/lit/ - Literature

>>17148223
i luv lidl

>>17148223

>>17148223
bump

>>17148223
>a series of dialogues composed by ancient Romans for Greeks
Can you provide me a name/source

>>17148223
I know you said no Wheelock, but there is a Wheelock reader for intermediates with notes and a dictionary.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Wheelock_s_Latin_Reader/0yZcZdbPlu8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=wheelock%27s+latin+reader&printsec=frontcover

>>17148582
https://b-ok.cc/book/2918387/a7c3fb

This book is amazing. On top of giving you colloquial Latin examples, it goes into detail about how the ancient Romans viewed second language acquisition.

>>17148595
aha! gratias tibi ago. This is perfect.

Read the Vulgate-douay-rheims

I like the Bristol readers but everything pales in comparison to DICK college commentaries
http://dcc.dickinson.edu/

They have a frequency vocab list too

>>17148939
http://www.latinvulgate.com/
nice, I found this side by side translation. do you have any specific sections/books you can recc that are exciting?

>>17148965
thanks! bookmarked

>>17148223
I don't really know your level of Latin so I'm just going to give you a bunch of texts you can read.
Gesta Romanorum is good for beginners.
Isidorus' Etymologiae is also good for beginners, but it's really a dictionary that defines concepts.
Beeson's Anthology of Medieval Latin is good for getting into Medieval Latin.
Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis is fairly straight forward reading.
Augustus' Res Gestae is easy reading, though a bit boring in some areas.
Wheelock's Latin reader is a decent survey of Latin for a student.
I'm sure you know this, but LLPSI has a lot of supplementary material as well.
Late Antiquity/ Medieval Latin for the most part is easier to read, because most texts aren't written by the Benjamin Franklins of the Romans (that is, most isn't written for fellow native senators of a Latin speaking world).
The Bristol Classical Press produces good student editions of texts (though I have heard that their Aeneid isn't very good in terms of formatting).
Bryn Mawr Latin Commentaries are also good student editions.
Caesar's De Bello Gallico is very standard prose and easy to read after a while.
Same goes for Cicero's works. In Catilinam is a classic.
Anything Virgil is a classic.
Horace too.

I've been learning via LLPSI for about a month, really enjoying so far.
My goal to read Virgil and Ovid in the original, what level of study do I need to attain this?

>>17149658
That's a hard question to answer, since Latin doesn't really have a good way of judging someone's proficiency like modern languages that have the A, B, C system.
First, finish LLPSI FR and RA. RA has some Virgil and Ovid in it, so you'll get a good idea of how far off you are from your goal. Then I would recommend reading Virgil's smaller works, the Eclogues and the Georgics (in that order too), so you get a taste of what the Aeneid will be like and also the satisfaction of finishing some entire works sooner. You'll also get to appreciate some intertextuality between the Ecl., G., and the Aeneid. I would also recommend you read a lot of prose too, such as Caesar, Livy, and Cicero. I found Ovid's Metamorphoses harder than the Aeneid (I haven't read any of Ovid's other works), so I recommend reading the Aeneid then Ovid. There are some good student editions of Catullus and Horace that you can find on amazon too, and I think that reading them is quite edifying as preparation for Virgil's and Ovid's longer works (mainly becuase they use many different meters, rather than just dactylic hexameter, and so you'll be more comfortable reading poetry in general), though I don't think they are required.

>>17149807
good post thanks.

>>17149562
Copy and pasted into notepad, thank you very much! Are you far along the Latin learning road?
>>17149658
It will take, I'd say, about a year or two, or even more. The main problem with reading poetry is that it's the highest level for any language. First, it requires a lot of vocabulary (poetic diction is lofty and far removed from every day words; consider how the average University educated native English speaker can barely comprehend someone like Milton). Second, the word order is all over the place, albeit to fit with the meter, so you need to be able to unravel it.
Third, the grammar is far more difficult.

Example: Milites magno cum gaudio fortes feminas Romanas rapuere.

1) (literal) Soldiers great with delight strong women Roman have snatched.
2) (disentangled) Strong soldiers with great delight have snatched Roman women.

I got this from a french scholar who teaches ancient Greek: this is the natural progression to acquiring language, any of them.

1) dialogues
2) narrations (stories)
3) arguments (debates/speeches)
4) poetry

>>17149658
I forgot to add, you'll probably want to get student editions when you first start getting into real Latin works. See my reply above >>17149562 for some good publishers. As a beginner, I would stay away from scholarly commentaries such as Cambridge Green and Yellows since they assume you can read the Latin and don't need help with vocab and grammar and they really expensive. But once you do get very good at Latin, scholarly commentaries are very illuminating but also very long (every page of Latin text as 5-20 pages of commentary).
>>17149838
Yes, this is my 6th year since starting Latin. I'm now a junior double majoring in Classics and a stem field and read a lot of Latin/Greek in my free time. I have also placed top 5 in many national competitions (high school and college level).
Of course, I don't know where in your life you are, but I will tell that if you go to college and major in the Classics, don't expect to be taught how to truly know the languages. That's a task you have to take up on your own. There are very few people in this world who can actually read Greek and Latin (let only write, hear, and speak) as comfortably as their English/native language and I don't think most of them are professors. I swear, the way academia teaches these languages, it's like they want them to become as common as egyptian or old norse (that is, not common at all). I'm currently writing a personal essay about the faults of Latin and Greek education (at high school and college level) and how it can be changed for the better, but I don't think anything will ever come of it.
You guys seem to be on the right track. Keep it up. Once you can read Latin texts somewhat comfortably, it becomes a positive feedback loop.

