The Exile of Aeneas (Book Review)

The Aeneid is the epic from antiquity that most people are the least familiar with. The Exile of Aeneas is a step toward fixing that. Instead of a translation or adaption for children, Ed DeHoratius presents the story as a series of choices for the reader. Since the story is not as familiar to students and Aeneas is an all too-human hero, students will have a chance to see the story unfold for themselves as they are faced with the no-win choices Aeneas had to make. For students who are more familiar with the story, the choices available to Aeneas are made more immediate in this style of storytelling.

Bottom line: Making the Aeneid fun.

End of the year

We're grinding in on the end of the school year. From my own experience as a student, I know it is far too easy to slack off at this time of year. And from the the teaching end, everything seems to get more and more hectic. Between those two, you might be ready to let the Latin slide. Which is completely understandable.

But I've got bad news. Latin, or any foreign language for that matter, is not a skill that does well with neglect. Don't take my word for it. Check out what the Augustine Club at Columbia University has to say. They've got some other interesting web resources, but this is particularly pertinent for us.

So if the end of the year is overwhelming to you, I'm there with you. But while you are struggling, don't forget to spend some time every day with Latin (or whatever foreign language you're studying). It doesn't have to be an onerous task that makes you want to give up all hope. Just scale back your expectations for the time being. Keep at it, even if it feels like you're not making progress—your persistence will meet with success. You can master Latin. And always remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.

If you need any specific help or encouragement, drop me a line at pete at pluteopleno dot com.

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Slowing down to master it all

I've been busy trying to break through writer's block on another project, so I've been quiet. No more.

I was working with a student this week and noticed that in certain situations he was making errors. One of the things I like to do with students is to label sentences so the structure of the language is obvious. (I'm partial to something that looks like a modified Shurley grammar but whatever you use, stick with it.) The idea is to do this so much that it becomes second nature to the students.

However. Students left to their own devices like to hurry through work. I don't know why, but I was (and occasionally still can be) certainly guilty of this habit. As a result, students make sloppy errors that mislead. They can answer questions about the reading perfectly well. They can draw pictures about the story. Or answer questions (correctly) about the grammar. But there it is, the Accusative object of a preposition labeled as a direct object.

The problem for us is to tease out which is an error from going too fast and which is an error in understanding. This is not easy, unless we take time to go over errors with students, and time is certainly a precious commodity. What is better is to encourage students to slow down. Yes, that means their studies will take longer, but over time they will master the material and need less time.

So try to convey this message: Go slow, take time now and build good Latin skills OR whip through and need to unlearn bad habits to learn the correct skills.

My coop just cancelled its weekly meeting

And, in fact, mine did.

You know it's going to happen if it hasn't happened already. Something—snow, construction or something else—crops up and cancels the weekly meeting of your Latin group.

So what to do?

If your student is struggling, this is a good time to go back and review difficult concepts. If your student isn't struggling, this is a good time to go back and review difficult concepts. No matter how well or poorly you are doing in Latin, review is always good. Firming up paradigms (also known as noun and verb charts) is always good for students in grammar driven curricula. Spending time with the readings is great for students in reading driven curricula. In other words, you're going to gear your activity to the curriculum—which, if you've gotten lucky or chosen well, matches your student's learning style.

The key is to spend some time every day. Language is a use it or lose it sort of skill. So for learners of all stripes, daily practice is better than taking the week off. Even spending ten minutes each day is better than lumping in a one-day, hour-long catch up session before heading back to the coop. I can't emphasize enough that daily exposure is superior to anything else. Even if you go back to the beginning of the book and review there, you're ok. It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you're doing something instead of knocking off for the week.

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Learning endings

There's just no good substitute for context and multiple exposure, but those pesky endings have to be learned one way or another. Memorizing short readings isn't the worst place to start, because you're memorizing more than the words: your memorizing patterns in endings and how words come together to form sentences.

But even so, a bit of rote memorization can help students. It allows them to show mastery of a set of knowledge, and I can't think of a student who doesn't enjoy the feeling of secure knowledge on test day.

What not to do. It is probably not best to learn them the way I did in high school: as bare endings. We would chant "a, ae, ae, am, a, ae, arum, is, as, is". I clearly remember that. Or "O, S, T, M-U-S, T-I-S, N-T" as if it were a high-school cheer. The teacher was a fun woman and made it pretty painless, but she forgot to tell us that endings never occur on their own.

