on April 27, 2021. Visit <a href="http://howcoolisthis.show/watch" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">howcoolisthis.show/watch</a> to catch the next Roomkey show.

REBUTTALS: Kay Neal on (80) Kids Should Get To Learn Latin

DisclaimerThe views expressed on Dead America podcast are the views of the person expressing themselves.We are here for entertainment only for any Medical or Mental Health concerns you might have. We always recommend seeking local listings for a qualified provider in your area.We will always consider other points of view on any subject. We do not necessarily agree with our guests all of the time. We value everyone. All of our guests deserve respect and a platform to voice concerns.The Dead America WebsiteLatin For Life WebsiteYoutube VideoKay NealI'm on a mission to make the study of Latin mainstream--or at least a lot closer to the mainstream than it is now.Latin is mostly absent from the curriculum at any level of our education system, but it ought to be brought back, especially in the early grades. The only place that Latin shows up in school is when Latin and Greek roots are covered, as a way of building vocabulary. But I can tell you that memorizing roots off a list is not the best way to get these extremely useful and productive words into a student’s head.If you study Latin vocabulary in the context of Latin grammar—that is, if you study Latin—you go deep into English grammar, and this is something that isn’t really taught these days.But you need grammar to make sense out of words. You have to put words together in a certain way, or they don’t mean what you want them to. Studying Latin heightens your awareness of how words work together to make meaning. In fact, studying Latin gives you a foundation that you can build all sorts of academic success on.A person who has built a solid foundation in the basics of Latin in elementary school:* Will never think that a new word is too complicated to handle.* Will be able to read difficult texts in English (I'm talking especially about the classics) and absorb the author’s meaning.* Will understand the concept that languages have different ways of getting meaning across, which means that the Latin student will be able to enjoy later experiences with foreign languages in high school or college or life.* And perhaps most confidence-building of all, will be able to recognize when it is the speaker or the writer that is at fault and not their ability to understand.I've identified three different groups to reach out to first: people who for some reason or other have always wanted to learn Latin, parents who are not too happy with the education their child is receiving in public school, and people who already studied Latin but didn't get on top of the material the first time around and want a chance to really understand it.I have three free reports (corresponding to these three groups), and I'd be happy to share any or all of them with you. They go deeper into why Latin is worth studying. The titles are:* Why You Are Absolutely Right to Want to Learn Latin* Five Ways Your Child Is Being Shortchanged at School--and What You Can Do About It* Why You Don't Remember Any of the Latin You Learned All Those Years Ago (and What You Can Do About It)----------------------------------------------------Transcript DownloadKay NealSUMMARY KEYWORDSLatin, people,English, study, read, sentence, podcast, language, called, wrote, grammar,book, long, Spanish, kay, endings, learn, thought, curriculum, actionSPEAKERSEd Watters, Kay NealEd Watters 00:00challengingourselves. That's what Dead America is truly about. On today's episode, we dojust that. We dive deep into learning. And we talk to an individual that wantsto promote learning Latin. Latin is something that most of us don't even thinkabout. But you know, when it boils down to it, Latin has a lot to do with a lotof our life. And we are oblivious to that. Our guest today is going to help usunderstand the importance of Latin and why we should bring it back andunderstand it more and study it. So we understand our lives a little bitbetter. Let's not waste any time and get into today's episode. To overcome, youmust educate. Educate not only yourself but educate anyone seeking to learn.We are all Dead America. We can all learn something. To learn, we mustchallenge what we already understand. The way we do that is throughconversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others. However, some of thebest conversations happen with ourselves. Reach out and challenge yourself.Let's dive in and learn something right now. And today, we have Kay Neal withus. Kay, would you start off with introducing yourself and let our listenersknow a little bit about who you are and what you do, please?Kay Neal 03:08Okay.Well, I am, I'm on a mission. And I started off; my mission is to make thestudy of Latin mainstream. And if I can't do that, at least help make it not soweird. I'm 64 years old. I've been at this for 15 years now, trying to, youknow, get some traction with this idea. Haven't had very much success so far.And I think part of it is because I haven't had, I haven't had a real cleargoal, or I've