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Beginning Latin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6351 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes  Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 17 of 103 18 July 2007 at 11:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Furyou_gaijin,
Thank you so much for mentioning that! At first, I had trouble navigating the site, plus I'm not really interested in the classics (as I'm not interested in classical Chinese either). However, I noticed the site includes the Latin Vulgate, so it will be very useful for me. It also has Aesop's fables in Latin and English! This is probably one of the few classical sources I'll read since I'm familiar with them. Perhaps this will be my doorway to appreciating the classics. ;) With regards to pronunciation, I have a classics friend who can speak Latin with several different accents. I'm particularly focusing on Ecclesiastical pronunciation. In short, I'm focusing on an Italian accent, as it's heard in Gregorian chant. By the way, how did you learn latin, and can you speak it fluently? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6351 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 18 of 103 18 July 2007 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hm. I just stumbled upon a page called Reading Latin which looks a bit useful for me. I will likely refer to it from time to time.
Edited by JasonChoi on 18 July 2007 at 12:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6683 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 103 18 July 2007 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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JasonChoi, so what do you think are the best courses your using right now?
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| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6378 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin* | Message 20 of 103 19 July 2007 at 7:40am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I have always been sceptical of the speaking and listening aspects of a dead language, though I do believe that writing may be useful for certain purposes. Personally, I wasn't given any choice with Latin: it was a compulsory part of my education at an age when I wasn't fully able to appreciate its advantages. At this stage in life, when I'm trying to forget more living languages than most people will ever learn the names of, I can only regret that Ancient Greek was never brought forward to me in a similar way and secretly consider myself slightly undereducated for having but a superficial knowledge of it. One of these days, to give my eyes a break from decyphering Wenyanwen texts, I might actually consider giving myself up to three weeks or so to learn Ancient Greek, purely as an intellectual exercise. If that ever happens, I'll let everyone know how I'm getting on... Back to Latin... Church-Latin and any other kind of late Latin are actually no-brainers: the syntax, the word-usage and - most importantly - the Way of Thinking are close to those of modern languages. And if Tertullian still retains some traces of the 'classic' complexity with its elliptic sentence structure and a vast variety of 'false friends' vocabulary items, a few centuries after him most of that complexity is lost and now we are on to Küchenlatein (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCchenlatein) but that's a different story... I can't see how it is possible to entirely avoid the classics if one wants to claim proficiency in Latin but starting off by reading later authors would probably be the most appropriate in your situation, working your way back to the older texts as and when you are sufficiently comfortable with the language structure and have acquired a decent vocabulary. I wouldn't bother with any formal textbooks either, maybe just a good summary of the grammar, but that's just my personal attitude... There are sufficient texts out there for a curious learner although classic texts do prevail in public domain and - more importantly - have more readily available translations. I also happen to have the full electronic version of Patrologia Latina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrologia_Latina) which is still not in public domain for some disgraceful reason and will gladly share specific texts with motivated people who really need them. Good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6431 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 21 of 103 19 July 2007 at 7:53am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Two questions: How would you go about learning Ancient Greek? Given the language expertise you claim, and your estimate of it taking 3 weeks, I'd appreciate if you'd give a brief overview of this. Are you going to fill in your language profile at some point, at least cursorily? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6378 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin* | Message 22 of 103 19 July 2007 at 8:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Honestly? No idea!.. That's why I see this as a purely intellectual exercise that can either work or fail. Before I sit down for this task, though, I will probably need to think for a few days exactly how I am planning to achieve this and the end strategy is likely to include many of the suggestions given by participants of this forum. To specify: 'learning', realistically, in this case would amount to acquiring around 5,000 vocabulary items, full familiarity with grammar and ability to read a classic text within the boundaries of the vocabulary. I have no ambition to learn how to 'speak' a dead tongue and am not planning to make active reproduction (i.e., writing) part of this challenge. Still sounds unrealistic?
Absolutely: as soon as I have overcome my angst of being called a 'something-something-GLOT' on that profile and the option 'Tries to forget:' is added to the existing ones 'Speaks:' and 'Studies:'. Edited by furyou_gaijin on 19 July 2007 at 8:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6431 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 23 of 103 19 July 2007 at 9:01am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I never said it sounded unrealistic. I've heard of a couple of other people claiming similar things, but I've never heard many details about how they'd go about it, so, naturally enough, I was curious. The restrictions you mention seem quite sensible.
Maybe Jason can help you with the angst. You could just leave out the 'tries to forget' ones, I suppose. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tmesis Senior Member Mayotte Joined 6640 days ago 154 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* | Message 24 of 103 19 July 2007 at 9:32am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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- Edited by tmesis on 17 February 2008 at 2:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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