How did you learn Latin? (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

How did you learn Latin?
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Andy E
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6892 days ago
1651 posts - 1939 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

Message 9 of 12

25 August 2010 at 4:16pm | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

I first learnt Latin in the late 60s with the good ol' grammar-translation method in its purest form, i.e. translation both ways + grammar with no intention of teaching people to speak or write the language. As soon as I stopped dealing with Latin my purely passive skills crumbled, and soon I could hardly read simple inscriptions. At that point I wasn't too impresed with my Latin courses. It wasn't until I decided to relearn it that I found out that the old courses in fact had given me a very solid, although completely hidden foundation.

Not wanting to hijack the OP's thread but this is exactly where I find myself (albeit in my case it was the 70s). Are you saying you simply revisited the old grammar translation textbooks to reactivate your knowledge? I'm not interested in being able to speak it but my current inability to read or write anything is a frustration - particularly as I was straight-A student in the language at school.
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6492 days ago
9078 posts - 16473 votes

Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
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Message 10 of 12

26 August 2010 at 2:03pm | IP Logged

Yes, I just went through good ol' Mikkelsen and did the exercises there, and it took less than a month, and since then I haven't touched a Latin textbook. Instead I went on a search for dictionaries and wordlists which contained words I would use and not only those that Cicero or Caesar would use. Incidentally my Danish-Latin and Latin-Danish dictionaries proved almost worthless in that perspective, while a cheap dictionary* I bought in Manila has proved to be a true gem. Besides I have systematically read Ephemeris and other Neolatin internet resources, because the content there is much nearer to the things I'm interested in than classical poetry is.

* New College...

You don't have to speak Latin, but it is simply very effective to decide that you at least want to be able to write in Latin - you simply get another attitude to the words and expressions and constructions you see when you know that you may have to reproduce them yourself at some point.

Elexi wrote:

Do you know of Evan Milner's vast Latinum online course:
http://latinum.mypodcast.com/

Yes, and my first impression was "Gosh! those guys actually pronounce the long vowels". I suspect that this also serves to keep the speech tempo down, - but with little prospect of meeting other Latin speakers I have decided to keep my despicably sloppy pronunciation habits.

Edited by Iversen on 26 August 2010 at 2:13pm
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carlonove
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5775 days ago
145 posts - 253 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian

Message 11 of 12

27 August 2010 at 5:24pm | IP Logged

I found that Hans Orberg's Lingua Latina was a great introduction, as it has the special feature of containing no translation whatsoever. The audio, story, and grammatical explanations are all in Latin, which was a big motivator for me. I also found this very interesting paper from ~1939 that discusses a reading-centered method of learning Latin, which focuses on learning the 40 or so most common word endings and the most frequent words found in the texts of great classical and medieval writers.
3 persons have voted this message useful

vexx
Groupie
Australia
Joined 5007 days ago
81 posts - 82 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Latin

Message 12 of 12

28 August 2010 at 5:12am | IP Logged

Elexi wrote:

Do you know of Evan Milner's vast Latinum online course:

http://latinum.mypodcast.com/

Oh wow no i didn't, i will definitely check this out (saved to bookmarks) if i decide to learn to speak Latin, thanks!

carlonove wrote:

I found that Hans Orberg's Lingua Latina was a great introduction, as it has the special
feature of containing no translation whatsoever. The audio, story, and grammatical explanations are all in Latin,
which was a big motivator for me. I also found this very
interesting paper from ~1939 that discusses a reading-centered method of learning Latin, which focuses on
learning the 40 or so most common word endings and the most frequent words found in the texts of great
classical and medieval writers.

Definitely will read through this soon, thanks for posting, seems interesting.
And I'm agreeing with Lingua Latina, i'm going through it now, it's pretty fun just reading a page a night or so,
done the first three chapters over the last few nights. Will be trying other resources when i have more time
though.

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