had a clear goal, but not a clear process. And it's taken a longtime to get that in place. But yeah, in a nutshell, I think I was born tomarket Latin.Ed Watters 03:54That'svery interesting. You know, Latin is really kind of a far off place for us herein the world today for most of us, especially here in America. Our founders,they were fluent with Latin. And I'm kind of curious, do you know where wedropped that off in our education system at all?Kay Neal 04:20Yeah, wedropped it off. Well, you know, not all the founders were big Latin andclassics enthusiasts. Ben Franklin wanted it to stop being the focus ofeducation. He wanted more practical courses. And so he, even though I'm sure hehad studied it as a child, that that was what you know, Grammar School was, youknow, to study Latin grammar. And so he was, yeah, so he was a person who was aum who was the other one. Thomas Paine. He thought it was really stupid to evenbother with Latin at all. And so now I mean, Thomas Jefferson, he wassupposedly, he could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other. WhichI would, I would have loved to have seen, that must have been just somethingelse. But, But not everybody was was thrilled with it. Not everybody thought itwas a wonderful thing. And when did it die out? Well, it used to be thelanguage that you studied, if you were if you were a gentleman. And when I sayGentleman, I mean, I mean, a man, not a woman, it was not taught to girls, itdied off, it started to die off, I guess. It was still at the beginning of the20th century. And even into the middle of it, it was something that you wouldtake if you were headed into medicine or law. In the past, it was what youtake, if you're headed into the clergy, well, you know, I read this prophet,that was a very interesting fact, I guess about Latin, the undoing of Latin, Imean, it, it sort of dug its own grave, or the people pushing it dug its gravefor it, by sticking just to this very narrow cannon of writers and during thewhat they call the golden age of Latin literature. And so you know, people likeCicero and Virgil became the models. And if you weren't up to that standard,then you're out. And you know, the all of the Latin, you know, you know thatLatin was the way to communicate in Europe for hundreds of years. That was athat was what you learned, that was the language of educated people. So if youwere from England, and you're talking to somebody from Germany, you're going tobe, or whatever Germany was called, in those days, you are going to be speakingLatin. But it fell by the wayside. Because people, the standards were just so high.And then, you know, Latin morphed into all the romance languages. SoPortuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, and all of the dialectsassociated with them are now, are our modern day versions of Latin. So asthose took over, then, then Latin, you know, was, was no longer studied. Andthen, people in the U.S., the emphasis shifted to modern languages instead ofLatin and Greek. Greek was less studied than Latin, but it was. It was in thereat university level anyway.Ed Watters 07:16Okay. SoI read on your bio that Latin is mostly absent from the curriculum at anylevel of our education system. And it should be brought back, especially in theearly grades. How can we bring back that higher standard in our educationsystem?Kay Neal 07:38Well, I,you know, I've, so I've had this idea that Latin should be, you know, every kidought to get a crack at Latin. I've had this idea since, well, 2005. And I havetried to, to push this idea among, you know, elementary school, principals,teachers, and there is just not much reception to it. So my idea, what I wantto do, is, if I ever do manage to get a business going, that is, that isactually generating a good income, I would love to set up a foundation thatlaunches after school programs at elementary schools, and train like highschoolers or college students on Latin, so they can teach it to the afterschool students who, who go to these programs. I actually wrote a curriculum.It was for parents who don't know any Latin or any foreign language or anyEnglish grammar, to learn Latin by manageable stages and teach it to theirchildren along the way. And this, this curriculum could be used very easily by,by you know, any, anybody who's illiterate, I say, if you can read your localnewspaper, you could use this curriculum to learn and teach somebody Latin. Sothat's what, I, that's my, that's my dream. That's my, my evil plan to takeover the world, as I sometimes call it, and I got enough traction in school.And you know, when people saw the benefits of it, then I think maybe therewould be some more institutional support for it, but it's really sad. It'sreally, really sad to me to see how lightly it, how little esteemed it is, andit has so much to offer. And and I really, honestly, I, you know, you meet alot of people in, in education and, and they seem to be more administratorsthan, than educators. And they don't seem to be, I mean, I know a lot ofteachers that they're not, they're not lifelong learners. And how could anybodybe a teacher who's just not so curious about everything, and especially