/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13991691]

Is latin easy or hard to learn?

[Anonymous No.13991694]

>>13991691
Meme language

[Anonymous No.13991699]

>>13991694
Is this actually the height of discussion on this board? God, you people are dense.

[Anonymous No.13991703]

It's not a difficult language though I'd say modern romance languages are easier

[Anonymous No.13991707]

>>13991691
Hard for anglos, easy for latinos.

[Anonymous No.13991710]

If you speak English, Spanish, Romanian, Romansch, Italian, or French it's easy to learn. Getting the grammar down pat can be difficult because you're effectively only able to learn the language by reading the works of educated authora, but it's not "hard" per se, just not as easy as, say, French where you have a spectrum of easy to hard material. In Latin, there's only hard material, but the grammar itself is not hard.

>>13991694
Barbarian hands wrote this post.

[Anonymous No.13991711]

>>13991691
I feel like conversation is easy if you know some french or Spanish but reading especially classical is harder and needs practice

[Anonymous No.13991714]

>>13991691
It depends of which is your native language. If it's a latin-derived one, you might find it easier than if it's not. Overall it's similar to learn spanish or italian, if that gives you an idea.

[Anonymous No.13991740]

>>13991694
The only reason I'm interested in learning it is because some essays (as recently as the 20th century) will cite passages in Latin with no translation. It's kind of nuts to me that academics were expected to have a working understanding of 3-4 languages (typically English, French, German and Latin, maybe Italian in my experience).

[Anonymous No.13991811]

>>13991691
Memorizing vocabulary is easy; the grammar is the hard part but you can master it within a few months, maybe less if you're familiar with cases.

[Anonymous No.13991814]

>>13991691
like most things, easy to pick up, very difficult to master.

[Anonymous No.13992163]

>>13991710
Here, well done.

[Anonymous No.13992180]

>>13991710
I concur, I've only studied maybe an hour or two every week for two months now, and i can grasp a lot. It's easy, just stay committed

[Anonymous No.13992227]

Any good material to learn? From what resources you guys learned?

[Anonymous No.13992244]

How does ancient greek compare in difficulty? I'm fluent in french and english and currently learning italian so latin would be closer but I have more of an interest in greek texts, maybe koine for new testament studies too at some point

[Anonymous No.13992365]

What’s the best say to learn latin?
Any books you guys would recommend?

[Anonymous No.13992377]

>>13991691
I know latin

[Anonymous No.13992379]

>>13992244
Greek is way harder.

[Anonymous No.13992390]

Learning Latin words is really easy considering most of them are still in everyday use in other languages.

[Anonymous No.13992411]

>>13991691
It’s easy if you’ve already learned a language like Spanish, French, etc.

[Anonymous No.13992434]

>>13991691
latin is very straightforward
greek is the fucked up one

[Anonymous No.13992920]

>>13992434
>>13992379
Ancient greek is interesting because nobody really knows or has record of the proper pronounciation. So learning it you are essentially only learning to read it unlike other languages where you are expected to speak it. So any pronounciation is just as 'correct' as any other since nobody really has any clue.

[Anonymous No.13992923]

>>13991703
I'd say latin is definitely easier than french

[Anonymous No.13993085]

Is Duolingo a good beginner's place for studying Latin? Pls no bully

[Anonymous No.13993170]

>>13993085
I've only ever tried Duolingo for German but didn't enjoy the layout.
http://www.wcdrutgers.net/Latin.htm - is the 4chan-approved way of learning Latin.

[Anonymous No.13993224]

>>13993085
Only as a studying aid, it really shouldn't be used on its own

[Anonymous No.13993250]

>>13991691
just get into gardening youll learn new words that way

[Anonymous No.13993304]

>>13992923
I'm french, will I have a hard time with latin ? Is lingua latina per se illustrata a good method ?

[Anonymous No.13993309]

>>13993304
>Is lingua latina per se illustrata a good method ?
It's the best method.

[Anonymous No.13993316]

>>13993309
Perfect then, thanks Anon.

