7 ms·

This couldn't be more timely. I've been wanting to get back into learning Latin. I took it in high school but faked my way through unfortunately. Does anyone

This couldn't be more timely. I've been wanting to get back into learning Latin. I took it in high school but faked my way through unfortunately. Does anyone have any recommendations for good resources to learn Latin outside of the obvious language learning apps/sites like Duolingo or Rosetta Stone?

Quillbert182 5y ago
One thing commonly recommended is the textbook Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It uses illustrations to help you learn only in Latin.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  What's interesting is that the book is 100% Latin - you need to figure everything out from context and examples. It's almost a logic puzzle, and learning Latin is a side effect.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I really tried but ultimately found it frustrating - I think I honestly do learn best with a good amount of structured tables, going through grammar etc. Certainly that's how I've been learning Hindi (via Wiktionary & Snell, supplementing Duolingo) in which I've progressed far beyond where I ever got to with Latin via LLI. Just hit too many blocks where I sort of have the understanding of what it must mean, but I want to ask someone 'why is it inflected in this way here but different there?', and of course there's no explanation of that. (By design, I just don't like it.) Perhaps my ideal would be something like LLI but interspersed with grammar-oriented explanation between chapters.
    - mabub24 5y ago
      It's just not a grammar book, it's a language book in the sense that it teaches how the language is used rather than "constructed". I always recommend people learn the use of a language before the grammar at the beginning, and then transition into much more intensive grammar study later, likely exactly at the point when you got frustrated is when introducing grammar would be perfect. This is especially true when the written grammar of a language can look very different than the sound of a language (especially if written differences are hidden by identical sounds in the language, like in French).
      - OJFord 5y ago
        Yes exactly, but I think the trouble is that it's too popular to say 'people learn by immersion, not by grammar and tables, immersion is how we learnt our first language after all'; when actually, some people do prefer (or at least benefit from additionally) such rigid grammarian teaching. I've learnt so much more from studying conjugation/declension tables on Wiktionary than I have from trying to converse with fluent/native speakers, who can't explain to me why or tell me how to spell it (sounding/typing it in the English alphabet).
        fourtrees 5y ago
        Is it even possible to learn exclusively by immersion as an adult? I was under the impression that roughly around puberty, we lose a good part of our ability to just pick up languages and a combination of study and experimentation was required afterwards.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Is this a sensible approach to learning any language from a book? Or does it only make sense with a "dead" language that we mostly know from literature and inscriptions?
    - coyotespike 5y ago
      It does make more sense with Latin, because while Latin has always been and still is spoken, much of the value of the language comes from its literature (of which 90% has never been translated). BUT, the natural method plays well with extensive reading/comprehensible input, where you just read a lot at a simple, pleasurable level, allowing it to ramp up gradually. This is how I learned much of English as a native speaker, after all! So I intend to use this approach with other languages in the future as well.
- jan_Inkepa 5y ago
  That and Wheelock's Latin are the main book recommendations. Other than that, there are a bunch of subreddits and a large discord which might be nice if you want to get some daily active practice in (including voice chat). Or just see if there are any courses running near you - active training can be handy, but the style of course is very country-specific - every country has their own tradition for teaching Latin (or multiple), and the style/goal may not suit you. It's super low-effort, but I had fun with the (modern) light novellas by Andrew Olympi and kin - in some sense they're too easy above a certain level and made me over-confident in a way that was damaging to my confidence when I looked at actual classical latin texts, on the other hand it's nice to just be able to pick up a small book and read some beginner-level Latin without requiring any effort/strain. [ note: I've only been learning Latin for about a year, with very mixed success - I'm very much a beginner still and can't read any classical texts with any fluency/comfort, nor write without a dictionary to help with inflections ]
- handrous 5y ago
  Is there a name for this kind of book? I have one, titled "Mein Erstes Buch", that, in one small and slim volume, takes you from "Dick & Jane" and "See Spot Run" levels, to an ~3rd or 4th grade reading level, entirely in German. I picked it up because it looked neat but tried reading it one day, made it about a third of the way through, and sure enough, I could follow along. Doesn't teach you pronunciation and it doesn't replace focused practice & drilling, but it was pretty damn cool. I'd like one in French, especially, but I don't know what term to search for. "The Natural Method" from that link yields some promising results, but are there other terms? (just checked archive.org, and sure enough, they've got a scan of the book I have, but it's a limited preview: https://archive.org/details/meinerstesbuch0000unse/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/meinerstesbuch0000unse/mode/2up)
