/lit/ - Literature

Could I learn latin on my own?
What are some good books / sources and how long approx. will it take?

>>16616501
>Could I learn latin on my own?
>What are some good books / sources
haven't done it myself (plan to) but everyone says the best resource for self-learning latin is lingua latina/llpsi (second place wheelock's)

>>16615799
op, i haven't really begun with latin, but i say you should stick with it if you can bear to
you don't need to do it urgently, even slow and steady progress has got to be worthwhile, no?
imma do latin after i get bored of working on italian (current proj)

>>16616501
>>16616532
I'm in third semester Latin in my uni and we use Wheelock. Wheelock mainly focuses on grammar and vocabulary and has quite an extensive amount of watered down classical material to translate every chapter (the texts become more authentic the further you get).
I am in the final chapters of the book now and I started knowing nothing August 2019. It has been quite a lot of work but I have really enjoyed the pay off. Not only is it fun to do the sententiae antiquae translations but you will learn A LOT about how a langauge works; cases, parts of speech, and plenty more advanced constructions later on.
Go for it Anon.

>>16616532
>>16616590
>lingua latina/llpsi
>Wheelock
seems like I have some interesting material for the next two years, thanks

>>16616654
theres a spreadsheet on the r/latin sidebar
Go there, download all the llpsi books (wheelocks is there too) and get going!
gl anon
>>16616590
Damn you guys learn way faster in Uni than I learn. Started bout the same time as you but I'm only to ch. 10 in LLPSI...

>>16615799
>I recieved a sign from God I'm supposed to 'devout my life in study of Latin Literature'

Learning Latin isn't easy. If you're doing it because somebody else told you to, then you're going to loose motivation and burn-out. You can do it, OP, but only if you actually want to.

salvete amici

>>16616501
I'm in my 4th year as a latin student and Wheelock is a great place to start. Latin word order in sentences is distinct from english and takes some getting used to. What I found to be very helpful at learning to read latin quicker was using simple latin novellas. You need less than 500 words to get through some of them, and you can speed through them.


Here's a master list of those novellas

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bF8hZuxTDtgNMSSdonEX112JJaVYqoPH7w27Oju9ETs/edit?usp=sharing

For a solid latin online dictionary, check out logeion by U-chicago, they do a solid job.

Good luck!

other latin autists post based quotes you've come across in your readings. here's a few
>Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco - Virgil
>Nemo igitur vir magnus sine aliquo adflatu divino umquam fuit - Cicero
>Iuvat credulitatem nox et promptior inter tenebras adirmatio - Tacitus
>Fundata legibus civitas, legibus evertebatur - Pliny
>Omnis iniquitas quantum ad misericordiam Dei est quasi scintilla in medio maris - From Piers Plowman.

I have an unrelated question although it could be applicable to Latin. How do you remember prepositions when they can have so many different meanings depending on the case? This is by far the hardest thing about Greek that I've run into so far and it's not like my memory is exceptionally bad because I can usually pick up new words easily.

>>16618416
Look up the Greek lion preposition cartoon.

>>16615799
Learning Latin will do the following: teach you how to think logically thanks to its complex grammar, improve how you use your native tongue and vocabulary, ease the learning of other languages (since you'll know grammatical jargon), and how to read and write with care and precision.
If you only wish to read in it, LLPSI is #1 since it provides basic grammar and a lot of easy reading passages to assimilate said grammar.
If you wish to write in it, Wheelock's is #1 since it provides a ton of erudite grammar explanations and translation excercises.
If you wish to speak it, assimil has a Latin course that can either be purchased or procured for free on piratebay along with audio recordings.

related: what are some cool works on latin?

>>16618416
ancient Greek is clearly a practical joke that scholars came up with in the renaissance

>>16616590
wheelock gets memed a lot, especially on reddit, and it's fine if you're planning on being a grammar-translator, but keep in mind, that this anon can't read Latin, not like he can read English, and to me, that's what the goal should be — to read Latin fluently. If you want to achieve this, get the douay-rheims translation of the bible, get the clementia-vulgata, and just read. Read them side-by-side. It's going to suck and you won't understand much of it, but slowly, incrementally, you will being to learn the language, in a much more useful and practical way. Maybe use wheelock's as a reference. But just read.

>>16618739
This is good advice in general, but be aware that there are a differences between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin. Anybody's who aim is to read Roman authors should be cautious about reading the Vulgate or any other post-Roman, pre-Victorian works. If anybody wants to learn Classical Latin they should probably start with a modern Latin translation of Aesop.

>>16618788
The Vulgate is not written in Vulgar Latin.

>>16618739
Trying to learn a language by reading it without learning the grammar will get you nowhere. It's like you have a halfway understanding of what Lingua Latina is but haven't actually learned through that method because they spend a lot of time on grammar, it's not just a matter of mouthing the words like an idiot.

>>16618936
Yeah, because, when you were learning your native tongue, your parents sat you down and autistically went through all the grammar rules. That's definitely how you learn a language.

>>16618965
Yeah let's just learn like children. We just somebody to sit us on their lap and correct us every time we make a mistake, and then after about 8 years we'll be halfway fluent. Brilliant. I'm not knocking the Lingua Latina method by the way, I'm saying your misconception of it is retarded. I think it's especially stupid for somebody to give advice to people when they haven't done the work themselves, let alone actually know what they're talking about.

>>16618965
Do you think children learn their native language by repeatedly reading a text they can't even come close to comprehending?

>>16619007
You read a translation side by side.

>>16618992
Just to be clear, I'm not knocking your grammar-translation method either; it's incredibly useful for the purpose it was designed for: translation of texts, and not reading fluency.

But I have no misconception about the "lingua latina method". It's precisely what I'm endorsing. I didn't endorse a particular expression of it, namely Orberg's book, but the method is precisely what I'm endorsing.

>>16619254
How do children do that?

>>16619308
The same way a functioning adult does, unless they're mentally deficient.

>>16619323
What exactly is the child supposed to read side by side when learning their native language?

>>16619254
This. I read a book on how the ancients would teach foreigners Latin and they would use side by side translations for school children or adults so they can see how the language works compared to their original language. They would also emphasize memorizing the text instead of translating them, given that it was already done for them. A good amount of instructional texts survive.

>>16619331
Ancient pedagogy for foreigners went something like this

1) learn the alphabet
2) read easy texts
3) memorize vocab
3) memorize useful dialogues that have a side by side translation

>>16619331
Look, the point is, you are naturally receptive to language; any language. With a small amount of handholding, like a translation you can understand positioned alongside the foreign language, if you just dive into the foreign language, you will, over time, naturally assimilate the use and meaning of the target language. Comenius employed this method to great success in the 1600's. At some point, the purpose of language-learning became rote academic transliteration, and this method fell out of favor. That's why we have people these days who spend years studying linguistics and grammar and still can't even read a paragraph of Latin.

See: >>16619341, >>16619354

>>16619354
Is that it, nobody speaks to the child? They just learn the alphabet and figure it out themselves? I thought they were supposed to read texts side by side with another language?

This isn't even fun anymore. You're dumb and this forum is dumb.