aboutlanguage and, and how could they not? How could they not think that, that, thatlearning your own language, which Latin really helps you do, that learning yourown language isn't making the most fundamental thing you would do in education,because it's the base of everything, the base of math even, math and English,all those, all those equations, they're actually English sentences. If you'relearning nothing, you know, in an English speaking country. So that you justcan't overstate the importance of learning how to communicate in your, in yourown language. And to me, you can't do that. You can do that most effectivelyif you have some kind of exposure to another language. And I think that, thatLatin is the best language to expose someone, to an English speaking kid to, ifthey don't have any kind of natural exposure to another language in their intheir lives. Because it, it, it helps you, you know, anytime you learnsomething, you compare it to what you already know. And so when you learnanother language, you start comparing it to English, and you see that youknow, English and this language are, you know, they, they're similar, they allhave words, but they use the words in different ways.Ed Watters 11:06So, doyou have any plans that will help you make your dream of Latin being broughtback into the mainstream?Kay Neal 11:21Well, I,I've been working, you know, in the last 15 years, I've, you know, I started,well, the things that I've done so far, were I went back to school, actually,and did a second bachelor's degree and a second master's degree in, inclassics, and in Latin. Because I hadn't studied Latin when I got this idea in2005, I had not studied Latin since 1977. I think I took it in High School andgraduated high school in 78. And, and then never did anything with it, but Iknew it was a treasure, you know, just to have studied it was a treasure. Eventhough I didn't, I couldn't go and read a single passage after I'd been away fromit for so long. But the the other things, the the linguistic awareness thatit gave me, and the vocabulary it gave me, and the knowledge of, of syntax thatit gave me, stayed with me after I'd forgotten a little bit of, you know, thedeclensions and conjugations and the particulars of grammar that I hadn'tlearned. But, so when I, when I came back to the study of Latin I, I, veryquickly, I came back to it, like I don't know, in 2004, I guess, and I, Idecided that I was going to come back to it, I finally saw my way, I wanted todo it for years, I finally saw my way through to it. And I, I got myself aLatin grammar. And I said to myself, okay, I have two rules. One rule is I willstudy for 20 minutes a day, no more, no less. And then most of the time, Iwouldn't just do nothing but study Latin because I could, I could end up doingsomething like that. And the other rule was, I would not be mad at myself fornot being further along. I had to start at the beginning. And, of course, goingthrough the first few chapters was, was pretty easy because I kind of retainthose, and I got, I got slowed down quite a bit. Well, some, somewhere in this,you know, within a couple of months of starting back, I thought, I cannotpossibly let my kids go out into the world without this treasure, you know, Ican't have this treasure and not pass it along. And I have my husband, I havefour kids, that two of them are already, you know, they were kind of like,older at high school, college. And then another two were in elementary schoolstill. So I thought, you know, I'm going to teach them. Well, I didn't reallyknow enough to teach them. And, at any rate, it didn't take my very fertilebrain very long to get the idea that it was just, it's not fair that just mykids had it. Every kid should have this opportunity. And so that's when Irealized that I'll have to go back to school because I can't, I can't go outand spread this because I don't know enough myself. And I couldn't get it allby myself. I got you know, I got a little way through the, through the firstbook, I got a pretty, pretty good portion of it. But I realized I needed more.And I ended up actually going back to school. I spent, I spent four years, twoyears getting the second bachelor's degree and then another two years in, in,with a master's in Latin. And then I you know, I actually graduated Magna CumLaude with the bachelor's degree because I submitted this curriculum that Iwrote as a senior honors thesis. And so I did all that kind of stuff that I knowhow to do. I know how to be a student, I know how to go to classes, I know howto write papers and take tests and study. Setting up a business was a lotharder. And I wasn't used to paying money to, to set up a business or to, Ididn't even know what I needed. And I just, I just somehow thought I would readabout marketing, and I was always keeping in the back of my mind thinking, yeah,but you know what, I really don't have to follow this rule because, you know,Latin is so special, and I'm so special, I don't have to follow the rules. AndI just wonder how many 1000s of dollars I lost, and how much time I took beforeI probably 6,7,8 years before I realized, no, the laws of marketing apply toeveryone. I ended