Latin based medical terminology: learning habits and difficulties among Hungarian and foreign medical students

Abstract

The first-year Hungarian and English program students at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged, as well as the students of the foundation year, study Latin based medical terminology in Hungarian and English for two semesters. The aim of this course is to provide students with the necessary background knowledge in Latin for studying health sciences and they also familiarize with the basic medical terminology related to Latin and Greek languages. Hungarian and foreign students have the same grammatical topics, but the terminology requirements are different, because Hungarian and the foundation year students learn anatomical terminology in more detail than first-year foreign students. I conducted an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire survey among two Hungarian, three foreign, and two foundation year groups (63 students in total) at the end of the second semester. The questionnaires in Hungarian and English contained single- and multiple-choice, open-ended, and semi-closed questions.  The questionnaire asked about the previously learnt languages, the students' learning habits, and difficulties. The aim of the survey was to find out whether Hungarian and foreign students had similar or different learning habits in terms of learning Latin terminology, and whether they found the same or different areas difficult in learning the subject. The results of the survey show that the learning habits of Hungarian and foreign students differ and that different areas make the learning process more difficult. In this present paper, the results of this questionnaire are described in detail.