learn Latin

Hello Mírian!

Hope your finals and holidays went well.

The Latin lessons we were using seem to be down, and have been for a few weeks, but I’m going to poke around on the internet and see what else I can find.

I haven’t forgotten about this, I’m just not that disciplined. I will try to do a lesson once a week, but we’ll see. I have noticed that even with the few lessons I’ve had I’m noticing the meanings of words more; the ones in English that have Latin connections that I know are becoming richer as I realize the different strands that have gone into them.

I don’t know if that makes any sense, and I can’t think off the top of my head of any particular word, but anyway I think it’s very cool.

Still need to look up pronunciation so I can practice this stuff out loud. I wonder if the cat will look at me funny and meow like she does when I practice Gaelic (she might just like Gaelic, though, for all the hairball-sounding ch’s and gh’s in it; since it sounds like how Cat is pronounced.)

I did the word search that was the “reward” for the first four lessons, and with some cross-referencing of flash cards got it all right.

Then I did the 5th lesson, and got a 91% on it, an A-. I’m rather pleased. It was about nominative and accusative forms of nouns, which I think I’m beginning to understand conceptually.

Now I have to visit a place online where I can hear it, cause I haven’t even looked at pronunciation yet. Someone I know quoted a little (he has a minor in Latin or something) and it just sounded so, well, American to me. I guess it’s because it’s no longer a living language and no one speaks it as a native tongue; so the permutations or pronunciation have been lost. It just sounded kinda flat (could be my friend, who is from New Jersey after all); I guess I was expecting a little more “spice” or “exotic flavor” or something…?

How’s it coming, Mírian?

I haven’t had a chance to do this recently, but it is on my mind. I haven’t forgotten about this!

Hi Mírian!

Well, I got through the first four lessons to the first test, which I think I did okay on. We’ll see (if he’s not too busy to answer). I’ve got to practice my flash cards for vocabulary; most of the verbs are fairly easy, since they are related even to words in English (which is not as Latin-heavy as Portuguese or any of the other Romance languages, obviously), but the “adverbials of time” are giving me trouble, like “nunc”, “ubi”, “ibi”, and “hodie” especially, which does not look remotely like any word in English!

Hello Mírian—

I went to the Latin for Self Study page and did the first two lessons. On each I got 10 of the 12 questions correct, giving an 83% or a B- average so far. (Should I keep track in a book, marked with red pen and all?)

However, I didn’t do so hot on the riddle, only getting 6 of the ten questions right, a 60%, or a D- :(

I intend to try that riddle again until I get it right.

I also made some flash cards for the vocabulary from the first two lessons that I’m going to practice with.

I’ve taken you up on the invitation, so we’re a team now!

I am starting out absolutely completely from scratch on this; I have never had a Latin lesson in my life, though I’ve been writing a lot about Roman Goddesses lately and have been encountering Latin fairly frequently. I’m going to start this up in a couple of weeks’ time, since I’m about to go away for a week and a half and still have a zillion things to do before my trip, so I’ll join you then.

I’ll check out your links below; though I would love to take a class at a local college, for now I’m going to go with the online courses too. And on my trip I’ll keep an eye out for a Latin dictionary or somesuch book.

I’m so excited!

Well in my pathetic high school (the one where in art class all the magic markers were dried up and didn’t work) we only had French and Spanish. I took four years of French, and I’m not sure how much I remember—though last night I had a dream I was in France and in it someone asked me something and I said, “Mon français est tres mal”, which I’m not sure is quite correct, but the guy switched to English. Oh, and this dream also involved Johnny Depp, and that’s all I’m going to say for now. :)

Anyhoo, I’d really love to learn Latin, being the sort who adores archaic and arcane things, but I’m not sure where to start.