Ch. 9 - Help Remembering the Demonstratives

[dbigdawg]

Does anyone have any advice remembering the demonstratives?

I guess I will have to rely upon the brute force repetition to remember.

Thanks, in advance, for any help.

[Twpsyn]

Notice the patterns.

Get a reading course like Lingua Latina, which does an excellent job of gradually introducing pronouns from the start, and see the pronouns in use rather than in sterile example sentences.

Don't bother too much about brute-force memorization: it doesn't work. If you use them enough, the pronouns will come of their own accord.

[benissimus]

Get a reading course like Lingua Latina, which does an excellent job of gradually introducing pronouns from the start, and see the pronouns in use rather than in sterile example sentences.

While I have nothing against Lingua Latina, I don't imagine that the best way to deal with the dawg's problem is to give up on the textbook at such an early chapter.

Don't bother too much about brute-force memorization: it doesn't work. If you use them enough, the pronouns will come of their own accord.

Actually, it does work for a lot of people, but using the words is much more effective. My advice for understanding and being able to predict the forms of the demonstratives is this:

the forms are mainly those of normal 1st/2nd declension adjectives like magnus, -a, -um, but the genitive ends in -ius and the dative ends in -i. The letter 'c' has been added to the end of many of the forms, causing some sound changes.

[Essorant]

It may help to write them on a little sheet of paper (among other grammatical things) for quick seeing and keep that near you when you are reading Latin. Whenever you forget it look at the paper. I make many little papers like that. Soon enough you will simply remember them and not need to use the paper anymore, (at least for the time being). But it may be best to make it as good a manner of helper as possible, laminate it, and keep it. For if you ever are not able to continue keeping up with Latin, or study something else and somewhat lose touch and forget some of your Latin, then you will still have your memory-sheets when you come back to Latin and may need to have them beside you for a while again.
<pre></pre>

[Twpsyn]

Get a reading course like Lingua Latina, which does an excellent job of gradually introducing pronouns from the start, and see the pronouns in use rather than in sterile example sentences.

While I have nothing against Lingua Latina, I don't imagine that the best way to deal with the dawg's problem is to give up on the textbook at such an early chapter.

O no, don't give up your textbook! But graded readings are always more effective than endless grammar-translation spew. You may learn the forms in an abstract and tenuous fashion by brute memorization, but supplementing your coursework with as much reading as possible will help cement them in your mind.