[Anonymous No.13993343]

>>13993170
Where do I get the Grammar tables?

[Anonymous No.13993354]

>>13993343
http://www.jonathanaquino.com/latin/index.php?controller=table&action=new&table=Nouns

[Anonymous No.13993362]

>>13993343
>>13993354
Linked to the nouns by mistake but that's the website. http://www.jonathanaquino.com/latin/index.php

[Anonymous No.13993373]

>>13993362
>>13993354
Based, thank you

[Anonymous No.13993466]

This might be a good question to ask seeing as I'm being ignored in the ancient languages thread - how long would it take to learn Sanskrit and what would be the main sources for doing so?

[Anonymous No.13993766]

>>13993170
This is pretty cool, thanks! One question though, is the Lingua Latina series made up of two parts, Familia Romana and Roma Aeterna or is there more?

[Anonymous No.13993801]

>>13991699
It's not the height. It is, unfortunately, the most common type.

[Anonymous No.13993803]

>>13993766
Those two sections cover a ton, but idk if there are editions beyond that. By the time you make it through those you should probably switch to a different resource.

[Anonymous No.13994054]

>>13991691
That depends heavily on your linguistic goals; if you want to be able to imitate what would've been Latin speech, and write well, then it'll take a long time. If, however, you want to simply be literate enough to read some of the greats, that'll take much less time and can be done relatively easily if you have a Romance native language. If your native language is English, I recommend learning a modern Romance language first. The big four will help you in this order: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French (Italian helping you most, French least). All will basically boost your vocabulary in Latin without you actually having to learn Latin. Then when it comes time to learn Latin, you'll mostly have to focus on grammar (which is easier than people claim) and less on vocabulary. There is also an abundance of bilingual books to help you learn Latin. Don't bother with memes like LLPSI, Wheelock's, or other books. Just find an old grammar book and read it cover to cover. Start reading Latin right away (trust me, if you know one Romance language, you can begin reading Latin from day one). The grammar book is just supplementary. Reading is how you'll really learn the language. Anyways, long story short, Latin isn't necessarily difficult. You can be literate in the language in a year if you really works towards that.

[Anonymous No.13994097]

>>13994054
What Latin book do I start with for reading? Don’t tell me any. Give me one so I pick it up like the drone I am

[Anonymous No.13994132]

>>13994054
I would like to illustrate my point by comparing a famous Bible text in Latin and Spanish.

PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

PADRE NUESTO que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu Nombre; venga tu reino; hágase tu voluntad, así en la tierra, como en el cielo. Danos hoy el pan nuestro de cada día; y perdónanos nuestras deudas así como nosotros perdonamos a nuestros deudores; y no nos dejes caer en la tentación; mas líbranos de mal. Amén.

The translation isn't perfect. But if you read these two together, you'll notice how much learning a Romance language will help you, just how similar they are. The vocabulary here lines up probably 95% or more (excluding poor choices in the translation). So, once again, you should learn a modern Romance language first if you want to make learning Latin much easier.

[Anonymous No.13994183]

>>13994097
It'd be wise to pick a writer from the period of Latin's decline, since the language is somewhat simpler then. Don't start with Golden Age writers. Work backwards till you get to Latin's Archaic origins. I recommend reading St. Jerome's Vulgata as your first Latin text (just pick your favorite books of the Bible and read them alongside the Douay-Rheims English translation), since most people are already familiar with the Bible and you can find this text online easily. Knowing the stories will diminish the foreignness of the language. It's also good to read it for literary and historical reasons.

If you don't want to read the Bible, then read other writers from the same period as St. Jerome like Prudentius or Ausonius, who similarly will be easier for you to understand than Golden Age writers. For the love of God, don't start with Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, etc. You will get discouraged and quit. Work backwards.

[Anonymous No.13994312]

>>13991740
>It's kind of nuts to me that academics were expected to have a working understanding of 3-4 languages (typically English, French, German and Latin, maybe Italian in my experience).

Man, just knowing Latin you'll be able to understand most of Italian and French, and learn German a lot faster because you already know how most cases work. How do you plan to be an actual academic by reading translations? It's like wanting to be a painter while being color blind. It's insane how low the standards are.

