6 ms·

If anyone is interested in learning it, there's nothing better than Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It's entirely in Latin, including grammar explanat

by efskap 5mo ago

If anyone is interested in learning it, there's nothing better than Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It's entirely in Latin, including grammar explanations, but it starts out incredibly simple and ramps up gradually with lots of repetition. And that's fun AND effective, since you're immersed rather than grinding tables.

mcookly 5mo ago
Thanks for sharing this! My wife and I have been interested in refreshing our Latin from high school, and we've been looking for good resources. We've also toyed with the idea of learning it as a living language, which seems to be an increasingly-popular method among autodidacts these days.
- kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
  Duolingo has a Latin course.
  - morcus 5mo ago
    Duolingo has a tenth of a Latin course. Source: I did the whole thing before I learned Latin from a different course. Duolingo's is unfinished.
  - cwnyth 5mo ago
    Do avoid.[1] 1: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/11413/is-duolingo-good-for-latin https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/11413/is-duolingo-...
  - aidenn0 5mo ago
    After trying Duolingo a bit myself and seeing my family members try it, I've become convinced that Duolingo is worse than doing nothing, because it does a much better job of convincing you that you're learning than it does actually teaching you.
    - nephihaha 5mo ago
      The courses vary a bit. The Welsh course, for example, is not that great. I have heard that off both serious learners and native speakers. I've found it fairly useful for picking up other alphabets, as opposed to languages.
  - satvikpendem 5mo ago
    Duolingo simply does not work for actually learning a language. It's better to use something where you practice immersion learning, preferably with other people and there are apps for this online too.
    - drdaeman 5mo ago
      It sure does a little bit, but a) quality varies a lot - some courses can get you from zero to dos cervesas por favor, some are just poorly structured noise that has no chance of sticking in mind; b) doesn’t explain grammar (it’s an exception when it does), so results greatly vary on preconditions like languages you’re already familiar with and can relate - anything too foreign and you’ll have hard time trying to understand how those examples generalize. Duolingo it got me just enough Spanish (with zero prior knowledge) to get around, communicate basic needs (like a caveman, sure) and understand simple instructions, all without putting serious effort to learn language properly (putting serious effort into it) but only casually, as a side task.
    - watwut 5mo ago
      Duolingo does work for those A1-B1 levels it has courses for. At minimum, it got me where I was able to switch to netflix.
  - mananaysiempre 5mo ago
    Duolingo Latin is not useful as your only course. I would say it’s not useful at all, except perhaps if your normal Latin class is on break and you want something, anything at all, to jog your memory a bit. On one hand, it is really short. There are very few words assembled into very few phrases, and they are not even particularly popular words. (New Latin for “New York”? I mean, I guess, but was that really the best you could do?..) On the other hand, for how short it is, it confronts you with quite a bit of grammar. As is customary for Duolingo, you’ll have to infer that grammar from the examples—except, per the previous point, you won’t get nearly enough examples. (It’s cute that some usages of the Latin verb “studeo” correspond to the English verb “study”, but the Latin one governs an unusual case, which depending on declension looks exactly like one of the other cases, so perhaps having it be one of the first verbs is unwise, especially when a lot of your target audience ostensibly has no concept of “govern”, “case”, or “declension”.) On the gripping hand, because of how short it is, there is a lot of grammar that it does not even hint at. Including parts that any classical text will hit you in the face with within the first paragraph, and that will completely befuddle you unless you’re aware of them. (Like the quaint custom of plopping the preposition in the middle of its complement, as in “qua de causa” lit. “which for reason” i.e. “for which reason” i.e. “therefore”, or for that matter “magna cum laude” lit. “great with praise” i.e. “with great praise”.) By comparison, Ørberg excels at this to a downright supernatural extent. It’s like La Disparition except instead of writing a (pretty natural-sounding) novel without using the most popular letter of the language he wrote a third of a (pretty natural-sounding) textbook without using the most popular category of nouns and adjectives in the language, and his version is actually useful. And it’s like this for any grammar concept he wants to defer. His way does take quite a bit of time, though, I’ll give you that.
- tad_tough_anne 5mo ago
  I haven't read it in years, and my Latin's pretty rusty now, but it was the most useful and fun thing I used.[1] If you get the book, you might also like Mr. Ørberg's recordings (widely pirated) of himself reading the text with a Classical pronunciation. There are also some good Latin YouTubers; my favorite is Satura Lanx, <https://youtube.com/@SaturaLanx https://youtube.com/@SaturaLanx>, but Luke Ranieri, <https://youtube.com/@polyMATHY_Luke https://youtube.com/@polyMATHY_Luke>, is also good and very knowledgeable. ___ 1. Disci latíne quando cathólica eram quia melius Missam ac Offícium légere volébam. Nunc non christiána, neque Missa assísto nec Breviárium canto, sed multas antiphónas pulchras (et verba pauca!) iam mémini.
