Latin Podcast FAQ

I AM NEW TO LATIN, WHERE DO I START?

I would listen to the first beginners lessons, which are the oldest episodes on the podcast. There are four lessons. Don't spend too much time on these, just listen to them once - they give you a general idea of how Latin works as a language.
Then, open up the archive week that holds the first Adler lessons, and begin from this lesson . Then work your way through the lessons. I am also working on a vocabulary learning website, which uses images and words only.This is, like the podcast, a work in progress.

I AM A MORE ADVANCED STUDENT, WHAT IS THERE FOR ME ON LATINUM?
If you are already a fluent reader, then you may find Adler of interest to get you up to speed on spoken Latin, and of more specific interest, our various readings from classical texts. These have been contributed from a variety of Academic sources - mostly lecturers and grad students with an interest in spoken Latin using versions of the restored Classical Pronunciation. There is a general text collection, a reasonably large corpus of Horace, and a growing collection of Catullus. Here you will also find the recordings from SORGLL, available in downloadable mp3 format. There is also some advanced miscellaneous material in the Entertainment section, such as the Harvard Salutatory Address, &c.


I STILL CAN'T FIND THE ADLER LESSONS, HELP!

Download the two Adler textbooks, the main book, and the key, from google books. There are links to these on the FAQ below, and new links have been posted on the Latinum website.
The lessons follow the chapter numbers in the textbook. The Dictata follow the exercise numbers in the textbook.
The recorded lessons from the book do NOT start with chapter one, but with chapter two, as the first chapter is about a type of pronunciation I'm not using.
Although you download all the episodes at once from itunes, you can listen to each episode individually. You may need to update your JAVA to download the sound files from the Latinum website.
The Adler lessons are accessed from the links on right hand column of the main webpage. If you have a slow internet connection, you may find the pages take a long time to load.

WHAT ABOUT PENSUM AND DICTATA?

Adler calls the chapters in the main textbook by the name of Pensum.
The English exercises in the main textbook, which go along with each chapter, are simply called exercises.
The Latin translations of these exercises, which are found in the smaller "Key to the Grammar", are called Dictata.


HOW DO I DOWNLOAD ALL THE EPISODES AT ONCE?

You can do this by using itunes. The podcast is available as a free download via itunes. Search for 'latinum'. I'm not sure they let you download all the lessons, you might have to return to the mypodcast website and download the first 20 or so manually from the archive for week 24.


IS THE PODCAST FREE?

The podcast is free, but you are kindly encouraged to send a donation that reflects how useful you think the podcast has been for you. :) There is a button for donations on the bottom right on the main podcast page.

HOW ARE THE ADLER LESSONS STRUCTURED?

Each Adler lesson starts with a grammar discussion.(Part A) Then the examples are given in English and Latin. (Part B) They are repeated again in Latin only. (Part C) Finally, an episode with only questions in Latin, which you are expected to answer in any possible way, is given. The intention is to get you speaking in Latin. Not all episodes have this question episode yet.

DOES ADLER COVER ALL OF LATIN GRAMMAR?

Yes, Adler's textbook is very thorough, and covers the full range of Latin Grammar. Once you have completed the course, you should be able to read any Latin text with ease, with only the need for a dictionary for new vocabulary.

CAN I BUY A HARDCOPY OF THE ADLER TEXTBOOK?

Used copies of the textbook are very (very very) rare. You can, however, download the pdf from google books.
You can then save it to a CD or put it on a pen drive, and take it down to a THESIS BINDER, or printer, who will print it up for you, and bind it. My copy was made like this, and it has a fine red cloth binding with gold lettering on the spine. There is also a key to the exercises in Adler's textbook.

WHAT ELSE IS ON THE WEBSITE FOR BEGINNERS?

The section called 'Learn from the Masters' is useful for beginners. It is a good idea to start to memorise Latin poetry and short examples of masterful prose, even before you fully understand the material, as this gives your brain a store of embedded grammatical patterns. Also, if someone asks you to speak some Latin, you will have something impressive ready to recite. Memorising Latin poetry is the easiest way to get to grips with it. Studying the complex rules for reading it correctly is tedious. So much easier to simply listen, and learn how to read it well by example.

WHAT PRONUNCIATION OF LATIN IS USED ON THE PODCAST?
Almost all the Latin you will find on the podcast is in Restored Classical Pronunciation. This is a reconstruction of how Latin was spoken on the Palatine Hill, Rome, at the time of the Caesars. In the working class areas of Rome a different accent prevailed, and outside Rome, the rustic and provincial accents would have been different yet again. The evidence we have for this type of Latin is discussed here. Regarding my pronunciation, the following points should be noted: I have made the decision to use the tonal accents. I also frequently use the informal hicce, haecce, hocce, hujusce, etc when saying hic haec hoc and even hujus. I follow Allen's 'Vox Latina' by doubling the final consonant of hic and hoc before a word beginning with a vowel, e.g. hic est becomes hic cest. This is the correct classical pronunciation of hic [hicc], which has a short vowel. I have also chosen a slightly ante-classical pronunciation of cui, and render it according to its earlier spelling, quoi.