up, I published a book before, without doing any kind ofmarket research. And it's a nice book, I'm proud of it. It's a. It's areference book of Latin that I couldn't even really explain to somebody whodoesn't have kind of a basis in Latin. You know, I couldn't explain what it'sfor. It's, it's pretty technical. But it's, it's a nice book, but I had nobusiness spending that much money and time, it cost me 1000s of dollars to hirea designer and to print copies. And I still have a whole bunch of them left.And I don't know if they'll ever, I doubt that they'll ever sell.Kay Neal 16:02But I,I've done a lot of things to try to make this and push this idea along. ButI've only recently really gotten it through my head that if you don't have acustomer who wants to pay money for your offer, then you don't have a business,you have got yourself a hobby, and I'm really trying to turn my hobby into abusiness. And you know, Ed, you're part of it, actually. I had had the idea fora while. I thought you know what? I, I've worked really, really hard on, ondoing stuff to put this, you know, get this mission going. And then I'll, I'llkind of get either, get discouraged or something in life comes up, and it keepsme off. And I and I just kind of sit there or spin my wheels or do stuff that'snot really related to finding customers, or, you know, meeting a need thatsomebody already feels they have. And so I would just kind of go off track. InDecember, I kind of, at the beginning of December, I thought, you know what?I'm just going to try, I'm...

<h1>Disclaimer</h1><h2>The views expressed on Dead America podcast are the views of the person expressing themselves.</h2>We are here for entertainment only for any Medical or Mental Health concerns you might have. We always recommend seeking local listings for a qualified provider in your area.We will always consider other points of view on any subject. We do not necessarily agree with our guests all of the time. We value everyone. All of our guests deserve respect and a platform to voice concerns.<a href="https://www.deadamerica.website" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The Dead America Website</a><a href="https://www.latinforlife.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Latin For Life Website</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU_OTGbBQOw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Youtube Video</a>Kay NealI'm on a mission to make the study of Latin mainstream--or at least a lot closer to the mainstream than it is now.Latin is mostly absent from the curriculum at any level of our education system, but it ought to be brought back, especially in the early grades. The only place that Latin shows up in school is when Latin and Greek roots are covered, as a way of building vocabulary. But I can tell you that memorizing roots off a list is not the best way to get these extremely useful and productive words into a student’s head.If you study Latin vocabulary in the context of Latin grammar—that is, if you study Latin—you go deep into English grammar, and this is something that isn’t really taught these days.But you need grammar to make sense out of words. You have to put words together in a certain way, or they don’t mean what you want them to. Studying Latin heightens your awareness of how words work together to make meaning. In fact, studying Latin gives you a foundation that you can build all sorts of academic success on.A person who has built a solid foundation in the basics of Latin in elementary school:* Will never think that a new word is too complicated to handle.* Will be able to read difficult texts in English (I'm talking especially about the classics) and absorb the author’s meaning.* Will understand the concept that languages have different ways of getting meaning across, which means that the Latin student will be able to enjoy later experiences with foreign languages in high school or college or life.* And perhaps most confidence-building of all, will be able to recognize when it is the speaker or the writer that is at fault and not their ability to understand.I've identified three different groups to reach out to first: people who for some reason or other have always wanted to learn Latin, parents who are not too happy with the education their child is receiving in public school, and people who already studied Latin but didn't get on top of the material the first time around and want a chance to really understand it.I have three free reports (corresponding to these three groups), and I'd be happy to share any or all of them with you. They go deeper into why Latin is worth studying. The titles are:<a href="https://www.latinforlife.com/whyyouareright" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">* Why You Are Absolutely Right to Want to Learn Latin</a><a href="https://www.latinforlife.com/fiveways" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">* Five Ways Your Child Is Being Shortchanged at School--and What You Can Do About It</a><a href=" https://www.latinforlife.com/whyyoudontrememberlatin" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">* Why You Don't Remember Any of the Latin You Learned All