Here's something better. You should always practice endings with their word, at the very least. So instead of the first chant above, you can recite "ala, alae, alae, alam, ala, alae, alarum, alis, alas, alis" so you can learn two things at once: first declension endings and the word for wing. While this isn't the best way at to learn Latin, it does work. A 20-minute walk to school each day gave me plenty of opportunity to recite words to myself this way. There is a reason I know my case endings cold and always have.

Better yet. This is no doubt the trickiest. You'll have to find or make up sentences that feature the word in context. "Ala est pulchra. Alae forma habet aedificium. Alae pennas dedit Deus. Alam habet aedificium. In ala sunt pennae…" See how I've given each form of ala its own context? What's useful here is that students also learn how the cases work, which is a whole 'nuther problem. What's tricky is that you've got to work much harder to come up with these sentences. (You could also arrange these so that they drill one particular case instead of the one declension shown here.)

No matter how you do it, take time for it every day. Latin is a lot like math in that it needs a bit of daily attention rather than a heap of infrequent attention.

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Flash Cards: How to use them

After last week's foray into making flash cards, the time has come to learn how to use them.

First a confession, I really believe in learning vocabulary in context. Nothing can compete with reading in Latin for learning vocabulary and endings. However, as a supplement, flash cards are a very flexible tool.

The problem is this: students need to learn vocabulary and endings. Here's your opportunity: Dead time.

All the time you spend doing nothing: Waiting in line. Those minutes between class. When you're in bed but can't sleep—this works whether sleep or vocabulary learning is the goal. Riding in the car on a long trip—probably best that the driver not use flash cards, unless you tape 'em to the steering wheel like I do. No, I'm joking about that last part, but I'm serious about adding in time here and there with flash cards. This is part of the reason you should make them small. If they're big, they're hard to carry for use on a moment's notice.

You don't want to carry a huge pile of them, so bring a few with you everywhere. My wallet has its fair share of vocabulary cards in it. Remember to change them up on occasion, and you're set to go.

You can also make flash cards part of your learning routine by adding on a few minutes of work before or after class/homework time. The when and where isn't half so important as the repetition and frequent use.

Be sure to say hello to me if you see me working with my flash cards.

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Flash Cards: How to make them

I've been tackling a new language, and the bugaboo of all language students has reared its head: learning vocabulary. Latin is no exception. Even a Latin teacher like myself runs across unknown words.

Flash cards are an excellent solution for learning vocabulary and endings. Their biggest problem to my mind is that they rob the learning process of context. This is why I struggled throughout college to remember the difference between pairs like tamen/tandem and nempe/nuper. All flash card, no context.

So. How to make flash cards? And I do mean make by hand. I don't see the educational value of buying vocabulary cards, though they are awfully convenient. Some things, by which I mean nouns, will readily lend themselves to a card with a picture on one side and the Latin word on the other. Other things, that would be adjectives and verbs, may not be so easy to draw. Some things are impossible to draw. How do you draw an "and"?

Why do I mention drawings on flash cards? So that students can bypass English when learning vocabulary. It will help solidify the concept of the word in the target language—in our case, Latin.

But you don't have to limit yourself to vocabulary! You can also make cards to help you learn the fleet of endings that Latin throws at students.

Here is a sample set of cards.



Keep in mind, this is one possibility. You could mark noun on the card with the mouse to mean "mūs, mūris" and verb on another card to mean "rodere" (to gnaw). You could put the whole declension of a noun on back to help drill a whole set of endings at once. The limit is the space between your imagination and your learning goals, and you can't buy flash cards that are tailored exactly to your goals.

Next up: how to use flash cards.

A Sallust Reader (Book Review)

Have you ever had a book show up two weeks after you needed it? Last semester I taught Cicero's First Catilinarian (and had a fabulous backup teacher too). But I wish I had more about Catiline. Enter A Sallust Reader two weeks too late.

The introduction helps get students acquainted with an author who isn't as read as he could be. Background on Sallust's life, his works and his style of writing are well worth the read for Latin and history students alike.

For Latin students, Sallust's Bellum Catalinae represents an interesting bit of reading. Sallust lived through the events he described and was quite possibly in Rome at the time. This is as close to a third-party primary source as it gets in antiquity. And what a ride! Pagán's selections for the Catilinarian section of the book are wonderful. They get right to the heart of why Catiline was an awful guy and tell the story briskly. Her notes are full enough for less advanced students, but include enough information to make them interesting for even those students who read fluently. My only gripe is that they are segregated in the back of the book.

What's more, is that this book isn't just for advanced Latin students. Motivated history students who are dealing with this bit of Roman history or the Jugurthine war will find plenty of red meat in this book, above and beyond their trusty Penguin translation.