[Anonymous No.13994350]

>>13994312
>How do you plan to be an actual academic by reading translations?
I agree with every you said, but these days modern academics aren't expected to know any foreign languages. Very sad. I reckon less than 10% of academics know a second language. So it is possible to be an academic these days without knowing a foreign language, which says a lot about the state of modern academia. Anyone who wants to be truly educated should study foreign languages for sure though, whether they want to be in academia or not.

[Anonymous No.13994613]

>>13993085
The duolingo Latin course is still in alpha. It's EXTREMELY lacking. It doesn't teach cases, which is nuts because that's basically the most important part of Latin. Not to mention that some of the audio is just plain wrong(No "R" drill, pronouncing soft "c", pronouncing "-um" when it's not necesary. etc). I still recommend you finish the tree, it's good to gain some vocab and keep the language fresh. But If you really want to learn Latin go the standard route and just get Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata + Wheelock's Latin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zt19wzsW-c&list=PLU1WuLg45SiyrXahjvFahDuA060P487pV

[Anonymous No.13994655]

>>13994613
How am i going to learn anything from that video if it's all in latin?

[Anonymous No.13994688]

>>13994613
>Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata + Wheelock's Latin.
>Duolingo Latin
Stop pushing these shit memes on people. Follow this advice:
>>13994054
>>13994132
>>13994183.

[Anonymous No.13994931]

>>13994183
Great anon, this is great. Is there anyway I make this deliberate practice? Do I just note down any words I’m unfamiliar with them and put them in Anki or just keep reading the same passages every day?

[Anonymous No.13995116]

>>13991691
Probably one of the easiest if you speak nearly any Indoeuropean language. Made much easier by being a literary language, doesn't have the depth of any living language. Only challenge is there's no native speakers to imitate so it's much harder to acquire good pronunciation and word choice.

[Anonymous No.13995217]

>>13994931
What I like to do is re-read a lot. This really helps to solidify the language and is good practice in general. I think re-reading is better than stuff like Anki because in my experience, language learning occurs best when the language is contextualized. If there are words you want to look up from the Latin, you can use Wiktionary. It has a good Latin-English dictionary (also, its English dictionary is amazing too, just saying). So reading, re-reading, and some dictionary work. This is generally how scholars in the past would've acquired Latin as well, apart from consulting grammars.

[Anonymous No.13995224]

>>13992227
>>13992365.
>>13993085
>>13994097
Check out the Collar and Daniels book, it helped me some. I would also like to know if there are other ways since I couldn't fine and answer sheet this, it's a bit unclear at times, etc.
I will check out (http://www.wcdrutgers.net/Latin.htm)), as mentioned by >>13993170

[Anonymous No.13995809]

>>13991691
Don't learn latin unless you are going into academia/religion.
t. Adjunct with a PhD in History

[Anonymous No.13995887]

>>13995809
>Don't learn latin unless you are going into academia/religion.
Shut up, retard.

[Anonymous No.13996075]

>>13995809
This.
Why the fuck would someone learn such language without any reason whatsoever?
Esperanto is a much useful language in the real world and academia (linguistics) than Latin is.

[Anonymous No.13996078]

>>13996075
Esperanto is not a literary language. Latin has some of the greatest writers in history. It's worth learning Latin just to read Ovid in the original. Can you pseuds shut the fuck up?

[Anonymous No.13996202]

>>13996078
>Esperanto is not a literary language
But you can make it one if you instead used and spent the time you would use for learning Latin in making a masterpiece in Esperanto.
>Latin has some of the greatest writers in history. It's worth learning Latin just to read Ovid in the original.
So you're telling me that spending thousands of hours of your limited lifetime in learning Latin, without any academic nor religious ambitions, is absolutely worth doing so for the sake of reading some text that has been translated by individuals multiple times who actually had the ambition of learning the language for the sake of academia and translating it?
Still not a good idea unless OP had the ambitions that the other anon said.