Can somebody help me with this sentence please I'm struggling.

Helvetii e finibus exire constituunt spe redeundi sublata
I've got
The helvetii decide to leave the borders in hopes of returning...
But I don't get what sublata means here. It's the perfect participle of tollere, to lift up, which doesn't make sense with my translation, so I feel like my whole translation of that passage must be wrong.
Someone help please as I can't find any translation of this sentence online.

>>17149978
is this the full sentence? if so, it seems to mean "with raised hope ..."
spes is feminine so it makes sense if sublata goes with spe.
The rest of your translation is fine, though I prefer "decide to exit/go out from the/[their] borders," which translates the "e finibus exire" a bit more literal, but yours is still correct.

>>17149970
Yeah. Most people never get past the translation stage. they see it as the goal and not as a stepping stone to reading fluency. There are professors like this too, professors of Latin who can't even read the language properly, only translate it. Sad. I guess they have the idea that Latin is so archaic and its grammatical constructions so alien, that the idea that they could read it like English doesn't even enter their head. Latin, after all, is just another human language, just a very old one, and not some puzzle to be solved.

>>17150010
In my dictionary it says sublata can mean arrogant, proud, or elated. So might this be it?
The Helvetii decide to go out from their borders with the arrogant hope of returning.

>>17150049
yeah, that looks good. This dictionary agrees with yours https://logeion.uchicago.edu/sublatus.. Again, your translation of "to leave the borders" is more idiomatic English (and to me sounds better as English prose), but because this could be for a class, I just want you to be aware of how to translate it more literally. I would also put the "their" in square brackets because it's implied but not actually in the Latin. It's a little stronger of an insertion than an article like "the" or "a."

>>17149978
Hi anon. Firstly, finis in plural generally means the land, country. Secondly, constituunt is almost certainly the historical present. Finally, the use of tollere is not so easy to determine without any broader context, but I suspect it means to remove, i.e. the hope of returning was lost (and therefore they decided to abandon their land).

>>17149978
Sublatum can also mean removed
>The helvetti decided to leave their borders, with hope of returning gone
That might be the meaning. It depends on the context.

>>17150099
Nah it's not for a class I'm reading Caesar's commentaries and got a bit stuck on that sentence because sublata didn't make much sense to me. Thanks anon.

>>17150024
Exactly. Imagine if +90% of experts in German literature weren't fluent in German. The unfortunately result is that now classes at the junior and senior undergrad level are filled with students who can hardly TRANSLATE the 40 lines of poetry without an hour of work. It's a sad

I guess this is the designated Latin thread. What have you lads been reading? I've been going through De rerum natura and I think Lucretius might just be my favorite poet.

>>17150164
Aha! The same French scholar I've been reading relates a story about this very thing. In the late 1800s, there was a scholar who traveled to Germany in order to learn German but ultimately failed. He locked himself up in a basement and memorized all the German grammar. Once emerging, he tried to comprehend everyday German but caught nothing. Then he retreated once again to learn about 30 thousand German words and successfully translated German poets like Goethe and Schiller, only to fail again in both comprehension and speaking. Once he returned to France, he noticed that his nephew, who was 2 when he left and 4 when he returned spoke fluent French. AKA his nephew learned his language via the INPOOT method so he developed a system for acquiring second languages based off that.

>>17149970
>Yes, this is my 6th year since starting Latin.
aha! I see your level of erudition now and I agree with your view on pedagogical methods. Most want to teach you how to translate instead of reading as if it were your native language. To be fair, I see the usefulness about being able to translate but, as I have read many 19th ce language teaching methods, they often abhor this exact method. It is a hindrance to the student to translate everything they read into their native language instead of capturing the ideas in the target language. Once again, thank you for the list and explaining your situation. Personally, I learned English via youtube and spaces like 4chan.

t. Frog

final bump

>>17150417
>>17150345
I'm a PhD student and I'm pretty embarrassed about my Latin and Greek ability.

I can ready Caesar pretty well and other late antique texts (with some vocabulary help) but I struggle with poetry...

I should never have done Classics... however, I'm try to improve but I need to take more on myself and not stick just with class work...

>>17151433
It's okay anon, it's not your fault. This is why I think classics should be a hobby. The state of classics education is quite bad, so it seems. I would recommend that you get a hold of LLPSI to get your sight reading skills up to speed. You might even consider going straight into the second volume, if you are comfortable with Caesar. The first volume may be too easy, certainly the first half will be.

>>17151455
Yah I've read LLPSI and was comfortable with it.

