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Beginning Latin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6302 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes  Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 89 of 103 06 December 2007 at 7:15am | IP Logged |
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-Update-
It's been a while since I updated. I've decided to change my learning method as I've been getting bored with what I've been doing. I've shifted my focus less on listening and more on grammar (though not passive grammar learning). The listening/reading method works to a large degree, but I often find myself wanting some variation on grammar. To accomodate this desire of mine, I've decided to record my own content by reading sentences in English (from my books), then the Latin translations immediately afterwards (this is done sentence by sentence). Additionally, I suppose the act of recording myself would be a way of practicing reading aloud, since I will likely end up constantly re-recording myself (so as to sound natural). ;) By taking advantage of grammar charts, I'd simply substitute (i.e. adjectives, nouns, verbs, etc). I didn't think grammar charts would be so useful, but I'm quite glad that the Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin book has them. My pronunciation seems to be fairly decent. However, I often find myself mixing Classical and Ecclesiastical pronunciations. On a random note, the rolled Rs are quite natural to me now. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6302 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 90 of 103 05 February 2008 at 12:30pm | IP Logged |
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-Another Update-
My gosh.. it's been a while since I've updated.. Over the past few weeks, I've been trying new things. It seems I can't stick to any one method to learn. I've been learning via Lingua Latina, but some parts are just to difficult for me to grasp without the help of a Latinist. Recently, I ordered Lingua Latina: A College Companion. That book is precisely what I've been looking for as it explains vocabulary and grammatical notes which I've been struggling to figure out on my own. Thankfully it's coming in a few days. I've been memorizing phrases from John Collins's A Primer of Ecclesiastical Lstin, but I'm starting to think maybe it's really not worth the effort to memorize religious phrases which are not stated within any particular context. The explanation of the grammar is helpful though. Rather than trying to produce phrases based on my previous post on practicing grammar, I'm focusing almost exclusively on input rather than output. It's so clear to me that I could potentially fossilize errors by sounding like a textbook. Authentic input would probably be much better for me. Unfortunately, I also haven't made much progress lately, as my weeks have been busy. While I've studied Latin for a long time, I've only learned the first 3 declensions, some verbs, adjectives, personal pronouns, and I just scratched the surface of passive tense. Moreover, I've not internalized all the declensions yet. I seem to find ways to procrastinate since the methods I've been using haven't been the most rewarding. On a more positive note, I'm thinking of using the Listening-Reading method again. It looks like I have not been properly applying it. As a hardcore analyzer, I'm beginning to think that the L-R's use of 'incubation' might be right, though I haven't fully read about how it works. I'm somewhat convinced that we actually do learn things either unconsciously, or perhaps less consciously (after all, how do children know how to learn to speak without learning grammar rules)? In fact, I wonder if these so-called 'rules' (which always seem to have exceptions) are nothing more than just ways of classifying how the language functions. I also think that there is something inherently wrong with consciously thinking about grammar (i.e. syntax, conjugation, etc) while trying to speak, which is what a lot of my students have often done. It always amazes me to see people who learn foreign languages so naturally without ever having formally learned grammar. Frequent exposure seems to be the key. Anyway... I digress. The point is I think there is some merit to the incubation idea mentioned in the Listening-Reading thread. I'll be updating this far more regularly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tmesis Senior Member Mayotte Joined 6591 days ago 154 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* | Message 91 of 103 05 February 2008 at 2:02pm | IP Logged |
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- Edited by tmesis on 17 February 2008 at 2:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6302 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 92 of 103 05 February 2008 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
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I've accumulated just one more text as mentioned above, and sadly, I realize you are correct that in that I'm running off to search for another method rather than persisting (though I am highly interested in methodology).
I seem to have problems with dealing with laziness. Reviewing tends to bore me, and going on to more difficult content is often not too appealing to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tmesis Senior Member Mayotte Joined 6591 days ago 154 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* | Message 93 of 103 05 February 2008 at 6:35pm | IP Logged |
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- Edited by tmesis on 17 February 2008 at 2:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6413 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 94 of 103 06 February 2008 at 3:15am | IP Logged |
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I think graded reading from your goal could help, as in http://www.learnlangs.com/latin
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| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6302 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 95 of 103 07 February 2008 at 12:55pm | IP Logged |
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Tmesis, I don't think it's a fear of failure, but overwhelm. I spoke with a friend the other day, and he helped me sort out some of this. Simply being aware of this helped tremendously!
Sprachprofi, thanks for the resources! I'll certainly look into them. Today, I spent some time reviewing chapter 7 of Lingua Latina. Rather than reading it with an attitude of "I have to do this", I gave it a very light read. I don't know if this is the best way to go about it, but I'm sure it's far better than being stressed. I notice the phrase, "I have to" feels so limiting. It's like I am not free, so by reading it with a fresh attitude, I felt much more relaxed about learning Latin. Tangent - As a language teacher, I've noticed something about my students' writing. They consistently make mistakes based on their first language. Often times, students would say "I went to the America" or "I went to Philippines". Clearly, they do not know that such phrases sounds so unnatural. According to grammar 'rules', those two sentences are wrong, yet I asked myself, "How is it that I instinctively know how to use articles without having consciously learned these so-called rules?" Then it dawned on me: Exposure seemed to be the key, like a habit. When I hear a sentence with a missing article, it would sound a bit jarring, as if someone literally skipped a note in a performance. I often hear a student making the same mistakes constantly due to turning their mistakes into habits. Even when they consciously know these 'rules', it doesn't help them speak, since they are so used to speaking incorrectly. So how does this relate to learning Latin? Ultimately, My students' mistakes have led me to think about how I should learn Latin. Before I ever attempt to speak this language, I would need constant exposure to it. To produce language too early may be premature and perhaps counterproductive. Now the question is: How do I create an environment in which I constantly expose myself? Sitting in front of my desk isn't my most favorite way of learning. I'll have to think of a few things. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6302 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 96 of 103 11 February 2008 at 1:05pm | IP Logged |
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-Shadowing-
Today, I decided to try some shadowing. I shadowed chapter 5 of Lingua Latina 4 times, which is about 30 minutes of shadowing. Basically, I shadowing 2 times in one sitting, then later in the day I did it again. I noticed something remarkably different about the second sitting. The first 15 minutes were quite painful. I was nearly falling asleep as I shadowed. Pacing around my room helped, but I was quickly getting bored. However, the second time I did it, I was listening to some orchestral music (to be precise: orchestrated music from Final Fantasy). To my surprise, the music kept me awake. While I don't know if I shadowed properly, the music kept me going. In fact, as a former diehard gamer, and having played an instrument for a good number of years, I suddenly fell into the flow of the music while I was shadowing. Tomorrow I plan to experiment further. There is something I'm really wondering though: While shadowing, is it important to focus on understanding the meaning immediately? Or is it more important to simply get my mouth used to producing such 'strange sound combinations'? I suppose both are important, but perhaps the latter is more important right now. I did notice something interesting though: When shadowing, I would naturally come across passages that I would have trouble figuring out (even though I had 'learned' them previously). Later, when I shadow again, that same passage would suddenly make sense as I heard it. This happened several times in each of the repetitions. :) Edited by JasonChoi on 11 February 2008 at 1:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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