Latin For Beginners

[AureliaeLacrimae]

As I have already mentioned elsewhere, I have started to ''liven up'' the Latin section from the other languages subforum. I won't repeat myself much - I'll only say that I'm working on providing you with all the necessary material for successful language learning.

I strongly believe that if you wish to learn, all the obstacles become easy to deal with. You just have to be inspired enough to keep going on. That's one of the reasons why many of us who start learning a foreign language fail at an early stage - we don't have someone who's learning with us or guiding us through the process.

I hope you'll find both at our little section. There's not much now, but I'm working on improving it every day. At the moment, there's enough to get you started.

So, my dear potential students, do join us in Latin reading!

You're all welcome!

Addendum:

Feel free do ask questions and comment on all the lessons, regardless of when they were posted. Language learning is a complex process and it is natural that you will have questions. I will try to answer each and every one of them.

Updated 02/12/2014

[elenamarie]

I am very glad there is Latin teaching for beginners. Latin is one of the most ancient language in hisotry. I have a high respect for it. I am sure there are many people out there who are more than willing to learn this ancient italic language specially those who are history fanatic, I myself included.

[Dora M]

Thank you, Aurelia. I am sure that people who seriously want to learn Latin will find your help very useful. To me personally, it's a language that I have no use for. If I had more time, I would be interested in acquiring some basic Latin structures and words to give me more insight about languages in general. But at this stage, it's quite useless to me, as I have no need for it in my daily life.

[linguaholic]

Thank you Aurelia for all your efforts! Highly appreciate it!

[Melee]

I feel motivated and inspired to study as many languages as I can, it's just that I feel I have very stringent time constraints.  I think I mentioned here on this forum that I have a couple, or at least one Latin language book in my home library, so I'm interested in Latin as a language.  Hopefully I will be able to make time to not only start learning this language, but to follow-through.

[JessiFox]

I didn't realize there was a Latin section on here!! That's awesome . I was so excited to learn Latin in high school, only to be extremely disappointed when it turned out to be more of a history lesson with a teacher who I'm convinced didn't even know the language himself. We learned a few words and phrases, tons of dates and historical events and the occasional confusing lesson in verb conjugation and such that just left everyone entirely lost.

I'm eager to actually learn Latin.

[AureliaeLacrimae]

We'd be delighted to have you! I hope you will enjoy our Latin section. It is still improving, so there are only a few lessons there, but I am trying to make them as comprehensible as possible (and interesting) and Linguaholic has been providing us with amazing lists of verbs and such.

I'd like to answer any questions you may have.

[sillylucy]

I learned a little bit of Latin in high school and it really helped me out with the SATs. I think everyone should learn some Latin and Greek so that it is easier to understand larger words.

[Rosyrain]

This would be a very interesting language to learn because of the fact that it has so much history. I am not sure how practical it would be though. I am trying hard to learn Spanish, so maybe once I master that I will take on a little latin. I am not sure where all latin is spoken so if anyone knows, please enlighten me. I would need to know how useful the language would be before I learned it.

[AureliaeLacrimae]

Well, to be honest, Latin is only spoken in Vatican (that's as much as I know). However, most of the prestigious diplomas are written in Latin, a lot of scientific research still is reviewed in Latin, there are a lot of texts which haven't been yet translated and such.

There are some attempts to bring it back to life, but I don't really think that they're succeeding. After all, Latin hasn't been spoken in centuries, which is a shame really, but not something that can be easily changed.

To answer your question, you wouldn't be able to speak Latin. Your work would mainly be on the texts and grammar, but it will provide you with the knowledge useful in studying many other languages, Spanish included.

[ganguly.joya]

Latin is a glorious language. Like many "ancient" languages, latin is no longer taught in schools. This I believe is heretical to fully understanding any Roman language whether it is English, French, Spanish, Italian etc, etc. Improvements in latin pronunciations can help novices overcome their shyness in speaking words that sound "ancient" but are actually quite modern indeed!!

[AureliaeLacrimae]

Actually, some schools do teach Latin still. It's "dying out", but it's still struggling:

Each grammar school has to have at least two years of obligatory Latin in Bosnia (some even have obligatory Ancient Greek, I did) and medical schools do have it as well. Now, at the university, if you study a Romance language, you have one year of obligatory "Elementary Latin" as they call it, but you can also study Latin itself.