  - maw 5y ago
    In LLPSI's marketing materials, they call it the "natural method." (I've also seen "nature method.") Another term is "comprehensible input" -- but I am not certain precisely how the two relate to each other. But hopefully they're enough for you to go on.
    - coyotespike 5y ago
      Yes, the terms I've seen are "natural method", "comprehensible input", and "extensive reading." The latter two refer more to a large volume of simple reading materials which let you work up on your own, practicing and slowly learning more grammar and vocabulary.
  - urubu 5y ago
    Here's a website with a list of such textbooks for various languages: https://vivariumnovum.it/risorse-didattiche/propria-formazione/metodo-diretto-applicato-alle-lingue-moderne https://vivariumnovum.it/risorse-didattiche/propria-formazio...
    - dvaun 5y ago
      This is amazing, thank you!
hyperstar 5y ago
https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/ https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/ For spoken Latin, there are Corderii colloquia, which are also made into an audio book.
sumobob2112 5y ago
Wheelocks would be my goto, you learn by reading authors, in the original translation.
yepguy 5y ago
The Latinum Institute provides a lot of audio material for their Patreon subscribers. https://www.latinum.org.uk/ https://www.latinum.org.uk/
mbg721 5y ago
In addition to whichever dictionary and textbook you use, as you get deeper in, an Allen & Greenough grammar reference is really handy. Because Latin word-order is looser than English, there are some a-ha! moments where it starts to click, "Oh, this entire clause is acting as the direct object, and it's here because Cicero wanted to emphasize this and this." Quickly being able to look up common constructions and how noun cases are used helps with that.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  The word ordering stuff gets really wild, compared to my native English. I wonder about languages that have more flexible word order, do their speakers have greater ability to retain information in working memory?
  - leetcrew 5y ago
    keep in mind that most of the latin you end up reading in school is rather formal/complex. it's hard to parse in a similar way that charles dickens is harder to parse than casual/informal english. stuff like de bello gallico and some new testament books (greek) can be very straightforward. it is definitely hard to get started with latin/greek when your native tongue is a highly positional language like english, but I don't think it is intrinsically harder. the same information is there, it's just encoded in word endings rather than order. in english, the word order is only really important within individual clauses. you can still write very complicated (and syntactically correct) english sentences with clause orderings that are very hard to parse. I'd argue this requires just as deep of a mental "stack" as latin/greek. anyways, that's just my two cents as someone who studied, but never fully mastered, latin and greek in college.
gnufx 5y ago
Whichever it is, remember, from a .sig on ancient posts by Vassil Nikolov: LEGEMANVALEMFVTVTVM (Ancient Roman programmers' adage.)
- jan_Inkepa 5y ago
  [ For the curious : this is some kind of overly-literal rendition of RTFM "lege - manvualem - fututum", where the grammar appears somewhat strained, but a detailed analysis would be not appropriate on YCOMB for several reasons... ]
yawboakye 5y ago
There's 2 lively Latin Discord servers. One for general Latin and the other for everyone learning Latin using Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, a popular book for self-guided learning. Once in the community you'd easily discover resources like YouTube channels, Twitter accounts, podcasts etc. It's amazing how large and niche the community is at the same time! LLPSI Discord: https://discord.gg/uXSwq9r4 https://discord.gg/uXSwq9r4 Latin Discord: https://discord.gg/latin https://discord.gg/latin
- sterlind 5y ago
  I love LLPSI. The approach of just building up without requiring translation into another language really feels like how we're supposed to learn - naturally, incrementally, through immersion.
billfruit 5y ago
You could use a textbook specifically designed for adult learners like the Wheelock.
Koshkin 5y ago
This one is an excellent resource for language lovers: https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol
JoeDaDude 5y ago
This graphic novel could be fun, it is based on the writings of Julius Caesar who was said to write in a fairly simple style. Caesaris Bellum Helveticum: Scriptores Antiqui Romani Imaginibus Ornati by Karl Heinz Graf Von Rothenburg https://www.amazon.com/Caesaris-Bellum-Helveticum-Scriptores-Imaginibus/dp/084428629X https://www.amazon.com/Caesaris-Bellum-Helveticum-Scriptores...
- em-bee 5y ago
  there are latin versions of the asterix comic published in germany. they are supposed to be of high quality. https://new.egmont-shop.de/comics/asterix/latein/ https://new.egmont-shop.de/comics/asterix/latein/
voldacar 5y ago
I would recommend some combination of Lingua Latina and Wheelock's Latin. That's what my Latin tutor used and they complement each other very well.
vlod 5y ago
You might like this youtube channel: ScorpioMartianus https://www.youtube.com/c/ScorpioMartianus https://www.youtube.com/c/ScorpioMartianus
jamesfinlayson 5y ago
I found Cambridge Latin Course (which I used at school) quite good, and it was engaging and interesting as well.