tolerance 5mo ago
"Grinding tables" might be the most accurate description of my language-learning experience that I've come across.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
erelong 5mo ago
I've seen Scanlon's Latin which was written I think to help people pray the Divine Office in latin
daemonologist 5mo ago
We quoted that book for years (probably because the accompanying audio version had a somewhat amusing cadence, but I do also think it was a lot more beneficial to learning than trudging through classical texts with a dictionary).
jimbob45 5mo ago
Do you find it better than Wheelock’s? As a casual language observing hobbyist, it’s really scratched my itch of learning why Latin is the way it is.
cyberax 5mo ago
Lifehack: Latin is much easier if you already know a Slavic or a Baltic language (except Bulgarian). While declension patterns are different, the case structures are very similar. Not identical, but close enough that you actually just need to learn the differences. Most other grammatical structures are also directly comparable. So you can make your life easier by studying a Slavic (or a Baltic) language first. (mwahaha!)
- dhosek 5mo ago
  Or you can find learning a Slavic (or a Baltic) language easier if you learn Latin first. The bonus being that there are more useful cognates in Latin than in Slavic languages (although while learning Czech, I was a bit amused to discover that many of my childhood friends’¹ surnames were just Czech words for colors). Latin has fewer cases than Czech (five³ versus seven) and fewer declension patterns (there are five declensions with most nouns falling into the first three. In contrast, Czech has twelve and the adjective declensions differ from noun declensions (as opposed to Latin where adjectives follow either a first-second declension pattern or a third declension pattern). Slovene is a bit simpler in its grammar and lacks some of the tongue-twisting phonemes of Czech (albeit with lj being a challenge for learners). I don’t really know much of any other Slavic languages beyond the ability to occasionally decipher Polish or Ukrainian billboards via cognates. Bulgarian apparently has abandoned nearly all inflections in its nouns other than the genitive which perhaps makes it one of the easier languages to learn. For those who want to learn Ancient Greek, in my limited experience, I’ve found Biblical Greek instructional texts easier to work with than Attic Greek (the grammatical differences are not that great with the biggest differences being more in vocabulary than grammar—it seems a smaller shift than between, say Elizabethan English and contemporary English). ⸻ 1. I grew up in an essentially vanished American subculture where ethnic diversity meant that there were a handful of Italians amongst the Czechs and Poles. The Czech population of Chicago, which once was the majority population of the West side of Chicago has since dispersed and assimilated to the point where there are only a couple Czech restaurants left in the whole Chicago area where even twenty years ago they were fairly common. The Poles, having a still-active immigration pipeline and larger population to begin with² have not suffered the same fate. 2. While there were a large number of Poles on the West side of Chicago, the larger center of the Polish population was, and still is more Northwest side. 3. Technically, Latin has six, but the vocative case only differs from the nominative in the second declension singular and so is generally omitted from declension tables.
cwnyth 5mo ago
As a former Latin instructor with literally decades of experience, I strongly recommend not relying solely on Ørberg. The outcomes of those who refused to supplement it with a proper grammar and dictionary were far, far behind those who used Wheelock alone. It's very popular online, but it's methodologically bunk.
- wy1981 5mo ago
  As an aside, do you still teach Latin? If not, any online recommendations for Latin tutors? Thanks in advance.
  - cwnyth 5mo ago
    I've considered picking up a class here or there, but no, I left academia years ago. I have tutored in Latin afterwards, and I also answer questions on StackExchange's Latin site.
    - wy1981 5mo ago
      Thanks for responding. If you're interested in a tutoring Latin remotely, please let me know. If not, no worries.
- efskap 5mo ago
  Thanks for the perspective! I guess it depends on the outcomes in question If they're measured by traditional academic metrics (parsing, recalling declension tables, translating into English), then Wheelock's grammar-first approach really does optimize for that. On the other hand Ørberg optimizes more for reading fluency and intuitive comprehension, which is harder to measure on a standard Latin exam.
  - vintermann 5mo ago
    There's also the thing about "the best exercise plan is the one you actually follow". The direct method isn't "bunk", it's a very good method if you take into account that students don't have boundless enthusiasm and rote learning ability. I learned English with the direct method (the teacher was an old Esperantist free to do his own thing) and German with the traditional grammar memorization way, and I wouldn't be able to write this post in German.
laurentlb 5mo ago
I like the approach in Lingua Latina per se Illustrata (sometimes called the "natural method"). I've noticed that it was adapted for other languages too, but most of the adaptations seemed old and outdated. Recently I was wondering if I should work on a modernization of the concept (using audio and a more interactive medium). If anyone has thoughts on this topic, I'd be happy to discuss more.

