3 ms·

I've been flirting with the idea of working through all of Leonard Euler's publications (as a life goal). Many of them are still not translated from Latin, so t

I've been flirting with the idea of working through all of Leonard Euler's publications (as a life goal). Many of them are still not translated from Latin, so there's a possibility I may have to learn it. Anyone knows how long it would take to learn enough latin to undertake such a task?

bombcar 4y ago
If you're trying to understand a domain work (such as Euler's) you could probably get a working knowledge in a month of strong study, a year of off-and-on. I bet you could start this week if you used machine translations as a crutch. I'd start working with a publication that exists in Latin and a good translation, so you can compare your work.
- krmboya 4y ago
  Thank you! Sounds much less intimidating. My fear with machine translations is that subtle errors here and there might throw me off in something like math where things are precisely stated. A year of part time study sounds doable though
  - bombcar 4y ago
    That's the advantage of it being a particular mathematic domain, you'll learn the terms relatively quickly and be able to catch errors in the math parts; the prose is where you will need the machine. In fact, you'll find that many philosophers will just use the Latin words directly, and not bother translating them - Latin qua jargon if you will. Once you've learned the various forms of "is" (sum, very irregular) you can kinda survive reading without conjugations, just like this sentence can be worked out: he to go to store and to buy cheese yesterday
- veqq 4y ago
  Use the book "Lingua Latina per se illustrata" to learn Latin. It's quite magical, you just start reading Latin which is comprehensible due to similarities to English and it stacks on this without using anything but Latin. It's also much faster and more thorough than other textbooks.

3 ms·

I've been flirting with the idea of working through all of Leonard Euler's publications (as a life goal). Many of them are still not translated from Latin, so t

by krmboya 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago
If you're trying to understand a domain work (such as Euler's) you could probably get a working knowledge in a month of strong study, a year of off-and-on. I bet you could start this week if you used machine translations as a crutch. I'd start working with a publication that exists in Latin and a good translation, so you can compare your work.
- krmboya 4y ago
  Thank you! Sounds much less intimidating. My fear with machine translations is that subtle errors here and there might throw me off in something like math where things are precisely stated. A year of part time study sounds doable though
  - bombcar 4y ago
    That's the advantage of it being a particular mathematic domain, you'll learn the terms relatively quickly and be able to catch errors in the math parts; the prose is where you will need the machine. In fact, you'll find that many philosophers will just use the Latin words directly, and not bother translating them - Latin qua jargon if you will. Once you've learned the various forms of "is" (sum, very irregular) you can kinda survive reading without conjugations, just like this sentence can be worked out: he to go to store and to buy cheese yesterday
- veqq 4y ago
  Use the book "Lingua Latina per se illustrata" to learn Latin. It's quite magical, you just start reading Latin which is comprehensible due to similarities to English and it stacks on this without using anything but Latin. It's also much faster and more thorough than other textbooks.