Quillbert182 5y ago

One thing commonly recommended is the textbook Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It uses illustrations to help you learn only in Latin.

HPsquared 5y ago
What's interesting is that the book is 100% Latin - you need to figure everything out from context and examples. It's almost a logic puzzle, and learning Latin is a side effect.
- OJFord 5y ago
  I really tried but ultimately found it frustrating - I think I honestly do learn best with a good amount of structured tables, going through grammar etc. Certainly that's how I've been learning Hindi (via Wiktionary & Snell, supplementing Duolingo) in which I've progressed far beyond where I ever got to with Latin via LLI. Just hit too many blocks where I sort of have the understanding of what it must mean, but I want to ask someone 'why is it inflected in this way here but different there?', and of course there's no explanation of that. (By design, I just don't like it.) Perhaps my ideal would be something like LLI but interspersed with grammar-oriented explanation between chapters.
  - mabub24 5y ago
    It's just not a grammar book, it's a language book in the sense that it teaches how the language is used rather than "constructed". I always recommend people learn the use of a language before the grammar at the beginning, and then transition into much more intensive grammar study later, likely exactly at the point when you got frustrated is when introducing grammar would be perfect. This is especially true when the written grammar of a language can look very different than the sound of a language (especially if written differences are hidden by identical sounds in the language, like in French).
    - OJFord 5y ago
      Yes exactly, but I think the trouble is that it's too popular to say 'people learn by immersion, not by grammar and tables, immersion is how we learnt our first language after all'; when actually, some people do prefer (or at least benefit from additionally) such rigid grammarian teaching. I've learnt so much more from studying conjugation/declension tables on Wiktionary than I have from trying to converse with fluent/native speakers, who can't explain to me why or tell me how to spell it (sounding/typing it in the English alphabet).
      - fourtrees 5y ago
        Is it even possible to learn exclusively by immersion as an adult? I was under the impression that roughly around puberty, we lose a good part of our ability to just pick up languages and a combination of study and experimentation was required afterwards.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Is this a sensible approach to learning any language from a book? Or does it only make sense with a "dead" language that we mostly know from literature and inscriptions?
  - coyotespike 5y ago
    It does make more sense with Latin, because while Latin has always been and still is spoken, much of the value of the language comes from its literature (of which 90% has never been translated). BUT, the natural method plays well with extensive reading/comprehensible input, where you just read a lot at a simple, pleasurable level, allowing it to ramp up gradually. This is how I learned much of English as a native speaker, after all! So I intend to use this approach with other languages in the future as well.
jan_Inkepa 5y ago
That and Wheelock's Latin are the main book recommendations. Other than that, there are a bunch of subreddits and a large discord which might be nice if you want to get some daily active practice in (including voice chat). Or just see if there are any courses running near you - active training can be handy, but the style of course is very country-specific - every country has their own tradition for teaching Latin (or multiple), and the style/goal may not suit you. It's super low-effort, but I had fun with the (modern) light novellas by Andrew Olympi and kin - in some sense they're too easy above a certain level and made me over-confident in a way that was damaging to my confidence when I looked at actual classical latin texts, on the other hand it's nice to just be able to pick up a small book and read some beginner-level Latin without requiring any effort/strain. [ note: I've only been learning Latin for about a year, with very mixed success - I'm very much a beginner still and can't read any classical texts with any fluency/comfort, nor write without a dictionary to help with inflections ]
handrous 5y ago
Is there a name for this kind of book? I have one, titled "Mein Erstes Buch", that, in one small and slim volume, takes you from "Dick & Jane" and "See Spot Run" levels, to an ~3rd or 4th grade reading level, entirely in German. I picked it up because it looked neat but tried reading it one day, made it about a third of the way through, and sure enough, I could follow along. Doesn't teach you pronunciation and it doesn't replace focused practice & drilling, but it was pretty damn cool. I'd like one in French, especially, but I don't know what term to search for. "The Natural Method" from that link yields some promising results, but are there other terms? (just checked archive.org, and sure enough, they've got a scan of the book I have, but it's a limited preview: https://archive.org/details/meinerstesbuch0000unse/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/meinerstesbuch0000unse/mode/2up)
- maw 5y ago
  In LLPSI's marketing materials, they call it the "natural method." (I've also seen "nature method.") Another term is "comprehensible input" -- but I am not certain precisely how the two relate to each other. But hopefully they're enough for you to go on.
  - coyotespike 5y ago
    Yes, the terms I've seen are "natural method", "comprehensible input", and "extensive reading." The latter two refer more to a large volume of simple reading materials which let you work up on your own, practicing and slowly learning more grammar and vocabulary.
- urubu 5y ago
  Here's a website with a list of such textbooks for various languages: https://vivariumnovum.it/risorse-didattiche/propria-formazione/metodo-diretto-applicato-alle-lingue-moderne https://vivariumnovum.it/risorse-didattiche/propria-formazio...
  - dvaun 5y ago
    This is amazing, thank you!