[petesede]

Wow, great addition to the site.

As a medical student, I was ´forced´ to take latin in undergrad and I actually enjoyed it.  Maybe it had to do with their strict culture and rules, but the language is actually very very structured and you don´t have to deal with a lot of exceptions to the rules like other languages have. The verb conjugations can seem daunting, but in actuality they are easier because the rules always apply.

That said, there is a very funny scene from a monty python movie ´The life of Brian´..  basically the time was around the time of Jesus and the main character is part of the ´resistance´ to the Roman occupation.  In the middle of the night, he decides to write graffiti on the wall, telling the romans ´Go Home´.. but in the process, he is caught by a roman guard... who instead of arresting him, gives him a lesson in Latin and corrects his grammar.

[PriscillaKing]

Nice to see a Latin forum here. It's still a valuable language--I studied enough of it to write a bit of science fiction about a world where it's used as a trade language, the way some people in Europe keep trying to revive.

(By way of introduction...I'm an amateur linguist; speak only two languages but have studied the grammar and vocabulary of several.)

[sillylucy]

I have always wanted to learn Latin!  :grin: My best friend studied Latin in high school and he writes some really cool things in Latin all the time on his online profiles. Some people think it is nerdy, but I think it is cool!

[lushlala]

Latin is one of those languages that seem very daunting to learn. I do also wonder about the practicality of learning it. I mean, where would you be able to use it, outside of the Vatican? I take it it would make it easier to learn modern day Latin oriented languages like Spanish? Just how similar are modern day foreign languages with Latin roots to ancient Latin? Thanks Aurelia

[wesfoundationdotnet]

Hello,

I don't know much about latin but I am always willing to learn. I'm also trying to get people to sign up at http://wesfoundation.net/index.php/component/comprofiler/registers It's 100% free of cost and it would help me a lot if one or two of you could tell your friends about that link.

Thank you!

[Jatelo2]

Isn't Latin the language some Roman Catholic priests conduct the mass? If yes, I want to learn it just to know what they say the whole time they utter latin... I'd love to learn latin for other reasons too

[AureliaeLacrimae]

Isn't Latin the language some Roman Catholic priests conduct the mass? If yes, I want to learn it just to know what they say the whole time they utter latin... I'd love to learn latin for other reasons too

You are correct: some Roman Catholic priests do conduct the mass in Latin, but that´s mostly in Vatican. A few centuries back, around 1900 and earlier, Latin was still the official and preferred language of the clergy. I know because my grandmother´s mother (my great grandmother - although I´d never met her) could recall a few words from "Paternoster" as she called it and "Avemaria" - for her, these were prayers learnt by heart - she didn´t understand much. Now there´s a practice of singing Latin songs from time to time. I participated in a Christmas choir, for example, with Adeste Fideles and so on.

You can also find the whole Bible in Latin. I googled it a few months back... don´t know where I found it, though. I would have to look. As to what they say exactly... I believe that too can be found, with some patience

[lushlala]

I think old languages like Latin and Hebrew are just so difficult to learn and I have nothing but respect for people who take them on! I'm not entirely sure of their demand in modern times though. I mean outside of a church setting, where else could you put these languages to use? I'm just curious

[kurdapia]

Is learning the language for mere appreciation only or are there other uses to it if you are not going to live in Rome? I think it is a very interesting new language to learn but let us admit it not everyone here finds it easy to learn a second language.

[JasleenKaur]

I am very glad to found Latin teacher in this forum. Latin is one of the most ancient language in history. I'm pretty sure there are many people out there who are more than willing to learn this ancient italic language specially those who are history fanatic, including myself.

[linguaholic]

Hi JasleenKaur

Welcome to linguaholic.com! I hope you have a great time here!

regards

Lingua

[Chris_A]

I will be checking out the Latin section for sure. I have been taught Latin for at least 4-5 years in High School, but I was never able to master it. I think I can translate some common stuff, but I have still a lot to learn.

[kurdapia]

I only hear about the Latin language being used in church mostly on the songs and that depends on the liturgical calendar of the Catholics. I am curious to know if Latin is still being used on a day to day conversation.