by efskap 5mo ago

mcookly 5mo ago

Thanks for sharing this! My wife and I have been interested in refreshing our Latin from high school, and we've been looking for good resources. We've also toyed with the idea of learning it as a living language, which seems to be an increasingly-popular method among autodidacts these days.

kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
Duolingo has a Latin course.
- morcus 5mo ago
  Duolingo has a tenth of a Latin course. Source: I did the whole thing before I learned Latin from a different course. Duolingo's is unfinished.
- cwnyth 5mo ago
  Do avoid.[1] 1: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/11413/is-duolingo-good-for-latin https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/11413/is-duolingo-...
- aidenn0 5mo ago
  After trying Duolingo a bit myself and seeing my family members try it, I've become convinced that Duolingo is worse than doing nothing, because it does a much better job of convincing you that you're learning than it does actually teaching you.
  - nephihaha 5mo ago
    The courses vary a bit. The Welsh course, for example, is not that great. I have heard that off both serious learners and native speakers. I've found it fairly useful for picking up other alphabets, as opposed to languages.
- satvikpendem 5mo ago
  Duolingo simply does not work for actually learning a language. It's better to use something where you practice immersion learning, preferably with other people and there are apps for this online too.
  - drdaeman 5mo ago
    It sure does a little bit, but a) quality varies a lot - some courses can get you from zero to dos cervesas por favor, some are just poorly structured noise that has no chance of sticking in mind; b) doesn’t explain grammar (it’s an exception when it does), so results greatly vary on preconditions like languages you’re already familiar with and can relate - anything too foreign and you’ll have hard time trying to understand how those examples generalize. Duolingo it got me just enough Spanish (with zero prior knowledge) to get around, communicate basic needs (like a caveman, sure) and understand simple instructions, all without putting serious effort to learn language properly (putting serious effort into it) but only casually, as a side task.
  - watwut 5mo ago
    Duolingo does work for those A1-B1 levels it has courses for. At minimum, it got me where I was able to switch to netflix.
- mananaysiempre 5mo ago
  Duolingo Latin is not useful as your only course. I would say it’s not useful at all, except perhaps if your normal Latin class is on break and you want something, anything at all, to jog your memory a bit. On one hand, it is really short. There are very few words assembled into very few phrases, and they are not even particularly popular words. (New Latin for “New York”? I mean, I guess, but was that really the best you could do?..) On the other hand, for how short it is, it confronts you with quite a bit of grammar. As is customary for Duolingo, you’ll have to infer that grammar from the examples—except, per the previous point, you won’t get nearly enough examples. (It’s cute that some usages of the Latin verb “studeo” correspond to the English verb “study”, but the Latin one governs an unusual case, which depending on declension looks exactly like one of the other cases, so perhaps having it be one of the first verbs is unwise, especially when a lot of your target audience ostensibly has no concept of “govern”, “case”, or “declension”.) On the gripping hand, because of how short it is, there is a lot of grammar that it does not even hint at. Including parts that any classical text will hit you in the face with within the first paragraph, and that will completely befuddle you unless you’re aware of them. (Like the quaint custom of plopping the preposition in the middle of its complement, as in “qua de causa” lit. “which for reason” i.e. “for which reason” i.e. “therefore”, or for that matter “magna cum laude” lit. “great with praise” i.e. “with great praise”.) By comparison, Ørberg excels at this to a downright supernatural extent. It’s like La Disparition except instead of writing a (pretty natural-sounding) novel without using the most popular letter of the language he wrote a third of a (pretty natural-sounding) textbook without using the most popular category of nouns and adjectives in the language, and his version is actually useful. And it’s like this for any grammar concept he wants to defer. His way does take quite a bit of time, though, I’ll give you that.
tad_tough_anne 5mo ago
I haven't read it in years, and my Latin's pretty rusty now, but it was the most useful and fun thing I used.[1] If you get the book, you might also like Mr. Ørberg's recordings (widely pirated) of himself reading the text with a Classical pronunciation. There are also some good Latin YouTubers; my favorite is Satura Lanx, <https://youtube.com/@SaturaLanx https://youtube.com/@SaturaLanx>, but Luke Ranieri, <https://youtube.com/@polyMATHY_Luke https://youtube.com/@polyMATHY_Luke>, is also good and very knowledgeable. ___ 1. Disci latíne quando cathólica eram quia melius Missam ac Offícium légere volébam. Nunc non christiána, neque Missa assísto nec Breviárium canto, sed multas antiphónas pulchras (et verba pauca!) iam mémini.