One note: Some material on the podcast does not use classical pronunciation, such as the Latin vocabulary in the verses by Coleridge, which use a variant of the old English pronunciation of Latin. So, if you are using Coleridge's poems to help with vocabulary, keep in mind the sound of the words are not correct by classical standards..

IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO AS A FAVOUR TO HELP LATINUM?

Yes, you certainly can help - if you have a page on facebook or wherever, or a blog, or some other web presence, such a forum you visit, then writing a short paragraph about the podcast, and your experience of it, with a link to it, will be very helpful. The more links a site has to other sites,the higher up the list it goes on search engines such as the great Google. Any and all web exposure is good, even if you only provide a simple link, or even simply mention the podcast by name without a link. You could also visit delicious and "save" the Latinum Podcast, helping it rise up the ranks on delicious.

I AM TERRIBLE AT GRAMMAR, CAN I STILL LEARN LATIN?

Yes. Each lesson does have a grammar part, (Part A) but you can advance quite well by listening to part B and part C of each lesson, while avoiding the part A sections, which focus on grammar. You will never learn to speak Latin from learning grammar alone. Rather, you need to listen to Latin, and interact with it as much as possible, and try to write it. Participation in Schola, or a group like it, is very important if you are ever to truly command the language as a fluent speaker and writer.
The original methodology of Ollendorff, which Adler uses, had almost no grammar, only lots and lots of sample sentences, which slowly built up grammatical knowledge intuitively. Adler added the grammar sections into the text, giving lots of illustrative examples. If you plan to approach the lessons in a 'grammar free' way, then you will need to become very familiar with the sample sentences.
If you are a primary school student, you might find the grammar parts too difficult - so just ignore them, and get on with learning the model sentences in part B and C of each Chapter. Once you notice that you have the language well and truly under your belt, so that it starts to feel natural to you, you should go back, and study the grammar sections. You might also find my notes for learning declensions and adjectives are useful.


WHO PRODUCES THE LATINUM PODCAST?

The Latinum Podcast is published by Evan Millner, who lives in London, UK. Evan also produces the IMAGINUM VOCABULARIUM LATINUM and the SCHOLA website.

You are encouraged to write Latin as well, by joining and actively contributing to SCHOLA. No-one will comment on your grammar at Schola unless you ask for comments. The idea is to produce Latin, errors (hopefully not too many!) and all. Only through writing and speaking the language will you progress rapidly, and get total command of it. If you are using the Latinum podcast, then please do join Schola, even if you're not ready to write yet.

The Imaginum Vocabularium contains two main sources of info for vocabulary building - an extensive photographic collection, and also a version of Comenius' Orbis Sensualium Pictus, which is excellent for vocabulary revision once you have learned the words using the photographs. The Comenius entries are clearly labelled.

Evan estimates that it will take about another year to complete the Adler lessons, after which he has plans to record a series of easy Latin stories for beginners, and advanced texts. Evan is always happy to hear from users, so do drop a line.

Nexus

LATINUM, the name of the Latin language learning podcast offered on mypodcast.com . The Free Online Language Course.

Latin Links

This is not going to be your typical links page, but more of a combination of links and short reviews of various Latin educational sites I've stumbled across in my online perambulations.

Of use to a learner of spoken Latin, is the Latin video site started up in March 2008 at the University of Kentucky. Here you can watch snippets of conversation in spoken Latin. If you have reached around lesson 40 in Adler, you should be able to get the gist of what is being said pretty well. This site is constantly being added to, and should prove very useful to users of Latinum. The main differences you will note is that some speakers are not clear with vowel quantity in their spoken Latin, others are excellent, and the circumflex accent (rising and falling tone on a long penultimate) that I use in Latinum, is not used by these speakers, so their Latin sounds 'flatter'. These speakers represent the best speakers presently on the planet, so you can assess your own progress against these speakers. There are at present only a handful of people on earth who can speak as fluently as Terentius or Milena. With over 1 700 regular users of the Latinum podcast as of 2008, this situation will hopefully change over the next few years, as users of the podcast aquire familiarity with the spoken language.

One advantage, to my mind, of using correct vowel length (and the circumflex) is that it gives you time to slow down, and draw out a word when you need time to think, so that your speech becomes more flowing.


Textkit has a lively forum, most of the posting is in English, some posters use Latin. Textkit is the effective 'user form' for the Latinum podcast, for when you have a grammar question. Eclassics is a new and fast growing site, where you can set up a user profile with a photo or avatar, keep a blog, and in addition share videos and photos with other students and teachers of Latin. The site is growing fast. I'm a member! Please do join.

Looking around online, I have found almost no-where where it is comfortable to write publicly in Latin, without the fear that someone will come along and correct you. This fear of being corrected, and indeed, being corrected, is, I think, counterproductive when learning a language. One has to produce it, lots of it. errors resolve themselves through further study and reading. Given the numbers of people studying Latin around the world, there is a paucity of writing in Latin itself. Schola provides a space where all the writing must be in Latin, and where correcting or commenting on other member's Latin is prohibited.

