AureliaeLacrimae

You can always focus on just one register. For example, try finding as much interesting information about the legal register, or geographic terminology, and once you think you're familiar with the words, try finding articles about similar topics. You'll see that memorising comes easier when you have pairs of words and somewhere to use them. Also, do try not to choose too many synonyms and antonyms. Whereas they can be very useful, they can also inhibit the process of learning. Two to three per word are more than enough.

Sounds like a challenge. In my opinion, you'd need to be both dedicated and focused in order to do this, not to mention ambitious. You'd have to live for Kanji for those few months. I mean, it's possible - of course it's possible, but this task would require a strong will. Three months is an average time for a semester. I have eleven different subjects during that time and I am quite content. It's very diverse, keeps me occupied and learning different things. Last year, though, things were very different. I still had eleven subjects, just like this year, but I was practically ''living'' for one subject (it was very difficult and detailed). I'd managed, but I was under constant strain and pressure. I couldn't wait for it to be over and the rest of my subjects suffered. At times, the very thought of what awaits had me groaning.

Yes, of course. I completely agree with you. A teacher must be fully prepared for the class and prepared to help the student as much as possible, but he or she must also be flexible. Sometimes plans need to change. Whether he or she had planned a new lesson or not, there should always be another option - revision. Sometimes it's just too much for the student. The vocabulary, the grammar... both can overwhelm, so piling up new lessons would be counterproductive in that case and would lead nowhere.

A part of the problem could be the theme. I still remember the one I didn't like - ''Being is more important than having''. I had just enrolled high school and I didn't feel like writing a philosophical debate - and to me, it definitely sounded like one. My writing turned out to be half an essay and half a story, and the only reason I'd not failed was my determination to write something, even though I did not like the theme. Some students may feel more than discouraged, though, if they have only one theme to ''choose'' from, especially if it's a little abstract.

I had cursive writing in school, but that was way back. I may have been... first grade? Second? I think it was obligatory then, but I am not sure about today. I don't even remember my brother doing this, and he's just two years younger than me, so I guess it's no longer practiced. It wasn't strictly observed, though, just another one of those subjects which are no longer used after you finish them. My grandma still writes in cursive when she wishes to show how calligraphy used to be important back in 1950s, when she was a young girl. It makes me feel ashamed of myself when I compare her beautiful handwriting to my scribbled notes for the classes.

Sometimes it can be overwhelming when you're being corrected occasionally, so knowing when to correct someone is also very important. Those words which are fairly frequent will be difficult to correct - no matter how many times you say it right, it just doesn't bear fruit. Once you've wrongly learnt something, your mind simply rebels. (We had a student who put the emphasis on the last syllable for every word he'd read in Greek - it was practically impossible to help him with accent). But correcting someone politely, in a normal tone, shouldn't be a problem, especially if that someone is a friend.

Hello everyone. My name is Aurelia and languages are my passion. I adore languages, especially those which are no longer spoken. They are some how special, magical even. I study Latin and I love every second of it. I only wish there was somewhere I could learn Old English. It's another interest of mine. I am hoping to find a lot of other language enthusiasts here.

I am still learning Latin and I haven't yet tried really learning other Romance languages, but I did find some of the Spanish vocabulary familiar. Same goes for Italian. Even English - about 50% of English vocabulary is Latin based. I do believe knowing Latin helps, if nothing, it gives you an another perspective - that of a language which doesn't follow the SVO pattern (Subject-Verb-Object), typical for most languages, English included, but prefers the verb at the end. Is this the same for Italian? I really wouldn't know.

I absolutely agree with you. A teacher is a very important factor in language learning. It is the teacher who helps you when you don't understand something. It is the teacher who encourages you to keep learning (at times, not having anyone with the same interests as you can be very discouraging - it has happened to me several times already). And it is the teacher who guides you through the process. But it is also essential (maybe even equally essential) that you're learning a language in a small group, or even better, individually or with one to two other students. This is the optimal environment in which a teacher can equally assess every student and provide the stimulus the students need to respond and learn. Large groups can be clumsy. There is always something left unexplained and so on...

It's not difficult to learn the alphabet. It's not even that difficult to read. It's when you start working on texts that you give up. I did - I'd courageously started working on Oedipus. I'd lasted the whole page and then - nothing. Done. The metric was the easy part, but all those unknown words and tenses... now that can be very discouraging. I'd realised that had it not been for the translation in English, I wouldn't have understood a thing I'd read.

My God, dictionary is a must! Without it, I'd never be able to get anywhere. Virgil is impossible without a dictionary. So is Ovid. I am happy to be done with him for the time being. The easiest thing, though, is the basic grammar. You never forget the cases and the patterns - but all those exceptions, combinations, expressions, ellipses... now this is when it starts being fun.

Too bad this topic is dying out, it's a very interesting one. Songs are an excellent way of enjoying one language. I like Adoramus Te, Adeste Fideles... there are actually a lot of songs written in Latin for the church - with lyrics, the music, the chords... You can find a great number of them. But you should also try reading poems. It's true that they are all in a certain metric pattern (so reading them aloud is a bit of a problem if you don't follow it), but some of them are very interesting. Catullus is a good example (not all of his poems, though). He's not too difficult. Horace too may be easy to follow at times. You must have a dictionary at hand, though.

As long as you follow the SVO pattern (Subject-Verb-Object), you'll be fine. Most of the languages follow this pattern and then it becomes easier to translate. Google makes a lot of mistakes for certain types of texts though. It is easier for the machine to translate a straightforward text. Literature becomes a problem, especially with all those metaphors and other devices used. Idiomatic language is definitely not preserved - you have to find dictionaries for this, but collocations are recognised at times. So... I wouldn't risk it for something important, but it's still a fairly useful tool.

Well, Robert Frost said ''Poetry is what gets lost in the translation'' and I must admit I completely agree with him. I'd tried translating Poe. Annabel Lee is not that difficult to translate into Croatian, but The Haunted Palace was challenging. I've also realised the shorter the poem is, the more difficult it is for it to be translated. You have to choose the right word which would match perfectly - the sound, the meaning, the rhythm, the rhyme (if there is one). I also believe that if you have to sacrifice one, always choose to maintain the rhythm rather than rhyme.