Those Years Ago (and What You Can Do About It)</a>----------------------------------------------------Transcript <a href="https://www.mediafire.com/file/c1yp8gitu2jtlbe/Kay_Neal_Transcript.docx/file" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Download</a>Kay NealSUMMARY KEYWORDSLatin, people,English, study, read, sentence, podcast, language, called, wrote, grammar,book, long, Spanish, kay, endings, learn, thought, curriculum, actionSPEAKERSEd Watters, Kay NealEd Watters 00:00challengingourselves. That's what Dead America is truly about. On today's episode, we dojust that. We dive deep into learning. And we talk to an individual that wantsto promote learning Latin. Latin is something that most of us don't even thinkabout. But you know, when it boils down to it, Latin has a lot to do with a lotof our life. And we are oblivious to that. Our guest today is going to help usunderstand the importance of Latin and why we should bring it back andunderstand it more and study it. So we understand our lives a little bitbetter. Let's not waste any time and get into today's episode. To overcome, youmust educate. Educate not only yourself but educate anyone seeking to learn.We are all Dead America. We can all learn something. To learn, we mustchallenge what we already understand. The way we do that is throughconversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others. However, some of thebest conversations happen with ourselves. Reach out and challenge yourself.Let's dive in and learn something right now. And today, we have Kay Neal withus. Kay, would you start off with introducing yourself and let our listenersknow a little bit about who you are and what you do, please? Kay Neal 03:08 Okay.Well, I am, I'm on a mission. And I started off; my mission is to make thestudy of Latin mainstream. And if I can't do that, at least help make it not soweird. I'm 64 years old. I've been at this for 15 years now, trying to, youknow, get some traction with this idea. Haven't had very much success so far.And I think part of it is because I haven't had, I haven't had a real cleargoal, or I've had a clear goal, but not a clear process. And it's taken a longtime to get that in place. But yeah, in a nutshell, I think I was born tomarket Latin. Ed Watters 03:54 That'svery interesting. You know, Latin is really kind of a far off place for us herein the world today for most of us, especially here in America. Our founders,they were fluent with Latin. And I'm kind of curious, do you know where wedropped that off in our education system at all? Kay Neal 04:20 Yeah, wedropped it off. Well, you know, not all the founders were big Latin andclassics enthusiasts. Ben Franklin wanted it to stop being the focus ofeducation. He wanted more practical courses. And so he, even though I'm sure hehad studied it as a child, that that was what you know, Grammar School was, youknow, to study Latin grammar. And so he was, yeah, so he was a person who was aum who was the other one. Thomas Paine. He thought it was really stupid to evenbother with Latin at all. And so now I mean, Thomas Jefferson, he wassupposedly, he could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other. WhichI would, I would have loved to have seen, that must have been just somethingelse. But, But not everybody was was thrilled with it. Not everybody thought itwas a wonderful thing. And when did it die out? Well, it used to be thelanguage that you studied, if you were if you were a gentleman. And when I sayGentleman, I mean, I mean, a man, not a woman, it was not taught to girls, itdied off, it started to die off, I guess. It was still at the beginning of the20th century. And even into the middle of it, it was something that you wouldtake if you were headed into medicine or law. In the past, it was what youtake, if you're headed into the clergy, well, you know, I read this prophet,that was a very interesting fact, I guess about Latin, the undoing of Latin, Imean, it, it sort of dug its own grave, or the people pushing it dug its gravefor it, by sticking just to this very narrow cannon of writers and during thewhat they call the golden age of Latin literature. And so you know, people likeCicero and Virgil became the models. And if you weren't up to that standard,then you're out. And you know, the all of the Latin, you know, you know thatLatin was the way to communicate in Europe for hundreds of years. That was athat was what you learned, that was the language of educated people. So if youwere from England, and you're talking to somebody from Germany, you're going tobe, or whatever Germany was called, in those days, you are going to be speakingLatin. But it fell by the wayside. Because people, the standards were just so high.And then, you know, Latin morphed into all the romance languages. SoPortuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, and all of the dialectsassociated with them are now, are our modern day versions of Latin. So asthose took over, then, then Latin, you know, was, was no longer studied. Andthen, people in the U.S., the emphasis shifted to modern languages instead ofLatin and Greek. Greek was less studied than Latin, but it was. It was in