Any suggestions?

[Lumen_et_umbra]

Let me begin by saying that I believe my understanding Latin grammar to be adequate for the activity to which I shall hereafter give appellation.<br /><br />I want to begin reading ancient works written by the likes of Cicero, Virgil, Livy, Catullus, Martial, and whomsoever of whom you may think; but each time I open such a book I am overwhelmed by a vast array of unfamiliar words. So my question is: Does any of you know a means by which I might ameliorate my Latin vocabulary (beyond sitting for hours, inefficiently - and boringly - memorizing dictionary entries) ? Perhaps one of you is aware of a book that makes the augmentation of a Latin vernacular not so ponderous an endeavor as the means to that end, the means of which I myself have conceived.

[Moerus]

The most efficient way to learn more vocabulary is to read texts. But if you want to read text, you will always occure words you don't know. <br />But there is a solution for that problem. With some texts there are word lists. So the list gives all the difficult words, so you don't have to look them up always. I know there are some helplists in Dutch and Frensh, so it must exist in English too. <br />So choose a famous text and search for a word-list. They must exist for Cicero, Livius, Horace, ... <br /><br />Succes with your research.

[annis]

Perseus has a vocabulary tool in their "Tools" section. If you fiddle around with the forms a bit, you can ask for things like the top 300 words in all of Cicero, for example. Or in a particular work.

[Carola]

I do it the same way I learn new tunes - record yourself saying the word and the meaning and other information - eg 1st declension or whatever. Repeat each word over several times. Then put the tape on when you are driving, or use a little portable cassette tape for travelling in the bus. Even though you are not always paying total attention to it (driving in Adelaide can require ALL your attention!) you will be amazed at how much filters into your brain - suddenly when you are reading the word seems to just "be there". Make a few tapes and mix them around so you don't get too bored. Just use the dictionary in one of the great Textkit grammar books as they contain the most used words, they don't have to be in any real order.

[klewlis]

I did what carola suggested when I was trying to memorize principle parts for greek (ugh), except I simply recorded it onto my computer and then played it back while I was doing other things around the room... very helpful. <br /><br />I also try to take my vocab cards with me everywhere... especially nice to practice while sitting on a bike at the gym, or other places like that where you're sitting doing nothing.

[Keesa]

I've always been quite energetic about jumping in feet first; I grabbed one of my grandfather's books and a dictionary before I was halfway finished with my French grammar. I imagine I'll probably do the same with Latin and Greek, sooner or later. <br /><br />Keesa

[mingshey]

Good idea using recorders! <br />But I hate my recorded voice. <br /><br />Anyway, getting used to is what I think the best way to learn a language. Especially listening.<br /><br />Me too, had begun reading a book in a language I was going to learn. Reading prompted for grammars to decipher it, and grammar accelerated reading with better understanding.

[Carola]

[quote author=mingshey link=board=6;threadid=585;start=0#5247 date=1062595166]<br />Good idea using recorders! <br />But I hate my recorded voice. <br /><br />[/quote]<br /><br />Ah well, some of us like the sound of our own voices!!! ;D<br />Seriously - it really helps to improve your diction when you record and listen to your own voice.

[Keesa]

I don't like my own recorded voice, either, but there is a way to get around that-just pretend it's someone else's voice! "I don't know who that nerdy-sounding person on the tape recorder is, but she (or he) does help with my vocabulary, so I suppose I'll keep her (or him) around a bit longer." I have to do that, if I plan to listen to myself for any length of time; otherwise I just sound so idiotic that I can't listen. Why is it that other people's faults bother us less than our own? ;D <br /><br />Keesa

[Milito]

