Been Learning for 3 Days

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Remus
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Been Learning for 3 Days

Post by Remus »

I've been learning Latin independently for three days now using rosseta stone software. Rosseta stone is great for learning how to spell, pronounce, and from small sentences in Latin but it doesn't explain grammar much and I'm confused about a few things which i'd like to clear up.

First this sentence; Piscis albus est - the fish is white or, a white fish. Here's another just like that, Canis albus est - the dog is white. Now I'm confused as to why albus turns into alba when referring to a ship or bird, Avis alba est and Navis alba est. Is one sentence masculine and the other feminine ?.

And this sentence, Puellae puerum consequuntur - the girls chased the boy. Why does consequuntur become consequitur when reffering to a man chasing after a boy in Vir puerum consequitur ?

There are tons of more examples. I'm confused about why words which mean practically the same thing keep changing.

Carola
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Post by Carola »

I think you need to read one of the many Latin beginners books on Textkit as as soon as possible.

In the first example - yes you are right about the gender changing. Latin, like French and many other languages has grammatical gender. English doesn't and this can be confusing. It has nothing to do with real gender unless you are actually talking about a male or female person.

Next example - the endings of verbs change, we only have a few slight left-overs of this in English - I say, he says. So there is a different ending for each of:

I
you (singular
he, she, it
we
you (plural)
they

It sounds confusing but after a while it all becomes easy and automatic. You might find that using your software with the first few chapters of one of the Textkit "beginners Latin" books will make everything clear.
Good luck!

arslongus
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Re: Been Learning for 3 Days

Post by arslongus »

Remus wrote: There are tons of more examples. I'm confused about why words which mean practically the same thing keep changing.
I concur with amica Carola, get yourself into a real grammar book as soon as possible. I don't know much about the Rosetta Stone method, although I do see it advertised in airline magazines and the like. While not quite unique, Latin, together with ancient Greek is not learned in the same way as a currently spoken language. You can't exactly learn it among the natives (unless you want to camp out in Vatican City) The declensions and conjugations you stumble over are an essential part of the language, and (I know there is difference of opinion on this point), I for one think there is really no substitute for drills, copying out of paradigms, and just plain arduous labor to bang the grammar into one's brain. I didn't learn English grammar well until I began my study of German. It's then you find what linguistic wussies we Americans are. Rise and embrace the truth, friend...
repetitio mater memoriae.

On the plus side, you will find tremendous aids here on textkit.

Carola
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Re: Been Learning for 3 Days

Post by Carola »

arslongus wrote:

I It's then you find what linguistic wussies we Americans are. Rise and embrace the truth, friend...
repetitio mater memoriae.

On the plus side, you will find tremendous aids here on textkit.
I don't think Americans are the only English speakers guilty of linguistic wussiness - Australia and UK also seemed to have abandoned grammar! We should all learn an inflected language - of course we would hope it might be Greek or Latin - but any language that makes us think about grammar would make us think about the construction of our own language.

Mofmog
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Post by Mofmog »

Learning an inflected language to learn English grammar seems a roundabout answer to just teaching English grammar in the first place :shock: But since we so refuse to teach it in the first place, I guess it's your only choice!

Carola
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Post by Carola »

Mofmog wrote:Learning an inflected language to learn English grammar seems a roundabout answer to just teaching English grammar in the first place :shock: But since we so refuse to teach it in the first place, I guess it's your only choice!
That's true, but sometimes it is hard to explain the process of something you do automatically. Try explaining how you walk on 2 legs! But if you had to design a robot to do this you would have to think about all the actions involved. But I agree that we should explain the mechanics of grammar at school, that doesn't mean having to be very pedantic and waffle on about idiotic things like split infinitives. (and I will boldly split my infinitives whenever I damn well please :lol: )

CharlesH
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Post by CharlesH »

edited for brevity
Last edited by CharlesH on Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

nostos
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Post by nostos »

Carola wrote:
Mofmog wrote:(and I will boldly split my infinitives whenever I damn well please :lol: )
ah Carola but you have not split a single infinitive in your post! To rightly say that you did, you would have to boldly split an infinitive at some point! :P

(agreed though, it's pedantic and stupid. I'm all for Chomsky)

GlottalGreekGeek
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Post by GlottalGreekGeek »

I do not know what kind of schools you all went to, but I remember learning English grammar in middle school. I feel that English grammar was well covered in my education. The problem was not the content, but how many students would go with what "sounded good" rather than going through the grammatical concepts when doing assignments. I did this myself, mainly because it saved time and at the time I did not see the point. It is only when you study a foreign language that most people (myself included) see how much they took grammar "sounding good" for granted.

CharlesH
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Post by CharlesH »

GlottalGreekGeek wrote:I do not know what kind of schools you all went to, but I remember learning English grammar in middle school. I feel that English grammar was well covered in my education.
Well I had grammar in Middle School as well. However, about one third of the class barely spoke English, one third were unruly and the final third were starving since we didn't have lunch until the third lunch period at 1:30 (There were 2,000+ students so we had 3 lunch periods!).

In High School all the English classes were Lit. but I got to take 3 years of French with the communicative approach. It can be difficult to learn grammar that way.

Nevertheless, learning grammar via another language can be illuminating.

Charles

Carola
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Post by Carola »

nostos wrote:
ah Carola but you have not split a single infinitive in your post! To rightly say that you did, you would have to boldly split an infinitive at some point! :P

(agreed though, it's pedantic and stupid. I'm all for Chomsky)
It is, of course, a misquote from "Star Trek", and one of the best known "split infinitives". In the title speech the announcer say "to boldly go where .....etc". Now all you "Star Trek" fans should recognise this! :lol: Maybe I'm just old enough to remember this nonsense!

nostos
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Post by nostos »

I recognised it immediately but couldn't work it into my post! I mean a way to show that I recognised it.

:D

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