Pronunciation of is, ea, id

If you were wondering how to pronounce this monster…

This is taken from my Via Latina project. I'll be releasing the first book of that in the spring of 2013—the website lies about spring of 2012.

A taste of Cicero

Here's another bit of unadapted Latin. The notes are aimed directly at intermediate students of Latin. It is meant to get you reading the real stuff for the first time. The pages shown are Cicero's de senectute chapters 6 through 9. They're short like Bible chapters.

To set the scene, Laelius and Scipio are talking to Cato the Elder about old age. Most of the dialog is Cato telling the younger men about old age, but it is set as a dialogue. For American readers, de senectute was the first classical text printed in translation in the American colonies. The printer was none other than Ben Franklin. Or at least that's what Wikipedia says.

Cicero has a bad rap for being hard, but de senectute doesn't feel all that hard to me. Maybe it is that it is meant to be a bit more conversational in nature than his oratory. Give your hand a try.

de senectute 6 and 9

Deponent verbs, part 2

Last time we talked about how to recognize deponent verbs in the dictionary. This is not very useful if you're actually reading something.

And for the most part, they aren't hard to tell in reading. Let's look at two easy sentences.

Iohannes canem timet.John fears the dog. 

This one is easy. First is the subject, then the object, then the verb. Nothing unusual. If you want, you can get rid of Iohannes and let the -t on the verb carry the subject. That's fine. Nothing strange. Let's make the sentence passive.

Canis (ab Iohanne) timetur.The dog is feared (by John).

Two things are different here. First, the direct object is gone. Second is that we've got the -tur ending that signals passive. A slightly less ordinary sentence—passive sentences are a little out of the ordinary—but nothing impossible. Certainly within the rules we've all learned.

But then comes this.

Iohannes canem veretur.John fears the dog.

It's got the -tur of the passive AND a direct object. If you're reading the words in the order they come, you should be fine. The direct object announces itself with the accusative case: canem. If you've been paying attention, this should tell you that a transitive verb is coming. When you get to the weird veretur you may need a second to remember about deponent verbs, but you'll be fine. Direct object in accusative = transitive verb. The verb's ending is odd, but everything else says transitive active, so this must be. And you're right. You've got no choice. You are led to accepting the active nature of the deponent this way. 

The problem is when you find the subject—easy since it's usually first—followed by a verb hunt. Which isn't hard to find. It's there at the end. Veretur. See the -tur? Must be passive. So far so good. The problem is when you then go back to pick up the rest of the words. You've got your subject (Iohannes) and your verb (veretur), but now you've got what seems to be a direct object (canem). Except that passive verbs don't have direct objects. What is going on? 

What's going on is that you should be reading in the order the words come. The sentence prepares you to have an active verb. A quick spark of memory, and you remember that deponents exist and that this must be one of them. The other way—the verb hunt—leaves you with an unwanted direct object. Unless you remember that deponent verbs exist. Which requires that you remember that deponent verbs look passive and mean active. And that you remember that veretur is one of these deponent verbs. And now you've got to track down the direct object again because you've lost track of it in the scrum happening in your memory. (By the way, this is one of the reasons you should get used to reading Latin in the order it was written. It's a language, not a scavenger hunt.)

Next up: PUFFV verbs screw all of this up.

Gesta Romanorum

If you've ever wondered about a good place to wander into unadapted Latin, here it is. The Gesta Romanorum are a collection of moral tales from the 12th Century. I've dressed this one up a little bit. If you've studied Latin to the point that you know what a subjunctive is, you should be able to handle this.

For those of you who don't know what a subjunctive is, this is what is waiting for you. It's huge fun. This is a document I prepared for my students in kind of a one-off situation.

Gesta Romanorum 129 – De amicitiae verae probatione

Deponent verbs, part 1

For those of you in the beginning of your study, you're in for a treat when you get to these.

Latin has a fleet of verbs that look passive but have active meanings. The usual order of presentation is passive voice well before deponent verbs. This is a shame since deponent verbs are some of the most common verbs in Latin.

The first give away is going to be in the dictionary entry. A typical transitive verb will look something like this:

faciō, facere, fēcī, factum, to make or do
putō, putāre, putāvī, putātum, to think

More or less. Deponent verbs are going to have an entry that looks more like this:

arbitror, arbitrārī, arbitrātus sum, to think
proficīscor, proficīscī, profectus sum, to set out

A few differences should come screaming out. First, the plain ol' vanilla transitive verbs have four principal parts. Four. The deponents have three. The part corresponding with fēcī is missing from the deponent entries—after all, the Latin passive system doesn't use it.

Another difference should come in the last part. The deponents have an odd final part. Profectus sum. See how it indicates the 1st person singular perfect tense? Very unusual until you get used to is.

The other thing to notice is the first principal part. Compare faciō and arbitror. Do you see it? Yeah, arbitror doesn't end with -ō. It's got an -or there. This is going to be your big tip off in the dictionary.

The problem, of course, is that Latin words only rarely hang out in dictionaries. Net up: recognizing deponents in reading.

Free book offer stil good

Well, it's still not perfectly free.

Here's the story. I've got this book I published, Abecedarium Latinum. It's an ABC book for the youngest Latin students. Now, naturally I'd like for you to buy it. Preferably lots of copies so I can go on vacation with my family in Bora Bora—or somewhere else equally ridiculous. No actually, the money would go to more mundane stuff like groceries. I digress.

