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.

Reading out loud

Here is me reciting Catullus 101.

Do you see what I did? Yes, I read it out loud.

This is really key to making progress with Latin. Or any other language really, but especially with Latin since you won't be hearing much of it.

So here's a New Year's resolution for the silent Latin readers: read out loud. It will help.

Final M!

To nasalize, or not to nasalize. That is the question.

Without a doubt, nearly no one today nasalizes the final m these days. That doesn't mean you shouldn't know about it. I've got two reasons.

1. If you know about nasalized m, certain aspects of poetry become easier to deal with. Particularly the dreaded elision of final m. But that's for advanced students. My other reason applies to everyone.

2. If you can make the sounds of nasalized m, you can quickly see why there is no -om at the end of words. This could help beginning students work through some of the pops and ticks of the second declension. The declension where o reigns supreme, until you get to the Accusative singular.

Not convinced of the value of this?

Try the experiment for the day. Say "cum" with a good French accent. Make that -um come out your nose! Now, go back and say the antiquated form of it: quom. Again, get a good French accent going on the -om. Now, obviously the initial consonant is different. The vowel sound, if you're doing it the right way, should be very similar.

Of course, you don't have to believe me about this nasalization thing. Check out what other folks have to say here and here (because quoting Cicero is pretty much an argument ender).

This work by Peter Sipes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.