It's just the amount of time needed to spend on it. Like a class each semester is just not enough. I've got 4 years of each under my belt and do understand the grammar - building up a solid vocabulary is the key for me next.

Classics has other problems too: like no actual methodological training, as a history major would get, and then absolute disdain for most technology (but that's changing in archaeology at least)

>>17151455
>>17151476
Under the assumption that you are American, could you please go into details regarding how Latin and Greek are taught at your respective Universities?

>>17151520
Canadian, but similar. Just did Wheelocks and then Cambridge (for Greek), but the transition to actual texts was the difficult part on 3rd and 4h year

>>17151532
Is it considered a normal practice to postpone the engagement with actual Greek texts all the way until the final years?

>>17151556
Bro in Classics here in Canada Latin and Greek aren't even required to get a degree... I didn't do Latin or Greek till last year of undergrad and then my masters. I feel like a hack but that's a case for lots of people.

And I'm willing to read the Nestle-Aland Bible along with some Homer (among other things) in the summers.

>>17151635
Are you actually telling me that it is possible to obtain a Classics degree in Canada without studying Latin and Greek?

>>17151688
Yes... in a bunch of universities, and in America too, if I'm not mistaken, since it's a glorified History degree - or as it's being changed to: Mediterranean Studies.

>>17151688
in the US, there is the "civilization" major, which doesn't require the languages, but you can't really go to grad school with one either.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FROGS??!?!??!?!?!?!?!!?!!?!?1

>>17151635
THE ABSOLUTE STATE

>>17151688
In the US, idk about Canada, you can get a classics degree without writing a single essay in Latin/ancient Greek. What they care about is being to translate which is why wheelocks is paraded as the main text.

This is the main reason why classics majors are unable to read in the classical languages as smoothly as a Russian major is able to read Doestovesky or Tolstoy in the original.

>>17148223
Read Cicero, he's a bitch to read but it's a must and you'll learn a lot.

>>17151739
Yes, it's a fucking con... I will never become a prof but I'll go into the government since the PhD looks good anyways

>>17151740
Which is why I hope to be learning French in Quebec and German and Germany. At least get the living language

>>17151718
We are the most erudite posters on this board.
>>17151742
Cicero is the final boss of classical Latin desu. His sentences are way too grammatically complex. Wheelocks fills this gap desu.

>tfw understand Spanish fluently with no effort of my own
LATIN I’M COMING FOR YOU. BRACE YOUR SMOOTH, FIRM ABDOMEN

>>17151945
Tacitus is the real final boss

>>17152375
Explain yourself. While I get that Tacitus is more concise, i.e the reader has to jump along the mental and linguistic gaps, he explicitly moved away from Cicero's flamboyant style of long sentences.

>>17152482
I might just be biased because I've been reading Cicero for a while, and because Cicero's style is in line with the structures you are taught from the grammar books. Tacitus isn't. Tacitus is like an island. He is nothing like any other Roman author I've read except for maybe Sallust. The language is ultra condensed, almost imagistic, highly figurative, full of archaisms, staccatos and jagged asymmetries, like he was trying to make his language evoke the discord and uncertainty of the times. He reminds me of the classical Chinese writers whose art was to fit as much meaning as possible in to just a few characters, at the expense of clarity. Tacitus doesn't hold your hand for a second. He assumes that the reader is sharp enough to mentally fill whatever gaps he leaves out. He is nothing like Cicero who is smooth, symmterical, direct, harmonious, who guides you by the hand through his sentences. The Ciceronian sentence is long but crafted so elegantly and consistently as to be always comprehensible, that is once you have fully internalized the grammatical structure of the Latin language.

>>17152661
Très belle, very beautiful. I can see that you are one of the few upon whom the sbylline light shines. Merci beaucoup for your touching post. I kneel...

>>17152759
Thank you monsieur. I invite you to try out the Annales if you haven't already. They are hard as fuck but very rewarding.

>>17152772
I will. I tried my hand at his Germanica to get a feel for his writing and will roll my chances with his highest literary work. Your recc has been successful.

>>17152375
No

>>17148223
Maybe try "Lingua Latina Familia Romana". The idea behind the book is learning mating by reading Latin. It starts of with simple phrases which it uses to teach you some words and then it keeps getting more complex. If you have already studied Latin it may be a bit too slow. It also have few few books that go along with it with explanations of things like grammar and such.

I need a picture dictionary cause my retarded ass can't seem to transcribe words. SALVE. QUID TIBI EST NOUMEN. MIHI NOUMEN EST ECT ECT ECT

>>17151740
Isn't it just because Russian/French students are able to speak it with others since they're not dead languages, rather than the teaching method per se? If it is the teaching method, and the Latin/Greek ones are so bad and produce such bad results, why don't they change it to whichever teaching method they use for Russian and French?

>>17148223
Pleb imagine not being taught greek and latin since a young age. hahha well i guess my worthless classics phd helped solidify the knowledge. Even I a post doc lecturer at an ivy league school still do not fully grasp the ancient languages.

>>17151520
I took it in highschool so i just skipped the intro classes and got to take any class I wanted. Class was taught like a literature class.