And what are YOU doing?

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Carolus Raeticus
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And what are YOU doing?

Post by Carolus Raeticus »

Salvete!

I would like to hear, what you do at the moment in your endeavour to learn Latin. What is your approach? What are you reading? Etc. Here is what I am doing:

I am finally finding time to turn my attention to the exercises in Adler's "Practical Grammar" (both the English text from the textbook and the Latin translations from the "Key" prepared by Adler himself). The transcription itself is already finished, but I need to do another proofreading run and try to get rid of the error made in the Latin key (not mine) and find translations to replace the missing translations. This will take a while, but I really want to get this done. Adler's exercises really are the source for spoken Latin.

Also, I am currently (or still) compiling a list of low-level phrases, that is phrases dealing with concrete actions of individuals: picking up things, yawning, snapping one's fingers, etc.

In addition I am playing around with my recently discovered full-text-search capability for the "Latin Library"-texts. I downloaded the site and use a script (which in turn uses the GNU-tools "grep" and "sed") to search for specific words in ALL the text of the "Latin Library" (a single search run takes about half a minute). Cool, plus it's a wonderful tool to find out how certain words are used. An additional bonus, to do so I had to acquire at least a minimum knowledge of "regular expressions", and I am glad that I did. "Regular expressions" are definitely useful when searching a Latin text (even without grep or sed, only with a text editor understanding regexes).

As far as reading is concerned I have started to read some "ancient" stuff (a break from the modern texts I have read/transcribed before). I am not reading a single author/opus from end to end, but instead follow an interesting reading list compiled by J.Y Sargent and T.F. Dallin as a preface for their book "Material and Models for Latin Prose Composition". It lists suggested reading for various topics, e.g. "Battles by Land", "Characters", "Oratorical: Persuasive". If you want to know more, go to page "xi" in this book.

Now it's your turn! What are you up to?

Valete,

Carolus Raeticus
Sperate miseri, cavete felices.

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swtwentyman
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Re: And what are YOU doing?

Post by swtwentyman »

I'm plugging along in intermediate study. Right now I'm through most of De Senectute. My edition is copiously annotated and passages of even moderate difficulty are given translated in the notes, and there's a vocabulary in the back so I've been able to get through it with minimal trouble, although I feel as if I'm cheating myself and being lazy by using the commentary provided and leaning heavily on the vocab in the back instead of actually learning some of it, and that I could be getting a lot more out of it than I am.

After this I'm going to read an eclogue or two, then De Amicitia (which came today, and the notes are somewhat less heavy-handed just at a glance, but still helpful) before finally getting to Livy XXI. Practically my whole career in Latin study has been partly to be able to read some Livy, and hopefully I'll have the skills to at least have a fighting chance. There will be a learning curve, of course.

hlawson38
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Re: And what are YOU doing?

Post by hlawson38 »

I started studying Latin in 2009, when I turned 71. I thought it would go much faster than it actually has. I did several months of pure grammar study, and then started reading.

My main reading is from the Loeb classics, but I have trained myself not to look at the translation unless baffled completely. After I look at the translation, I go back over the sentence word for word, until I see how the translator construed the literal meaning. Generally the Loeb translations seem appropriate for this use.

I usually have several works going at once, shifting from one to another. The present list is Ovid's Metamorphoses, Suetonius's Augustus, Boethius's Consolation, with an occasional look at Vergil's eclogues.

When a sentence presents problems, I usually write it out, usually longhand, but sometimes on my computer.

Now and then I study sections of Allen and Greenough for review.

I sometimes read on my computer screen using works in the perseus collection, as well as the the dictonary aids. I've also found this online dictionary helpful:

http://athirdway.com/glossa/

I sometimes type out passages in the text editor Emacs. In connection with this I adapted a few lines of code that invoke a lookup in William Whitaker's Words program and display the results an Emacs buffer.
Hugh Lawson

ed-lanty
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Re: And what are YOU doing?

Post by ed-lanty »

hlawson38 (and others) -- I admire your taking up Latin at this stage of your life. I am only a few short years behind you, and took Latin up again last summer. Like you, retirement has given me the leisure to pursue the kind of things working prevented me from going at wholeheartedly. I worked through Wheelock twice and have now been reading some of the easy material on this site and elsewhere. It is frustrating to not have basic fluency before embarking on "real" Latin authors Having worked with modern Romance languages, I am used to being able to read unfamiliar material rather easily. The best bridge material I have seen and been using is the editions of "Fabulae Faciles" and "College Caesar" by Geoffrey Steadman. You really get a good workout on all the basic grammar and constructions using the former and by the time I got to the end I was reading with the kind of fluency I am accustomed to. I recommend these editions to those who, like me, are struggling after getting all the basic grammar and encountering real Latin for the first time. Steadman provides vocabulary and brief grammatical notations on facing pages. I feel I would like to do more English to Latin translation to really get a handle on all the constructions -- this always worked well for me with modern languages. I share Carolus Raeticus' enthusiasm for neo-Latin and the approach of Arcadius Avellanus. I will probably read his translations next to build the reading fluency I am trying to acquire -- then I will circle back to the classics. Interesting discussion.