tolerance 5mo ago

"Grinding tables" might be the most accurate description of my language-learning experience that I've come across.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

erelong 5mo ago

I've seen Scanlon's Latin which was written I think to help people pray the Divine Office in latin

daemonologist 5mo ago

We quoted that book for years (probably because the accompanying audio version had a somewhat amusing cadence, but I do also think it was a lot more beneficial to learning than trudging through classical texts with a dictionary).

jimbob45 5mo ago

Do you find it better than Wheelock’s? As a casual language observing hobbyist, it’s really scratched my itch of learning why Latin is the way it is.

cyberax 5mo ago

Lifehack: Latin is much easier if you already know a Slavic or a Baltic language (except Bulgarian). While declension patterns are different, the case structures are very similar. Not identical, but close enough that you actually just need to learn the differences. Most other grammatical structures are also directly comparable. So you can make your life easier by studying a Slavic (or a Baltic) language first. (mwahaha!)

dhosek 5mo ago
Or you can find learning a Slavic (or a Baltic) language easier if you learn Latin first. The bonus being that there are more useful cognates in Latin than in Slavic languages (although while learning Czech, I was a bit amused to discover that many of my childhood friends’¹ surnames were just Czech words for colors). Latin has fewer cases than Czech (five³ versus seven) and fewer declension patterns (there are five declensions with most nouns falling into the first three. In contrast, Czech has twelve and the adjective declensions differ from noun declensions (as opposed to Latin where adjectives follow either a first-second declension pattern or a third declension pattern). Slovene is a bit simpler in its grammar and lacks some of the tongue-twisting phonemes of Czech (albeit with lj being a challenge for learners). I don’t really know much of any other Slavic languages beyond the ability to occasionally decipher Polish or Ukrainian billboards via cognates. Bulgarian apparently has abandoned nearly all inflections in its nouns other than the genitive which perhaps makes it one of the easier languages to learn. For those who want to learn Ancient Greek, in my limited experience, I’ve found Biblical Greek instructional texts easier to work with than Attic Greek (the grammatical differences are not that great with the biggest differences being more in vocabulary than grammar—it seems a smaller shift than between, say Elizabethan English and contemporary English). ⸻ 1. I grew up in an essentially vanished American subculture where ethnic diversity meant that there were a handful of Italians amongst the Czechs and Poles. The Czech population of Chicago, which once was the majority population of the West side of Chicago has since dispersed and assimilated to the point where there are only a couple Czech restaurants left in the whole Chicago area where even twenty years ago they were fairly common. The Poles, having a still-active immigration pipeline and larger population to begin with² have not suffered the same fate. 2. While there were a large number of Poles on the West side of Chicago, the larger center of the Polish population was, and still is more Northwest side. 3. Technically, Latin has six, but the vocative case only differs from the nominative in the second declension singular and so is generally omitted from declension tables.

cwnyth 5mo ago

As a former Latin instructor with literally decades of experience, I strongly recommend not relying solely on Ørberg. The outcomes of those who refused to supplement it with a proper grammar and dictionary were far, far behind those who used Wheelock alone. It's very popular online, but it's methodologically bunk.

wy1981 5mo ago
As an aside, do you still teach Latin? If not, any online recommendations for Latin tutors? Thanks in advance.
- cwnyth 5mo ago
  I've considered picking up a class here or there, but no, I left academia years ago. I have tutored in Latin afterwards, and I also answer questions on StackExchange's Latin site.
  - wy1981 5mo ago
    Thanks for responding. If you're interested in a tutoring Latin remotely, please let me know. If not, no worries.
efskap 5mo ago
Thanks for the perspective! I guess it depends on the outcomes in question If they're measured by traditional academic metrics (parsing, recalling declension tables, translating into English), then Wheelock's grammar-first approach really does optimize for that. On the other hand Ørberg optimizes more for reading fluency and intuitive comprehension, which is harder to measure on a standard Latin exam.
- vintermann 5mo ago
  There's also the thing about "the best exercise plan is the one you actually follow". The direct method isn't "bunk", it's a very good method if you take into account that students don't have boundless enthusiasm and rote learning ability. I learned English with the direct method (the teacher was an old Esperantist free to do his own thing) and German with the traditional grammar memorization way, and I wouldn't be able to write this post in German.

laurentlb 5mo ago

I like the approach in Lingua Latina per se Illustrata (sometimes called the "natural method"). I've noticed that it was adapted for other languages too, but most of the adaptations seemed old and outdated. Recently I was wondering if I should work on a modernization of the concept (using audio and a more interactive medium). If anyone has thoughts on this topic, I'd be happy to discuss more.