thereat university level anyway. Ed Watters 07:16 Okay. SoI read on your bio that Latin is mostly absent from the curriculum at anylevel of our education system. And it should be brought back, especially in theearly grades. How can we bring back that higher standard in our educationsystem? Kay Neal 07:38 Well, I,you know, I've, so I've had this idea that Latin should be, you know, every kidought to get a crack at Latin. I've had this idea since, well, 2005. And I havetried to, to push this idea among, you know, elementary school, principals,teachers, and there is just not much reception to it. So my idea, what I wantto do, is, if I ever do manage to get a business going, that is, that isactually generating a good income, I would love to set up a foundation thatlaunches after school programs at elementary schools, and train like highschoolers or college students on Latin, so they can teach it to the afterschool students who, who go to these programs. I actually wrote a curriculum.It was for parents who don't know any Latin or any foreign language or anyEnglish grammar, to learn Latin by manageable stages and teach it to theirchildren along the way. And this, this curriculum could be used very easily by,by you know, any, anybody who's illiterate, I say, if you can read your localnewspaper, you could use this curriculum to learn and teach somebody Latin. Sothat's what, I, that's my, that's my dream. That's my, my evil plan to takeover the world, as I sometimes call it, and I got enough traction in school.And you know, when people saw the benefits of it, then I think maybe therewould be some more institutional support for it, but it's really sad. It'sreally, really sad to me to see how lightly it, how little esteemed it is, andit has so much to offer. And and I really, honestly, I, you know, you meet alot of people in, in education and, and they seem to be more administratorsthan, than educators. And they don't seem to be, I mean, I know a lot ofteachers that they're not, they're not lifelong learners. And how could anybodybe a teacher who's just not so curious about everything, and especially aboutlanguage and, and how could they not? How could they not think that, that, thatlearning your own language, which Latin really helps you do, that learning yourown language isn't making the most fundamental thing you would do in education,because it's the base of everything, the base of math even, math and English,all those, all those equations, they're actually English sentences. If you'relearning nothing, you know, in an English speaking country. So that you justcan't overstate the importance of learning how to communicate in your, in yourown language. And to me, you can't do that. You can do that most effectivelyif you have some kind of exposure to another language. And I think that, thatLatin is the best language to expose someone, to an English speaking kid to, ifthey don't have any kind of natural exposure to another language in their intheir lives. Because it, it, it helps you, you know, anytime you learnsomething, you compare it to what you already know. And so when you learnanother language, you start comparing it to English, and you see that youknow, English and this language are, you know, they, they're similar, they allhave words, but they use the words in different ways. Ed Watters 11:06 So, doyou have any plans that will help you make your dream of Latin being broughtback into the mainstream? Kay Neal 11:21 Well, I,I've been working, you know, in the last 15 years, I've, you know, I started,well, the things that I've done so far, were I went back to school, actually,and did a second bachelor's degree and a second master's degree in, inclassics, and in Latin. Because I hadn't studied Latin when I got this idea in2005, I had not studied Latin since 1977. I think I took it in High School andgraduated high school in 78. And, and then never did anything with it, but Iknew it was a treasure, you know, just to have studied it was a treasure. Eventhough I didn't, I couldn't go and read a single passage after I'd been away fromit for so long. But the the other things, the the linguistic awareness thatit gave me, and the vocabulary it gave me, and the knowledge of, of syntax thatit gave me, stayed with me after I'd forgotten a little bit of, you know, thedeclensions and conjugations and the particulars of grammar that I hadn'tlearned. But, so when I, when I came back to the study of Latin I, I, veryquickly, I came back to it, like I don't know, in 2004, I guess, and I, Idecided that I was going to come back to it, I finally saw my way, I wanted todo it for years, I finally saw my way through to it. And I, I got myself aLatin grammar. And I said to myself, okay, I have two rules. One rule is I willstudy for 20 minutes a day, no more, no less. And then most of the time, Iwouldn't just do nothing but study Latin because I could, I could end up doingsomething like that. And the other rule was, I would not be mad at myself fornot being further along. I had to start at the beginning. And, of course, goingthrough the first few chapters was, was pretty easy because I kind of retainthose, and I got, I got slowed down