conversation

me: "so I'm interested in taking some greek and latin classes over the next few quarters, but I'm not sure how well my skills have held up after not using them much over the last ten years."

guy at the classics department: "yeah, I don't know either."

me: "is there some sort of placement test you give to people who want to take language courses? something that would help determine what level would be appropriate for me to start out at?"

guy at the classics department: "no, not really. we usually just sort of base our evaluation of that sort of thing on how much previous study you've done elsewhere and sort of a conversational assessment of how much you seem to know."

me: "my previous study was a long time ago. I've forgotten an awful lot."

guy at the classics department: "well, how far did you go with your studies back when you were doing them?"

me: "I took 3 or 4 upper (like, 300 and 400) level latin courses, and I did 2 reading courses in greek - one plato and one homer."

guy at the classics department: "uh huh."

me: "and I feel reasonably ok about the latin. I've forgotten a lot of it, but I think if I start using it again, it'll come back pretty quickly."

guy at the classics department: "uh huh."

me: "but I think I've lost almost all of my greek. I was never really great at it even at my best, and the stuff I did know has pretty much entirely left my head."

guy at the classics department: "oh, I'm sure it hasn't left your head completely. it's probably just in the attic."

me: [speechless]