I've got 8 copies. One of them is free for you if you meet two of the four the following criteria:
   • Teach Latin to young kids (or have done so)
   • Homeschool
   • Have an active blog that gets more than 300 hits per month
   • Will write a review of the book (and link to the Amazon page)

If this is you, and you want a free book—drop me an e-mail. Or, if you want, check out the free eBook version I keep at my website. 

Beginning Latin Study, part 3

So you've read up on part-to-whole and whole-to-part and need more help? Great. Here goes.

Another consideration when figuring out how to start studying Latin (or setting students down that path) is your age. And it is what it is—until tomorrow. I'm not going to suggest anything scientific here. Rather I'll be talking in broad terms that leave plenty of room for overlap.

Pre-schoolers
There are not very many Latin resources for students this age. Some, but not many. Unless you've got a decent command of spoken Latin, I'd not even bother.

Early grades
Again, not much here, but there is getting to be more. As students become better readers, the availability improves a lot. Latin for Children from Classical Academic Press is a good example of a part-to-whole curriculum aimed at 3rd to 6th graders. Minimus from Cambridge Press is an example of whole-to-part for younger students. Shameless plug: I'm closing in on finishing a book for students in this age group that is whole-to-part, and it's working well for the school I work for.

Middle grades
Students in middle school are in a tough place. Some are ready for a more academic approach to their studies. In that case, skip to the next session. If not, consider searching out stuff that isn't so academic.

The strategy I've seen here seems to be speed up materials for younger students or slow down materials for older students. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. If this is you as a student, you're stuck. You probably don't have a whole lot of your own money for Artes Latinae, but at the same time Wheelock's Latin looks like a bit more to handle than you'd like. I feel for you. Stay curious and don't get turned off.

High-school
This is really where the bulk of material is. Ecce Romani, Cambridge Latin, Latin for the New Millennium. These are just the first three that come to mind. It's almost embarrassing how much is available. The bad news is that a lot of it is expensive, because schools are the intended customers. In other words, they aren't spending their own money. Who cares how much it costs?

College
You're at the mercy of your prof. Here's hoping she's picked something good.

Independent adult learners
Lucky you. No teacher to tell you what you have to use. If you're not too proud, you can pick whatever you want. Why not Minimus? It starts easy and uses lots of pictures. It won't get you far, but it will give you a taste and won't tax your brain after work. If you prefer something a bit more adult, Peter Jones has written a book: Learn Latin. He's got a dry wit.

Alternately, you can go in for what passes as mass-market books to learn Latin. Teach Yourself has a pretty decent entry into the category (actually two, but I don't know what the difference is). Wheelock's Latin is an old standby. Or you can go off the edge and go full immersion with Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. 

Conclusion
This is a great time to start studying Latin. There has never been more material of good quality for all ages available. Ever. 

Moving into advanced Latin

One of the frustrations anyone who studies Latin is the lack of cheap editions of the good stuff. Especially if you want notes. Cicero's First Catilinarian Oration, a traditional first encounter with unadapted Latin, costs $35 (as of this writing). This book is good—I've used it in past classes—but $35? That seems high.

It is downright cheap by comparison to what I have just had to do. My advanced students are reading Thomas More's Utopia. There are no student editions available. None. Well, there is one, but it's not really for students and costs $69. I can't pick that book in good conscience, so I made my own.

For your Free enjoyment, here is Utopia. 

Vtopiae versio bilinguis et latine et anglice edita

What Latin Isn't

In a recent discussion about teaching Latin, someone made the comment, "The sooner students get past seeing Latin as encoded English, the better they will do." (I forget who said it, but it's a great comment and I want to give credit where it is due. Anyway.)

No matter what method you're using, this will be a road block: how do I get students to see that Latin is a language and not merely English in a tricky code.

Beginning Latin Study, part 2

Hopefully you're reading this after having figured out why you want to study Latin. If not, go read this.

In some ways, your why answer will answer the next question. In other ways, it won't. Here's the question:

How do I learn?

This seems trivial, but it isn't. I've got two answers in mind, and they work from completely opposite directions.

Whole-to-part
This is my preferred method. Essentially, you're going to get Latin from the very beginning. In this method, you get explanations as they are needed. Or, even better, you figure out the explanations as you go. You start out in the dark and slowly feel your way around until you've found the light switch. So to speak.

Any textbook that generally comes from this direction will have plenty of connected reading from the very beginning. Another big tip off is seeing the reading first in any bit of the book. Or, in more extreme cases, total immersion in Latin.

Part-to-whole
I'll be honest, this one isn't for me, but I've got great news about this general tactic: most materials approach Latin from this direction. The general tactic here is to teach you a paradigm—one word showing all possible forms for any given feature, say, tense—and drill it home until you know it exactly. Only then do you get to read any Latin.


This method is more like plotting a route on a mapping website. You set your beginning point and end point. The computer, the textbook in this analogy, sets out a course. You study the route turn by turn until you have memorized it. Then you go and drive the route.


A big tip off here is that there are no readings until the end of a chapter. They are generally not even connected sentences. 

Is it really so polar?
Of course not. I present these two tactics as two ends of a continuum. Each set of learning materials is somewhere between these two poles. The old Jenny's Latin that I learned from was mostly part-to-whole, though the readings at the end of each chapter would slip in a few forms that belonged to the next chapter. Cambridge Latin, which is very much whole-to-part, has paradigms included in its lessons. It's virtually impossible to find a book that is only one or the other.

So your work this time is this: which direction do I generally favor?