I'd rate this book as a must add for anyone teaching Cicero's First Catilinarian.

Sneak Preview

I'm working on a grammar reference for Latin students. Be certain it will have many standard features like noun and verb endings. What I really want to show you is a sneak preview of a feature that most grammar references don't have: an explanation of dictionary entries. I've added this because a Latin dictionary can be intimidating to beginning students, and a quick review never hurt any of us veterans. Without further ado, a sneak preview.

Nouns:



Adjectives:



Verbs:



Click images to englarge.

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Telling apart Dative and Ablative plural, part 4

Here it is: the quiz. Can you tell them apart in context? Let's see. Review here, here and here if you need it.

Viris togatis, negotia aguntur.

1. Viris togatis: dative or ablative?

Quibus hi viri tempus suum dant?

2 Quibus: dative or ablative? (extra point: answer the question)

Pretium negotiis est carum.

3. Negotiis: dative or ablative?

Hi viri vias et theatra negotiis suis faciunt.

4. Negotiis suis: dative or ablative?

Cur theatra ab viris fient?

5. Viris: dative or ablative?

Ut alii cives spectaculis frui possint.

6. Spectaculis: dative or ablative?

Highlight from here to 1. Ablative 2. Dative (extra point: negotiis) 2. Dative 4. Ablative 5. Ablative 6. Ablative See how much more common ablative uses are? here for the answers.

If you found this helpful, stop by the Facebook page or the store to see what other items I've got to help make Latin more fun and more doable.



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Telling apart Dative and Ablative plural, part 3

I got long winded last time. This should be shorter. The reason is that Ablative case is much more common than Dative case. In fact, it will show up about six times for every use of the Dative. It is almost safe to guess that an ambiguous form is Ablative unless it meets one of the conditions outlined in the previous entry. That said, I will help clarify situations where you are most certainly seeing the Ablative case. There will of course be other uses of the Ablative, but always let context be your guide in sorting Dative from Ablative. On to the obvious culprits.

1. Prepositions

Let's get this out of the way first. It's easy and a dead give away.

Karthago a Romanis deleta est.

The sentence, save “a Romanis” means “Carthage was destroyed.” The preposition “a” is a dead giveaway for what's coming next. Even the most beginning student of Latin should be thinking that an Ablative object will be coming after the preposition. “By the Romans.” There's our answer.

2. PUFFV verbs

The name sounds funny, but the verbs in this group take an Ablative compliment—fancy talk for it's-a-direct-object-in-English-but-not-Latin. These verbs are: potior, utor, fruor, fungor and vescor. Most beginning students won't see these, but they're common enough to merit high placement.

Romani provinciis potiebantur.

Again, pretty straightforward. “The Romans were taking possession…” But of what? The question screams out at us. Once we see the verb “potiebantur,” we are tipped off that the ambiguous form of “provinciis” is indeed Ablative. So we have “The Romans were taking possession of the provinces.”

3. Ablative Absolute

Everybody's favorite use of the Ablative. What? You don't have one? Oh. I thought everyone did. What makes this so easy to recognize is that it is usually a noun plus a participle in the Ablative case. There are a few other uses that don't include a participle that are easy to recgonize—“duce” and “consule” come to mind. Which leads to our example:

Cicerone et Hybrida consulibus, Catalina respublicam Romanam capere voluit.

Ok, so the “Cicerone et Hybrida” followed by “consulibus” is huge help in telling what's going on here. We have one unambiguously Ablative name joined to another not-so-unambiguously Ablative name followed by an ambiguous Dative/Ablative. The “et” sets the two consuls on equal footing case-wise and the “consulibus” must thus agree with that. So that part might translate, “When Cicero and Hybrida were consuls…” Let's try another.

Conuriationibus ruptis, Catalina ex urbe fugere temptavit.

Here the form is more ambiguous, but the noun/participle pairing should clue us in that we have an Ablative absolute on our hands. “With the conspiracies broken, Cataline tried to flee from the city.”

4. Comparatives

This is the last major tip off that you've got Ablative rather than Dative.

Maior natu fratribus sum.

This is actually pretty easy. As soon as you see the comparative form of “maior” you need to immediately start looking for either “quam” + another nominative or an Ablative noun to show what is “minor.” So, “Maior natu sum,” is pretty easy to deal with. “I am older by birth.” Again, notice that we want to know the answer to “older than whom?” So often the way we think pulls us along to find obvious answers. In this case—pun intended—“fratribus” is the only word that's an obvious answer, but it also falls into the correct case to be grammatically correct. “I am older (by birth) than my brothers.”

