Learning Latin with Familia Romana

Here you can discuss all things Latin. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Latin, and more.
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Perseus
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Learning Latin with Familia Romana

Post by Perseus »

People who tried to learn Latin with Familia Romana and had problem with it after a few lessons, I am interested to know if you were doing the exercises of the book and Exercitia book via CDs that you still had problem? Or weren't you doing the CDs? And do you know German?

I think one of the greatest problems to learn Latin is "understanding the concept of cases" so I guess people who knows German, have better ability to understand the concept of "casus" so they can learn Latin better? Is it a valid guess?

adrianus
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Re: Learning Latin with Familia Romana

Post by adrianus »

It may be a valid guess that many people give-up Latin who don't know German but I would say it's not a valid guess that they give up because they don't know German. There are many languages other than German which use cases. And for someone not using cases in their everyday speech, it is possible for the concept of cases to be understood but they still find Latin too difficult or unappealing to take up.

Rectè conjicis multos studium linguae latinae negligare qui germanicè non loquuntur; conjectura autem non valida est, dicam, ut imperitia Germanicae linguae sit depositionis causa. Sunt multae aliae linguae separatìm Germanica quae casibus utantur. Ab homine qui casibus in sermonibus cotidianis non utitur, possible est casûs conceptum intellegi at studium Latinae tamen difficilius vel non satis curae haberi ut capissatur.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Perseus
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Re: Learning Latin with Familia Romana

Post by Perseus »

The first ancient language I started to learn around 20 years ago is Avestan (Sister language of Sanskrit and the holy books of Zoroastrians is written in this language.) This language has 8 cases like sanskrit and at that time I even did not know German yet so it was very difficult for me to understand the concept of case. Then I started sanskrit as well, then German.... I think this is why Latin was easier for me as I already knew the concept of case. (Sanskrit/Avestan have all 6 cases of Latin plus Instrumental and Locative as two separate cases, in Latin the Ablative does the function of Instrumental and Locative too.)

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furrykef
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Re: Learning Latin with Familia Romana

Post by furrykef »

I immediately grasped the concept of case when I was first exposed to it in Latin. (I say "in Latin" because I heard things like "nominative case" in my English classes in high school, but did not pay much attention at the time because I was not yet so linguistically inclined.)

It's easiest to deal with if you realize English has cases too: he, his, him; she, her, her; I, my, me; etc. It's exactly the same concept except there are more forms and they apply to (almost) all nouns and adjectives.
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