A Learning Methodology for Latin
Evan Millner
There are things that a student of a new language should take note of - to get really good, fast, you need to immerse yourself in the language. There is no other method that will get you to fluency with speed. The secret is TIME. LOTS OF IT, all devoted to listening to the language you are trying to learn.
You can go a certain distance by focussing on grammar, but my suggestion is to go light on the grammar, only learning a little of it at a time. Spend your time simply getting a lot of material in the language into your head. Spread your grammar learning over a period of months, and keep learning grammar, until the day you die.....Latin grammar is complex, and will be an ongoing project of slowly perfecting what you know.
Certainly, read a grammar text to get an overview. Start making an effort to learn verb forms and the declensions, but don't kill yourself with the effort. You will learn the verb forms through exposure, through listening. That being said, there are methods one can use to commit the verb tables and declension tables to memory with relative ease, using artificial memory techniques.
If you are learning to read, you need to be able to recognise structures, not reproduce them. The level of detailed grammatical knowledge needed to do this is much less than that needed to produce the language. Most Latin courses 'over-teach' the grammar.
Get your head out of a book, and spend your time listening. Listen. Listen more. Read as well. Use the Adler textbook, and the audio lessons, and learn the lessons. Try to generate speech (it will be really hard for the first year or two, then it will click into place). Take your Latin to the gym. Go for long walks, and do your heart a favour. Walk somewhere quieter - where you can happily mumble to yourself, and repeat what you hear, aloud. Do it in the busy City streets - no-one will pay attention anyway. Do this, in order to etch the patterns of the language into your very being.
Also, focus on learning vocabulary, even more than you focus on grammar, especially in the beginning. Gaining a large vocabulary, quickly, will boost your confidence enormously. You can listen to the vocab files on Latinum. Listen to them regularly. Building up your vocabulary is about 80% of the job. You will be surprised how many words you learn by listening to the vocabulary recordings. These also give you the correct quantity, (vowel length) from the word go. This is important, as when you eventually read proper Latin texts, the vowel quantities are not marked. If you ever get really good, and want to write sonorous prose, or poetry, having correct quantity is a huge advantage. It also means that you will be able to pick up a Latin or Renaissance author, and read his or her poetry without much effort.
So, listen. Then listen some more. Also, the picture images for vocab building that I develped, currently located in the photographiae archives on SCHOLA, and also on You Tube, are also quite useful.
But, fill your ipod with Latin, and listen, listen, listen.
Listen to things you understand. Listen to things you don't fully understand. Memorise a poem or two, even before you understand the Latin. One day you will, and the poems will bloom forth in your mind. The archives on Latinum have a wide range of texts to listen to.
Listen to the fabulae faciles. It is really important to listen to, and read, a lot of basic Latin. Reading, however, is tiring, especially for a beginner. So, fill your ipod with stories and the Adler lessons, and fill as much time as you can with Latin.
There is no magic route, but this 'passive' route of simply listening, really works. Our brains are not in 'passive mode' when we are listening to a new language. They are really busy, forming new neural networks. Recent research has shown that even the structure of the nerves in the inner ear change, when exposed to a new language. So, listen, listen, and listen. You will be surprised at the rapid rate of your progress, despite it seeming so 'easy' - no slogging with a textbook. It is vitally important to be relaxed and stress free - listening helps- if you miss something, you just listen to the lesson again. Listen to the fabulae faciles and the texts of the great authors, until they become second nature to you. Absorb them. Internalise them. Do this for about four years, and you will be as good as anyone who ever learned Latin in ancient times.
Another study in July 2008, at Dartmouth's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, showed that the brain models 'passive' observed information in the same way as it models it when the subject was actually doing the actions. In other words, simply listening, engages the brain in a similar way to actually performing. There is, then, really no such thing as 'passive learning'. After all, infants learn most things this way. Why should adults be any different?
If you are learning to read, you need to be able to recognise structures, not reproduce them. The level of detailed grammatical knowledge needed to do this is much less than that needed to produce the language. Most Latin courses 'over-teach' the grammar.
Get your head out of a book, and spend your time listening. Listen. Listen more. Read as well. Use the Adler textbook, and the audio lessons, and learn the lessons. Try to generate speech (it will be really hard for the first year or two, then it will click into place). Take your Latin to the gym. Go for long walks, and do your heart a favour. Walk somewhere quieter - where you can happily mumble to yourself, and repeat what you hear, aloud. Do it in the busy City streets - no-one will pay attention anyway. Do this, in order to etch the patterns of the language into your very being.
Also, focus on learning vocabulary, even more than you focus on grammar, especially in the beginning. Gaining a large vocabulary, quickly, will boost your confidence enormously. You can listen to the vocab files on Latinum. Listen to them regularly. Building up your vocabulary is about 80% of the job. You will be surprised how many words you learn by listening to the vocabulary recordings. These also give you the correct quantity, (vowel length) from the word go. This is important, as when you eventually read proper Latin texts, the vowel quantities are not marked. If you ever get really good, and want to write sonorous prose, or poetry, having correct quantity is a huge advantage. It also means that you will be able to pick up a Latin or Renaissance author, and read his or her poetry without much effort.
So, listen. Then listen some more. Also, the picture images for vocab building that I develped, currently located in the photographiae archives on SCHOLA, and also on You Tube, are also quite useful.
But, fill your ipod with Latin, and listen, listen, listen.
Listen to things you understand. Listen to things you don't fully understand. Memorise a poem or two, even before you understand the Latin. One day you will, and the poems will bloom forth in your mind. The archives on Latinum have a wide range of texts to listen to.
Listen to the fabulae faciles. It is really important to listen to, and read, a lot of basic Latin. Reading, however, is tiring, especially for a beginner. So, fill your ipod with stories and the Adler lessons, and fill as much time as you can with Latin.
There is no magic route, but this 'passive' route of simply listening, really works. Our brains are not in 'passive mode' when we are listening to a new language. They are really busy, forming new neural networks. Recent research has shown that even the structure of the nerves in the inner ear change, when exposed to a new language. So, listen, listen, and listen. You will be surprised at the rapid rate of your progress, despite it seeming so 'easy' - no slogging with a textbook. It is vitally important to be relaxed and stress free - listening helps- if you miss something, you just listen to the lesson again. Listen to the fabulae faciles and the texts of the great authors, until they become second nature to you. Absorb them. Internalise them. Do this for about four years, and you will be as good as anyone who ever learned Latin in ancient times.
Another study in July 2008, at Dartmouth's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, showed that the brain models 'passive' observed information in the same way as it models it when the subject was actually doing the actions. In other words, simply listening, engages the brain in a similar way to actually performing. There is, then, really no such thing as 'passive learning'. After all, infants learn most things this way. Why should adults be any different?
Once you are reasonably competent, try to read Latin Grammar textbooks in Latin, not in English.
One word of admonition - get a good headset - one of the old fashioned loooking ones, with a baffle around the ears. They are less expensive than a hearing aid, and cheaper than the inconvenience of going hard of hearing, or developing tinnitus. You won't need to have the volume up so loudly, if you use headphones with a baffle - especially if you are listening outdoors or in the gym. The usual bud-style headphones are unsafe to use, unless you are indoors in a totally quiet environment.
One word of admonition - get a good headset - one of the old fashioned loooking ones, with a baffle around the ears. They are less expensive than a hearing aid, and cheaper than the inconvenience of going hard of hearing, or developing tinnitus. You won't need to have the volume up so loudly, if you use headphones with a baffle - especially if you are listening outdoors or in the gym. The usual bud-style headphones are unsafe to use, unless you are indoors in a totally quiet environment.
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