Live online Latin·Grades 5 to 12·Taught in English

Your child’s school doesn’t teach Latin. That is where we begin.

Most of our students come from schools with no Latin at all. They start here with a first course chosen by grade, and finish with the AP Latin Exam and the international contests. Nothing is assumed, and nothing is left out. Every class is taught live, by one teacher. And in Humane Letters, the same close reading, in English.

Book a Free Fifteen-Minute Conversation Find Your Child’s Course

In English with the teacher, or in Korean with our administrator. We reply within one business day.

The Academy in Brief

2015
Teaching since
One
Teacher, every class
5–12
Grades taught
Live
Over Zoom, recorded

Our students come from schools such as Seoul Foreign School, Seoul International School, Yongsan International School of Seoul, Phillips Exeter, Phillips Academy Andover, and Groton. They have gone on to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, and MIT. The Student Body →

Why so few schools still teach Latin →

Enrolling now: the Winter Term

Fall Term 2026

Winter Term begins Saturday, November 21.

Our calendar →

Ten weekly classes from November 21 and 22. Find your child below; each card is the course we would recommend. Times are in Korea time, with your own time beneath.

Already know some Latin? There are continuing classes too, and a free Placement Reading shows which fits. The full Winter Schedule →

Not sure it will suit your child? Withdraw before the first class and all of the tuition is returned; after one to three classes, two‑thirds. Refunds →

Read one sentence with us

This is what a Latin class looks like, in miniature. Tap any word to see what it is doing in the sentence. A new sentence appears here each day.

Tap a word.

On Instagram, every evening at 10 PM Korea time, a new sentence is parsed the same way. See it on Instagram →

One teacher, from the first sentence to the AP exam

John Cho, Ioannes Magister
John Cho, who teaches as Ioannes Magister

I teach every class at Emerson Latin myself: a ten-year-old’s first Latin sentence, the AP Latin Exam, a senior’s advanced literature seminar, and every Humane Letters Volume. There is no second instructor and no rotating staff. The person you meet in the first conversation is the person who teaches your child, and who still remembers in the ninth grade what your child found difficult in the fifth.

I began Latin at twelve, at a seminary where we prayed, sang, and argued in it. I have taught it since 2015, first in Seoul and now online. The Magister →

“It is better to teach the child arithmetic and Latin grammar than rhetoric or moral philosophy, because they require exactitude of performance.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Education.” Why the academy bears his name →

Why Latin matters more in the age of AI

A machine can now translate Cicero in a second. That is not an argument against learning Latin. It is an argument for it. When anything can be explained, summarized, or written for a student, the rare and valuable thing is a mind that can read slowly and think for itself, and a record of having done it, live, in front of a teacher.

Latin in the age of AI →  ·  Twelve short essays on why Latin →

Choosing a course is simple. The grade decides.

Every first course leads to the same path: Latin Literature, then AP Latin, then, for those who want to go further, Advanced Latin Literature. See where your child could be, and when →

Humane Letters: classical English reading and writing

For grades 9 to 12, whether or not your child studies Latin with us. Not a writing class, but a reading class that produces writers: the great books, read closely and argued about in Socratic seminar, with essays written for international competitions throughout the year. Five Volumes, one for each term; a student may begin with any of them, at the start of a term or in the middle of one.

  1. Vol. IThe Birth of Philosophical Reason
  2. Vol. IIThe Making of the Autonomous Individual
  3. Vol. IIIThe Individual and Society
  4. Vol. IVUnmasking and the Existential Response
  5. Vol. VSystems, Their Record, and a Planetary Vantage

Admission by Viva, a short conversation about a poem, in the tradition of the Oxford admissions interview. About Humane Letters →

The international contests

Before each international contest in Latin and classical humanities, I run a separate preparation course of up to five sessions. Students work through real exams from past years, many going back decades, and study guides of our own. There is more than enough material to prepare a student fully. The Latin courses themselves are the real foundation: there is no substitute for the reading these contests test.

Writing is different. In Humane Letters, students prepare and submit essays for international writing competitions many times through the year, inside the course itself.

Where those students went next is recorded, one student at a time, in Student Milestones.

Contest results →  ·  Student milestones →

The Record

Results and student milestones are recorded here as they come in, and I write often on Latin, classical education, and the questions parents ask.

All News →

When the schedule does not fit

The questions parents ask before they write

All Common Doubts →

The Correspondence

An occasional letter on classical learning.

Contest results, student milestones, new essays, and word of courses opening.

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