hyperstar 5y ago

https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/ https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/ For spoken Latin, there are Corderii colloquia, which are also made into an audio book.

sumobob2112 5y ago

Wheelocks would be my goto, you learn by reading authors, in the original translation.

yepguy 5y ago

The Latinum Institute provides a lot of audio material for their Patreon subscribers. https://www.latinum.org.uk/ https://www.latinum.org.uk/

mbg721 5y ago

In addition to whichever dictionary and textbook you use, as you get deeper in, an Allen & Greenough grammar reference is really handy. Because Latin word-order is looser than English, there are some a-ha! moments where it starts to click, "Oh, this entire clause is acting as the direct object, and it's here because Cicero wanted to emphasize this and this." Quickly being able to look up common constructions and how noun cases are used helps with that.

nerdponx 5y ago
The word ordering stuff gets really wild, compared to my native English. I wonder about languages that have more flexible word order, do their speakers have greater ability to retain information in working memory?
- leetcrew 5y ago
  keep in mind that most of the latin you end up reading in school is rather formal/complex. it's hard to parse in a similar way that charles dickens is harder to parse than casual/informal english. stuff like de bello gallico and some new testament books (greek) can be very straightforward. it is definitely hard to get started with latin/greek when your native tongue is a highly positional language like english, but I don't think it is intrinsically harder. the same information is there, it's just encoded in word endings rather than order. in english, the word order is only really important within individual clauses. you can still write very complicated (and syntactically correct) english sentences with clause orderings that are very hard to parse. I'd argue this requires just as deep of a mental "stack" as latin/greek. anyways, that's just my two cents as someone who studied, but never fully mastered, latin and greek in college.

gnufx 5y ago

Whichever it is, remember, from a .sig on ancient posts by Vassil Nikolov: LEGEMANVALEMFVTVTVM (Ancient Roman programmers' adage.)

jan_Inkepa 5y ago
[ For the curious : this is some kind of overly-literal rendition of RTFM "lege - manvualem - fututum", where the grammar appears somewhat strained, but a detailed analysis would be not appropriate on YCOMB for several reasons... ]

yawboakye 5y ago

There's 2 lively Latin Discord servers. One for general Latin and the other for everyone learning Latin using Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, a popular book for self-guided learning. Once in the community you'd easily discover resources like YouTube channels, Twitter accounts, podcasts etc. It's amazing how large and niche the community is at the same time! LLPSI Discord: https://discord.gg/uXSwq9r4 https://discord.gg/uXSwq9r4 Latin Discord: https://discord.gg/latin https://discord.gg/latin

sterlind 5y ago
I love LLPSI. The approach of just building up without requiring translation into another language really feels like how we're supposed to learn - naturally, incrementally, through immersion.

billfruit 5y ago

You could use a textbook specifically designed for adult learners like the Wheelock.

Koshkin 5y ago

This one is an excellent resource for language lovers: https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol

JoeDaDude 5y ago

This graphic novel could be fun, it is based on the writings of Julius Caesar who was said to write in a fairly simple style. Caesaris Bellum Helveticum: Scriptores Antiqui Romani Imaginibus Ornati by Karl Heinz Graf Von Rothenburg https://www.amazon.com/Caesaris-Bellum-Helveticum-Scriptores-Imaginibus/dp/084428629X https://www.amazon.com/Caesaris-Bellum-Helveticum-Scriptores...

em-bee 5y ago
there are latin versions of the asterix comic published in germany. they are supposed to be of high quality. https://new.egmont-shop.de/comics/asterix/latein/ https://new.egmont-shop.de/comics/asterix/latein/

voldacar 5y ago

I would recommend some combination of Lingua Latina and Wheelock's Latin. That's what my Latin tutor used and they complement each other very well.

vlod 5y ago

You might like this youtube channel: ScorpioMartianus https://www.youtube.com/c/ScorpioMartianus https://www.youtube.com/c/ScorpioMartianus

jamesfinlayson 5y ago

I found Cambridge Latin Course (which I used at school) quite good, and it was engaging and interesting as well.