quite a bit. Well, some, somewhere in this,you know, within a couple of months of starting back, I thought, I cannotpossibly let my kids go out into the world without this treasure, you know, Ican't have this treasure and not pass it along. And I have my husband, I havefour kids, that two of them are already, you know, they were kind of like,older at high school, college. And then another two were in elementary schoolstill. So I thought, you know, I'm going to teach them. Well, I didn't reallyknow enough to teach them. And, at any rate, it didn't take my very fertilebrain very long to get the idea that it was just, it's not fair that just mykids had it. Every kid should have this opportunity. And so that's when Irealized that I'll have to go back to school because I can't, I can't go outand spread this because I don't know enough myself. And I couldn't get it allby myself. I got you know, I got a little way through the, through the firstbook, I got a pretty, pretty good portion of it. But I realized I needed more.And I ended up actually going back to school. I spent, I spent four years, twoyears getting the second bachelor's degree and then another two years in, in,with a master's in Latin. And then I you know, I actually graduated Magna CumLaude with the bachelor's degree because I submitted this curriculum that Iwrote as a senior honors thesis. And so I did all that kind of stuff that I knowhow to do. I know how to be a student, I know how to go to classes, I know howto write papers and take tests and study. Setting up a business was a lotharder. And I wasn't used to paying money to, to set up a business or to, Ididn't even know what I needed. And I just, I just somehow thought I would readabout marketing, and I was always keeping in the back of my mind thinking, yeah,but you know what, I really don't have to follow this rule because, you know,Latin is so special, and I'm so special, I don't have to follow the rules. AndI just wonder how many 1000s of dollars I lost, and how much time I took beforeI probably 6,7,8 years before I realized, no, the laws of marketing apply toeveryone. I ended up, I published a book before, without doing any kind ofmarket research. And it's a nice book, I'm proud of it. It's a. It's areference book of Latin that I couldn't even really explain to somebody whodoesn't have kind of a basis in Latin. You know, I couldn't explain what it'sfor. It's, it's pretty technical. But it's, it's a nice book, but I had nobusiness spending that much money and time, it cost me 1000s of dollars to hirea designer and to print copies. And I still have a whole bunch of them left.And I don't know if they'll ever, I doubt that they'll ever sell. Kay Neal 16:02 But I,I've done a lot of things to try to make this and push this idea along. ButI've only recently really gotten it through my head that if you don't have acustomer who wants to pay money for your offer, then you don't have a business,you have got yourself a hobby, and I'm really trying to turn my hobby into abusiness. And you know, Ed, you're part of it, actually. I had had the idea fora while. I thought you know what? I, I've worked really, really hard on, ondoing stuff to put this, you know, get this mission going. And then I'll, I'llkind of get either, get discouraged or something in life comes up, and it keepsme off. And I and I just kind of sit there or spin my wheels or do stuff that'snot really related to finding customers, or, you know, meeting a need thatsomebody already feels they have. And so I would just kind of go off track. InDecember, I kind of, at the beginning of December, I thought, you know what?I'm just going to try, I'm...

Kay believes the US education system can be improved by introducing Latin at the elementary level. Can a dead language help young students get a better grasp of the languages they do speak? And more importantly, is that cool? “A person who has built a solid foundation on the basics of Latin in elementary school will never think that a new word is too complicated to handle.” Kay has a Master’s in Latin from the University of Illinois and has developed a free resource for getting started with the language at https://www.latinforlife.com/whyyouareright Have a cool idea you think should be on the show? Leave us a voicemail at (848) 863-9917. howcoolisthis.show

Kay believes the US education system can be improved by introducing Latin at the elementary level. Can a dead language help young students get a better grasp of the languages they do speak? And more importantly, is that cool? “A person who has built a solid foundation on the basics of Latin in elementary school will never think that a new word is too complicated to handle.” Kay has a Master’s in Latin from the University of Illinois and has developed a free resource for getting started with the language at <a href="https://www.latinforlife.com/whyyouareright" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.latinforlife.com/whyyouareright</a> Have a cool idea you think should be on the show? Leave us a voicemail at (848) 863-9917. <a href="https://howcoolisthis.show" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">howcoolisthis.show</a>