/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19419778]

How do I find the Latin Declensions to memorize them? How are they divided up?

[Anonymous No.19419863]

>>19419778
not on topic. shove it up your ass, catholic pedo.

[Anonymous No.19419884]

>>19419863
I want to learn Latin, how does that not have to do with literature?

[Anonymous No.19419885]

>>19419778
Google Dowling Method

[Anonymous No.19419902]

>>19419884
let the jannies decide :)

[Anonymous No.19419913]

>>19419778
Not everything that is tangentially related to literature is /lit/ worthy. A more appropriate board for queries like this would be /his/. Anyways, you can use sites like http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?lang=la and https://wiktionary.org to parse any Latin word and find its tense, mood, voice, etc.

[Anonymous No.19419918]

>>19419778
These are pretty:
https://bencrowder.net/latin-declensions/
You can find the conjugations on the same same site.

Also
http://www.jonathanaquino.com/latin/
if Dowling Method, that >>19419885 recommended, is your thing.

[Anonymous No.19419932]

>>19419885
I've read through the Dowling method. I'm just unsure how to start on the Declinations since I have no idea about any of them.
>>19419918
Thank you.

[Anonymous No.19419950]

>>19419932
>I'm just unsure how to start on the Declinations since I have no idea about any of them.

Then make sure you understand the idea before you start with the paradigms. That's frequently a challenge for users of analytical languages like English. Dowling explains it in his article, so that might be a good place to start. It's not so long and quite to the point, really. But I don't think you should be apprehensive about starting reading simple texts before memorizing all the tables. You can do both at the same time, nothing bad's going to happen. Good luck, anon.

[Anonymous No.19419959]

>>19419950
>simple texts
Oh, and by that I meant mainly LLPSI or similar easy readers like Julia, not Cesar.

[Anonymous No.19419965]

>>19419959
I got a copy of Lingua Latina recently. I was thinking for Dowlings step 2 with the 'brute memorization' of the Declinations how to get them and write them down. Do you recommend following him to the letter? He warns quite strongly against doing much without the tables finished first.

[anonymus No.19420010]

>>19419778
I suggest you buy Wheelock's Latin. That's how I learned Latin. And it's actually one of the easiest language books I've read. I hate to meme genki, but it's as easy as genki.

[Anonymous No.19420030]

>>19419965
I used to read quite a lot about language acquisition, and ultimately I really don’t have a strong position on that.

There are people who will tell you that grammar is positively harmful because it shifts your focus from content to form, making you think about the new language in your native one, thus inhibiting the build-up of intuition; and there are others that claim it can be helpful because it makes you more receptive to input. You know, like when you plan on buying a new phone and then suddenly you pay attention to all the smartphones around you. I think it’s about trade-offs. Grammar can speed things up but can also lead to inferior results in the long run.

Another question to ask is: is giving up on grammar is realistic? And in the case of Latin the obvious answer is “no”. You will never be able to immerse yourself in Latin to the degree that precludes direct grammar study. You’re not going to emulate in your life the upbringing of a Roman kid. It doesn’t mean Latin is somehow different from other languages when it comes to the neurological mechanism of acquisition. No. But the circumstances of learning it ARE different.

So there’s this ongoing discussion, and the answers might greatly depend on the person: how analytically inclined you are, what are your goals, what materials you have at your disposal. But one thing no one in the field seems to advocate for is learning all the grammar BEFORE any kind of input. I have yet to see one scholar that supports such a thing. It goes counter to everything we know about the way the brain works. Sure, grammar itself is artificial, but it plays an important prosthetic role. No need to make it more artificial than it needs to be.

So to wrap up the book, I would say memorize the paradigms but don’t bother torturing yourself with learning them before you’re exposed to content.

[Anonymous No.19420043]

>>19420030
And, by the way, when I talk about "input" I mean "listening or reading". I guess it might a piece of jargon I adopted, so just making sure it's clear.

[Anonymous No.19420306]

>>19420030
Thank you for the thought out response.

[Anonymous No.19420325]

OP if you can't even google "Latin declensions chart" then you can't self-study Latin

let it go man, come on

[Anonymous No.19420715]

>>19419778
just buy gwynnes latin
it teaches you more latin in the first chapter of the book than in the entire first cambridge latin course book

[Anonymous No.19420898]

How long would it take to learn Latin if you study for 8 hours a day?

[Anonymous No.19420918]

>>19420898
I assume like 3-6 months to read fluently and 9-12 months to write fluently.

[Anonymous No.19421016]

>>19419778
There are five declensions in latin. Good dictionary will give you the nominative and the genetive of a noun which will allow you to recognise to which declension a noun belongs
Before you try to mess around with them learn to recognise them first.
>I declension feminine nouns
NOM: root-A
GEN: root-AE
>II declension masculine and neuter nouns
NOM: root-US/ER(Masculine) root-UM(neuter)
GEN: root-I
>III declension masculine, feminine and neuter nouns
NOM: it's a clusterfuck honestly and i won't even try to teach that
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_third_declension try wikipedia or some book
GEN: root-IS
>IV declension masculine and neuter nouns
NOM: root-US(masculine) root-U
GEN: root-US
>V declension feminine nouns
NOM: root-ES
GEN: root-EI
once you get comfortable with these 5 categories start learning the endings for each case in each declensions.
It's quite easy actually because they follow neat patterns (most of the time).
>>19419863
pic rel is you faggot

[Anonymous No.19421201]

Declensions are easy, it's mostly conjugation that's the problem.

Just remember it's not all active memory, your brain is absorbing the patterns (aquas just "feels" accusative plural after a while in a way that doesn't involve any conscious thought) and you have years to smooth out minor mistakes. I used to grind way too hard on paradigms in class and while I'm sort of glad I did it in hindsight, I'm also aware it wasn't so necessary, and I wish I had felt ready and "deserving" to read Latin earlier than I did. I spent way too long re-drilling conjugations like I was preparing for the Big Fight with real Latin.

Go for the diminishing returns method. Get to the point that you recognize 80-90% easily, but don't beat yourself up when that remaining 10-20% still makes you go "FUCK I forgot that's also a subjunctive form!" and you had to look at your paradigm chart.

[Anonymous No.19421209]

>>19419778
>How do I find the Latin Declensions to memorize them?
Anon-kun… you do have a computer, correct? you are aware you can type “Latin declensions” in google and get a image of the declensions. or go on wiktionary. or watch a video.
Finding is not hard.

[Anonymous No.19421218]

>>19419965
I'm >>19421201 agreeing with >>19420030

For me, learning grammar and morphology feels like a cheat code I can use to get a foothold in the language. But maybe for others it's absolute hell. However, you can't avoid it entirely with Latin. Like I said above, conjugation is the real task. But it's not as hard as it looks, as there are always patterns, and just spending time with things will make you unconsciously recognise those patterns even if you consciously don't.

Personally I am a proponent of rote memorisation as preparation, because I think it's a super tool and people badly underestimate how much their memory is capable of. It's a fuzzy and unsatisfying answer, but: you should do what you are capable of without it being torture, but you ALSO have a duty to yourself to discover what you are capable of, and learning classical languages is kind of a (no pun intended) classical way of doing that. Back in the day when every schoolchild got slapped in the head for making a mistake, for better or worse, a lot of schoolchildren learned just how powerful their memory could be if they chose to discipline it.

There's a reason this scene was so funny to English audiences, who grew up in those sorts of schools - the centurion is a send-up of an old English schoolmaster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8