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Re: And what are YOU doing?

Post by Qimmik »

I'm about to turn 69. I'm not retired yet, but I'm not quite working full-time, either. I had five years of Latin and four of Greek by the time I graduated from high school, and I went on to major in Classics in college. I didn't continue in Classics after college, but I've been puttering around with Latin and Greek ever since. I've been following swtwentyman so that I could answer questions as he read the Catilinarians, the Eclogues and now Cato major de Senectute, which I completed a couple of weeks ago, but he hasn't had as many questions about it. Maybe he'll return to the Eclogues now that he must be nearly finished with de Senectute. Incidenatlly, apart from the sections about not fearing death, I found it not very illuminating as I progress in years. Cicero apparently didn't live long enough to experience arthritis, and he and his mouthpiece Cato the Elder don't have a good answer to the objection that they don't find old age difficult because they're rich. Cato waxes rhapsodic about the pleasure he takes in agriculture in old age, in a passage that could almost be poetry, but of course slaves were doing all the work.

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swtwentyman
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Re: And what are YOU doing?

Post by swtwentyman »

Since we're introducing ourselves:

I'm one of the younger ones here, only 29. I had little interest in Classics before my freshman (and, as it turns out, only full) year of college, when I took a Roman history course and I fell in love, even though I barely passed. I decided to major in classics and took a semester of Greek my sophomore year, after which I had to drop out for health reasons and I never got the chance to go back to 4-year college. I went to the community college for a year; the first semester I started Greek and promptly dropped it when the professor said not to pay attention to vowel length or accent marks. The second semester I signed up for Latin and dropped that, too, when the professor also said not to pay attention to vowel length and suggested that Latin poetry is qualitative (ed: come to think of it, I forgot to actually drop this course; I just stopped attending and wound up with an F. The professors were borrowed from the philosophy and Russian departments respectively and were not trained classicists, which may help explain their cluelessness with vowel length). Both of those languages offered only the first year, too, so even if I had stayed on I would have had to go it alone in any event. This was the end of my formal study of the languages. About five years ago I tried to learn Homeric Greek with Clyde Pharr's book, but found it poorly suited to independent study as the readings didn't necessarily have anything to do with the material and there are far too few exercises in general; also it was a bit vague, such as when it said that the first (? I don't remember exactly) perfect was rare in Homer but never mentioned what was used instead, even when the principal parts in the vocabulary included the first perfect. But that's that; I may return to Pharr since some have had success with it and it is suggested on the Greek board to start with Homer.

As far as Latin goes: I got Wheelock's Latin for Christmas 2012 but never got around to starting it until roughly Thanksgiving of 2013. I'm somewhere between beginner and advanced for now, which I guess is to be expected based on how long I've been at it. I'm using student editions with commentary for now; I used the Loeb for Caesar and got to be able to read somewhat more easily; I looked up the Loeb for the Catilinarian orations -- I already had De Senectute/De Amicitia/De Divionatione but read that In Catilinam was often read following Caesar, so I decided to go to that -- but looking at the PDF on their website I saw that it was a much looser translation than that of the Caesar so I decided to pass on it. I found the text with notes online and, since I ran into some difficulty, started posting here and the rest is history. As Qimmik said, he's been helping me and he's quite a help; I truly do appreciate his patience and kindness. I do plan to go back to Greek one of these days but I want a firmer grasp of Latin before I go throwing another language in there (I have the rest of my life to do it, after all). I don't have a huge amount of free time but I do what I can.

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Re: And what are YOU doing?

Post by cantator »

Reading Latin from Liber Ecclesiastes, also studying some Provencal poems.

I recite Latin poetry while taking my dog for early morning strolls, various pieces from the Carmina Burana, Catullus, Propertius, and others. I have about 40 minutes of stuff memorized, I'd like to have a full hour's worth so I'll be adding a few new pieces soon (the Copa is a favorite, maybe some Horace).

I turned 64 this year. I believe the memorization is good for the health of the mind.

Best,

dp
Similis sum folio de quo ludunt venti.

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