[Anonymous No.13996340]

>>13992244
Greek (ancient) is mydick-tier hard
Modern Greek is more similar to Italian for grammar and lexicon

[Anonymous No.13996342]

>>13992411
Learning words doesn’t give you an idea of the meaning of the phrase, brainlet

[Anonymous No.13996941]

>>13992920
not like anyone learns actual latin pronunciation

[Anonymous No.13996986]

FUCK greek

[Anonymous No.13997335]

>>13996986
Was thinking of learning ancient greek at some point; is it more difficult to learn than latin?

[Anonymous No.13997341]

>>13991691
easy as fuck if you just need to be able to read it

[Anonymous No.13997460]

>>13996202
>So you're telling me that spending thousands of hours
It hasn't taken very long. I don't think I've put much time into "learning" Latin. My method is to immediately start reading from day one (which is possible if you speak a Romance language, and is still possible for English speakers if they study just a slight amount of grammar first) and to mitigate grammatical studies. I was raised bilingual in American English and Castilian Spanish, and Latin is pretty similar to Spanish.
>is absolutely worth doing so for the sake of reading some text
Yes. Specifically Ovid who is one of the greatest poets in history. A top five.
>>13996342
See >>13994132 Latin shares a huge percentage of vocabulary with the Romance languages and knowing any one of them basically means you know Latin already, just a simpler form.

[Anonymous No.13998527]

>>13997460
Knowing vocab≠being able to understand the language, if you don't learn the grammar you won't be able to translate texts that aren't very simple. You can Talk about similarities in vocab all day, but the fact of the Matter is, if you translate a sentence accurately, you don't know the grammar well enough.

[Anonymous No.13999782]

>>13998527
>Knowing vocab≠being able to understand the language
No shit, but it helps A LOT.
>if you don't learn the grammar you won't be able to translate texts that aren't very simple.
No shit. Read my post again and I clearly recommend studying grammar.

[Anonymous No.13999790]

>>13992377
Haskell is fucking based (So is Coq).

[Anonymous No.14000483]

>>13991707
los latinos no son españoles, tonto

[Anonymous No.14000505]

>>13996941
No, we actually do know proper Latin punctuation. It's actually interesting how we do know. I believe this video explains further.

https://youtu.be/_enn7NIo-S0

[Anonymous No.14000509]

>>14000505
GET TO THE FUCKING EXAMPLE OF THE LATIN JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

[Anonymous No.14000517]

>>13991691
Easy af

[Anonymous No.14001150]

If this is a general classical languages thread, I could use some morale.

Just started learning Attic Greek on my own, using the Joint Association of Classical Teachers bookset. I'm starting to get into the meat of the grammar, but these books just don't seem to provide enough concrete grammar structure for me to memorize. I really unmoored. Does anyone have any recommendations for extra grammar resources?

[Anonymous No.14001208]

>>13991710
>>13991691

The part that gets me the most are the verb forms still. You got person, plural/singular, tense, voice, and mood that you got to remember. Cases of nowns are esy enough, but holy hell those verbs can lick me.

Basic words usual have some english equilivent to, so basic grammer is much easier than say turkish, or even german desu.

>>13991694
If you are a historian, or are interested in the primary founding sorces of pretty much any academic subject Latin is great. You a physicist? why not crack open some Newton. Biologist? Linnaeus. Politition? Cicero. Etc. Of course I will agree that if you are not using latin for academic purposes (IE wanting to talk in latin), yah, why bother.

[Anonymous No.14001996]

>>14000505
Im aware of that, which is why I said learns rather than knows

[Anonymous No.14002066]

>>13994132
Notre Père, qui es aux cieux,
que ton nom soit sanctifié,
que ton règne vienne,
que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
Donne-nous aujourd’hui notre pain quotidien.
Pardonne-nous nos offenses,
comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés.
Et ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation
mais délivre-nous du Mal.
Amen

Some parts seem close enough to latin, but one line in particular is completely different.

[Anonymous No.14002095]

>>13994132
Whats a good book for learning Latin in Spanish?