Radiophonica Finnica has a the most active Latin language forum on the internet - Colloquia Latina. There is also an active Latin language discussion forum on Google groups. There is another active Latin Forum, with a different group of users to the textkit crowd, called Latin Forum. Another Forum, only in Latin, is Fora Latina. For non English speakers, (French/Spanish/German etc) the Latin Forum on Wordreference might be of more interest. Germans can chat about Latin on the Latein Forum. Polish people can chat on their own Forum Latinum. If you want to try and write to someone in Latin on paper, then the Commericum Epistularum Latinum can set you up with a penpal.

For those interested in Spoken Latin, Johan Winge maintains possibly the best set of links for this topic, besides also offering some of his own recordings of Classical Texts read in very accurate restored classical Latin. Johan also has a presence on YouTube, and you can watch him declaiming Vergil. L. Amadevs Ranierivs has his own site in Latin, with a small but growing collection of recordings. It is good to see the sudden growth in the amount of high quality audio Latin online. His is a nice, well designed website. Well worth a look around.Seumas MacDonald's Lingua Latina et Graeca is another new podcast based site, that contains useful material for learning Greek, using Kendrick's Ollendorff text - i.e. using the same methodology used by Adler. Well worth a visit. Seumas has also started to develop his own Latin learning textbook, with accompanying mp3 files, which is published on the same site. Vox Romana is a relatively new Latin podcast, very well worth visiting and listening to, a sort of Ancient Roman Variety Show.


Williams wrote a handy vocabulary list for spoken Latin, arranged by topic. This is a bit old (1829), so many of the words describe professions we no longer have - however, these old words are still useful for talking or writing about historical matters and times past. There are lists of clothing, body parts, metals, professions, etc. Much is very useful and practical. If you are looking for things to read, then bibliography of over 24, 000 online texts in Latin written since the Renaissance, may be of interest. Imaginum Vocabularium Latinum has a growing repository of over 1000 pictures matched to Latin Vocabulary, with no intermediary language, just the image and the Latin word for it. Suitable for Children. The Imaginum Vocabularium Latinum really is an excellent way to expand your vocabulary, especially if you have an interest in writing letters to people in Latin/keeping a diary in Latin (highly recommended) or having a go at speaking it. William's Vocabulary for Speaking Latin (see above) is used as the main source. Sigrid Albert wrote a dictionary "Imaginum Vocabularium Latinum" with the same title, published in 1998, which can be obtained directly from the publisher. It costs around 17 Euro, and this is a very useful text. You can't get it on Amazon etc, only from here. I highly recommend it. If flashcards work for you, then the online Latin flashcards made by Bob Patrick are where you should head to. The "Thesaurus Eroticus Linguae Latinae ( The original text on Google Books) sive Theogoniae, Legum et Morum Nuptialum Apud Romanos Explanatio Nova ex interpretatione Propria et Impropria et Differentiae in Significatu Fere Duorum Millium Sermonum Ad Intelligentiam Poetarum et Ethologorum tam Antiquae quam integrae infimaeque Latinitatis; Edidit CAROLUS RAMBACH. Stuttgartiae 1833. The images on the image based version of Rambach's text are a bit in your face, but I only see the humourous side of it. I think the idea of learning a language to the extent possible without the intermediary of another language is useful....which is what the imaginum vocabularium is all about. Diederich's work on the frequency of words in Latin is useful.


John Piazza's website is always an inspiration. John is working with Bob Patrick, another teacher who uses spoken Latin intensively in his classroom, on materials to help with the study of Latin as a living, breathing language. If you ever wanted to type in Latin, using macrons and other specialised characters used by the Romans, the list of unicode codes for the various marks is useful, and can be found in this list complied by David Perry. A useful site for teachers and students is the elatin site where I keep a blog. There is a useful collection of learning materials at Saint Louis University. This site was built up by Claude Pavur. Claude's reading accelerating machine is something worth trying out sometime. Claude also has some entertaining flash animations for teaching grammatical concepts, and a selection of mp3 readings from Seneca. A site close to my heart is this one - a program to introduce Latin to inner London schools.

Scrinium Latinum is one of the best sites in English about Latin. I have personally been influenced in my approach to Latin study by the essays on this site, written by Dr Harris, Emeritus Professor of Classics at Middlebury. The collection of Latin plays written by Anthony Hodson is really special. Visit this site, read the plays. Enjoy. There is a very interesting video, produced in 2007, on the Latin Immersion programme at Lexington. This programme has also acted as an inspiration for developing the immersion methodology used on the Latinum Podcast. While I'm on the topic of educational institutions, the Classical Journal has a pretty good list of places where you can go and take a degree in classics.





Latinum Journal

Did the Romans Sing their Poetry Greek Style?




evanmillner AT gmail.com