[quote author=Lumen_et_umbra link=board=6;threadid=585;start=0#5211 date=1062533335]<br />I want to begin reading ancient works written by the likes of Cicero, Virgil, Livy, Catullus, Martial, and whomsoever of whom you may think; but each time I open such a book I am overwhelmed by a vast array of unfamiliar words. So my question is: Does any of you know a means by which I might ameliorate my Latin vocabulary (beyond sitting for hours, inefficiently - and boringly - memorizing dictionary entries) ? [/quote]<br /><br />I don't know of a book that does this, but honestly, just plain jumping in was a great way to "grow" the vocabulary. Yes, you spend a lot of time with the dictionary, but you do find your vocabulary growing, and over time, you find that you need it less and less. One caution I would give you about single methods of assisting your vocabulary growth is that every author whom I've encountered (I've jumped feet-first into Cicero, Vergil, Caesar and Horace thus far) uses a different sub-set of the Latin vocabulary. For instance, I started on Horace after working with Cicero pretty steadily for several months, and abruptly felt like I had no vocabulary at all. The two authors discuss such different subject matter in such different ways that their vocabulary is very different.<br /><br />You can, of course, choose the work you begin with carefully - a shorter work will, naturally, present a smaller vocabulary set to learn. It will also begin to set you up nicely to move on to longer works. (De Officiis is three books long, and several thousand lines, so I wouldn't recommend this as a "short" starting point.... I'm a little over a third of the way through the first book now, after about 8 months, and it's moved from "interesting project" to "challenge that I am determined to overcome".... Fortunately, it's interesting.)<br /><br />Kilmeny

[bingley]

Might I suggest Cornelius Nepos? He wrote potted biographies of figures from Greek history. The vocab. is not too difficult, and since each biography is only a couple of pages long you get the reinforcement of having read a complete work often ;D.<br /><br />You can find texts here: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/nepos.html or<br />http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/n_vir03.html

[Lumen_et_umbra]

Thank you for the suggestions. They will be very helpful! Being little creative, I would never have thought of those of my own devices and discretion. Thanks again! ;D

[Milito]

Do let us know what you decide to do and how it works out!

[Lumen_et_umbra]

I intend to try all of the suggestions eventually. With some luck, I may not become wildly insane for the difficulty of cramming Latin word after Latin word (in addition to Greek words) into my brain.

[Emma_85]

what i do is write the words i don't know (if i think they are important enough) on vocab cards and learn them while on the bus.

[Keesa]

[quote author=Lumen_et_umbra link=board=6;threadid=585;start=0#5448 date=1062892823]<br />I intend to try all of the suggestions eventually. With some luck, I may not become wildly insane for the difficulty of cramming Latin word after Latin word (in addition to Greek words) into my brain.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />If you do find any nifty way of sticking in dozens of words in more than one language into your head at the same time without getting them hopelessly mixed up, do let me know! I keep on trying to throw in Italian words when I'm speaking French-and I don't even know Italian! <br /><br />Keesa

[Episcopus]

I have to learn Italian to go to the Vatican, but school tires me out and Latin I have not even the physical strength to do this. <br /><br />I merely sleep and this is not pleasing to me. For one to learn abundances of words whenever one be tired is impossible almost.<br /><br />

[Keesa]

[quote author=Episcopus link=board=6;threadid=585;start=15#5498 date=1062948976]<br />For one to learn abundances of words whenever one be tired is impossible almost.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I definitely agree with that! <br /><br />Keesa

[fladiv]

Just a thought..<br /><br />There is a program called Words.exe that can print out a grammatical structure and a meaning of any latin word in any form, and there is another version, meanings.exe, that only prints meaning of the base form of a word.<br />So this program can be used as a dictionary and a good grammar helper.<br /><br />An actual thought is that you also need some means of applying unknown words to these programs while you read. I've wrote a viewer in Python that displays text in one of its 2 windows. When a reader clicks some word, viewer feeds it to the words.exe or meanings.exe, and the output is displayed in the other window. So quick reference takes minimal effort and thus one could save a lot of time that he would otherwise mess with the "real" dictionaries... And this means that one reads, and thus learns, much faster Provided, of cause, that the mentioned one won't addict to the feature and will rather try to recall a familiar word from his memory than just click it.<br /><br />So the really cool thing would be to have such program for some PDA, which is possible, because words.exe has its source code available...<br /><br />Now I wish I had such a program for ancient greek...<br /><br />P.S. words.exe and meanings.exe, along with the sources, could be found at http://www.erols.com/whitaker/words.htm, at least by the time when I've got them from there.