Next week: a short quiz to see how well you get it.

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Telling apart Dative and Ablative plural, part 2

In the last entry, we talked about how the neuter can be tricky to distinguish between its Nominative and Accusative forms. I brought this up because it is an easier entry point into distinguishing cases. In this post, which is nearly book length, I'll tell you some of the things that should tip you off to the Dative case.

1. Indirect object

Several verbs tip off this use of the Dative case. Dare, mittere, and habere are a few. Let's try an example.

Flumen urbibus aquam dabat

Let's ditch urbibus from the sentence for now, because it has a tricky signal: it could be Dative or Ablative. As you're working, you need to keep both possibilities in mind. Otherwise, it's pretty easily classified as a straight up garden-variety sentence. First subject (flumen), then direct object (aquam) and the verb last (dabat). The river was giving water. Ok. Now back to urbibus. As soon as we get to the verb, it makes us ask "To whom is the river giving water?" You immediately want an indirect object, so the choice between Dative and Ablative should be pretty clear cut. So, the sentence translates as "The river gives the cities water."

2. Compound verbs

These should tip you off right away. The reason is that when a verb compounds, there is no longer any need for the preposition which is now part of the verb. The object of the preposition can't hang out as it is, so it moves to dative. Let's look at a phrasal verb in English to see how we don't repeat prepositions either.

We moved out of the house yesterday.

It is as if out is doing double duty as part of the verb and as a preposition. You would never say

We moved out yesterday out of the house.

See how the preposition out is repeated in the second sentence? It sounds gross. Well, the same thing is typical for Latin. Here's an example.

Cicero senatoribus decessit.

Again, we'll strip the sentence of senatoribus while we deal with the rest. Nothing fancy. It means "Cicero left." Again, it makes us ask, "What did Cicero leave?" But first a detour into the verb. Decessit has two parts. The first is the preposition de (meaning down from), and the second is the verb form of cessit (meaning he left). Put the two together and you get your compound verb. Now, I could have just as easily have said

Cicero de senatoribus decessit.

Here it is pretty obvious senatoribus is Ablative. But now I've got de repeated in the sentence, and I don't really need that. So, here's what I can do: I ditch the preposition in favor of the compound verb. Since I still need to have the senators in a case, I use Dative to indicate that it belongs to the de in the compound verb. Ecce! That's our answer. Senatoribus is Dative, because it compliments the de in our compound verb. The sentence means "Cicero left the senators."

Bottom line: be on the look out for Dative when you see a compound verb.

3. Intransitive verbs

Yet another tip off. There is a fleet of verbs that when translated in to English seem to have their direct object in the Dative. So let's call it a Dative "direct object." Nocere, dolere, and parcere all come to mind. Let's see it in action.

Iudex latronibus non parsit.

Again, let's dispose with the ambiguous latronibus for now. The rest of the sentence is very simple. Iudex is our subject. Non negates the verb. And parsit is our verb from parco, parcere, parsi, parsus. So we get "The judge did not spare." Again, whom did he not spare? In English we expect a direct object, but in this case Latin doesn't allow for that. Why? It doesn't. Our verb is intransitive, so no direct object in the Accusative case. Just a Dative "direct object."

In this case, its "direct object" is Dative. Again, we have our answer. Latronibus is Dative. The sentence means "The judge did not spare the theives."

How will you know which verbs want a Dative "direct object"? Any dictionary should tell you this information, though the glossary at the back of your textbook may not. You may have to memorize these.

4. A linking verb

Whenever you see a linking verb, particularly if there is a gerundive hanging out, get on the lookout for Dative case. These uses of Dative are called Dative of Possession and Dative of Agent. Here are examples:

Militibus sunt castra.

Ok, this is very easy. Again we'll skip over militibus for now. We don't have enough context yet. Sunt castra is easy: There is a camp. I see the linking verb. I see the ambiguous militibus. Is it Dative or Ablative? In situations like this, pick Dative. The sentence translates as "There is a camp to the soldiers." But that sounds really bad, so we turn it around to "The soldiers have a camp." It's more idiomatic in English that way. Dative of Possession is an idiomatic feature of Latin.

Karthago Romanis delenda est.

The gerundive delenda doesn't change things up much. The linking verb est still tells us to choose Dative over Ablative. The sentence still translates the same way: "Carthage is to be destroyed for the Romans." However this sounds very clunky in English and doesn't capture the necessity of destroying Carthage. So let's deal with the gerundive first. "Carthage must be destroyed for the Romans." Again, we've got that non-idiomatic "for the Romans" going on. To smooth things out in English we might say "Carthage must be destroyed by the Romans." or "The Romans must destroy Carthage." The Dative of Agent is highly idiomatic in Latin, so any translation will necessarily vary from it.

Bottom line: Esse in all of its forms—and there are too many—is a trigger for Dative.

5. Special adjectives

Some adjectives complete their meanings with Dative case. I'll use similis as my example.

Acres, similes quercibus, folia autumno amittunt.

I've set similes quercibus off with commas, because I want to focus on that. The rest of the sentence means "Maples lose their leaves in fall." Similes means "like." And I don't mean like like. I mean similar. So now the sentence means "Maples, like, lose their leaves in fall." But that hardly seems complete. The word similis wants a Dative noun to tell you what its antecedent is like. So quercibus must be Dative since it is hanging out so close to similes. Finally we have it. "Maples, like oaks, lose their leaves in fall."

Conclusion

So often context will lead you to the right resolution in the Dative/Ablative confusion. We've seen five ways that context leads us to the right answer. In several cases, particularly 1, 3 and 5, the sentence sounds incomplete without the information the Dative case supplies. In 2 we saw how compound verbs have the preposition and force the former object of preposition into the Dative case. In 4 we saw the very idiomatic Dative of Possession and Dative of Agent.

Next time: signals for the Ablative.

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Telling apart Dative and Ablative plural

This is going to be the first of three or four entries about how to tell apart the Dative and Ablative plural. I remember struggling with this discrimination as a beginning student. We're going to get there with a detour through the neuter rule.

First some practical info. Here are the forms:

Decl. Dat. Abl.
1 -is -is
2 -is -is
3 -ibus -ibus
4 -ibus -ibus
5 -ebus -ebus

Even the most cursory glance should tell you that they are the same. In fact, some textbooks even consider them to be the same thing in the plural. Run off and check that old edition of Pharr's Aeneid you've got kicking around. (Yes, I'm joking, I don't expect that you actually own that.)

The reason you want to be able to know the difference is that Dative and Ablative have very different uses and translations.

Now, before I get into a detailed discussion, I want to point out the Neuter Rule which we have all come to know and love. Nominative and Accusative share forms for all neuter forms, yet we manage to work with that. Look at the example:

Flumen per oppidum fluit.

This is pretty easy. Flumen could be a subject or direct object, and for the time being we don't have any other signals to help us out. The "per" signals in a big way: there's an object of a preposition coming, and it will be in the Accusative case. Which of course we see in oppidum. Finally we come to fluit which is looking for a singular subject and no direct object. Flumen must be the subject. So we get "the river runs through the town."

Getting more advanced, but not much:

Puella oppidum videt.

Puella is clearly the subject (let's ignore the possibility of Ablative). Then comes oppidum. Now, it is clearly not a subject. If it were, there would be a conjunction putting it on equal footing with puella, but there isn't. It must be the direct object. Here comes the trick:

Animal flumen transit. or even Flumen animal transit.

Both sentences mean the same thing. In both cases animal has a form that allows it to be either the subject or direct object. Same for flumen. Transit wants a singular object, and both nouns can fill that role. So how can we tell if it is "the animal crosses the river" or "the river crosses the animal"? Grammatically, Latin doesn't make that discrimination for us, so that's a dead end. Context to the rescue. Only one possibility makes sense, so that's what we go for. The animal crosses the river.

Next time: http://magisterpetrus.blogspot.com/2010/01/telling-apart-dative-and-ablative_27.html">Signals for Dative plural.


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National Latin Exam

Deadlines for the National Latin Exam are drawing close.

16 January is the deadline for mailing in your application form. 26 January is the last day to apply with the late fee.

Why the fuss? Students who score well on the Latin III or higher exams are sent an application for a $1,000 scholarship, which is potentially renewable. In 2006 there were 26 of these. Of course there are strings attached, but who doesn't want to take a year of Greek or Latin in college?

The tests are administered during the week of 8–12 March. For Chicago area hoemschool students, I can administer the test for free if you come to me. Please drop me a line at pete at pluteopleno dot com to arrange the details.

If you are looking for help, let me know what you are looking for. Rates for one-on-one tutoring (via phone or e-mail) are at an introductory price of $25/hour through the Ides of March. Send me an e-mail at pete at pluteopleno dot com with your phone number and we can discuss your needs.