Salve, Amadee (is this the correct vocative?)
After I posted my question I realized it didn’t make much sense, but I was far too lazy to go back and edit it. Your answer meets all expectations, however. Thanks for the tip. I’ve just finished up CAP. IV… Medus servus improbus est!
Thanks for the welcome!
Vale,
Rufus
Edit: Beaten to the punch by Amadeus! Ignosce mihi cum scilicet sit celer callidusque Amadeus!
I think writing out your lessons could only help you. It slows you down, and it forces you to think of the Latin syntax sequentially.
Scribendum cursus tibi solum auxilium fore opinor. Haec consuetudo tibi tarde discere, et latinitatis composituram in ordine cogitare oportet.
Generally, the more you repeat any of your lessons the better. If you really want to nail it, read passages outloud.
Plerumque, saepius cursum tuum repetit melior fit. Discendum in repetendo est. Si admodum studii momentum capere velis, voce repete eundem cursum.
A professor of mine told my class of late professor D.R. Shackleton Bailey, one of the best Latinists, Ciceronians, and textual-critics of our time. When learning Latin as a schoolboy he used the following technique: first he’d read through the text until the end; second, he’d look up all the vocabulary and work out any difficult grammar; third, he’d reread the text outloud, so that he would be committing the Latin meanings and constructions to memory, and not English equivalents.
Magister quidam illo de Shackletone Bailiense magistro, vir Ciceronianus, criticus, hoc latinitatis tempore doctissimus, cum decuria mea egit. Ille, cum adulescens Latinam disceret, hoc ratione usus est: primum, textus adusque legit; secundum, vocabulariis difficultatibusque grammaticis scrutatis, iterum voce clare legit. Hoc in modo sententias in mente fixit ut latina non anglice intellexisset.
Had a good day celebrating St Patrick’s Day yesterday. Thanks, Interaxus, for your very kind words, which I know congratulate more the effort made than any success in expression. At least, when you have both languages side by side, the deficiencies in Latinity are more readily apparent.
Heri festum Santi Patricii (Hiberniae patroni sancti) celebrabam et bonus dies erat. Verba tua benignissima, Interaxe, me valdè adhortantur quia te conatum enuntiandi quem demonstro potiùs quam eventum plaudere scio. Ambabus linguis constratis, latere ad latus, defectiones latinitatis apertiùs saltem videantur.
(Somehow an earlier version of this reply didn’t get saved.)
This has been an interesting and useful discussion for me. I’d never heard of the Dowling Method, although I’d more or less following it working my way through Wheelock (twice), writing down just about everything, both in Latin and in English translation.
With LL I’d been a bit more casual, just reading the texts carefully, but skipping the Pensum sections and other exercises. According to Dowling, this isn’t a good idea, so perhaps I need to be a bit more diligent. I know that writing out the Latin is a useful part of the learning process — just a bit slower.
Someone mentioned having used the Oxford Latin Course. I went through the Cambridge Latin Course. How similar are the two?
As for transcribing from the book… Is this different than copying? I mean, I can copy a text without really thinking about it (especially if I’m typing). And that doesn’t seem very useful.
Hi
As for transcribing from the book… Is this different than copying?
Copying and transcribing are the same. I have no experience with Cambridge; I admire the Oxford method exceedingly. Nevertheless I get the impresssion the two might be similar. Ditto for Ecce Romani.
I think Oxford and LL are similar methods although this is not apparent to many.
You can do lots of things without thinking about them, but the key here is concentrating. Concentrate on transcribing/copying the LL texts and you’ll do fine.
Yes, read a sentence, and memorize it sufficiently so you can type it without looking back at the book. It can be very challenging, and will ingrain that Latin quite well.
Completely agree, Lucus. On the subject of copying, the sad thing about this technique is that some associate it with punishment at school and/or with lazy teaching practice. But as you and others say here, it is helpful and rewarding as an aid to memory, alongside keeping a notebook. I would be inclined to believe that writing on paper may be more reinforcing than typing to screen, but I don’t know of any studies on this, which isn’t surprising since the copying technique is regrettably not fashionable.
What Lucus is saying on copying as a learning technique is called “delayed copying”, which is particularly useful for the self-learner (Hill, L.A., “Delayed Copying”, ELT Journal, 23, 238-239, 1969, and mentioned in Nation, I.S.P., Learning Vocabulary in Another Language, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p.341). Rather than just copy out a text word by word, it is better if you try to remember as large a chunk as possible and then transcribe it without looking at the text, other than to check back afterwards, of course, or if your memory fails.
Rectè dicis, Luce. De exscribendo dicens, res deplorandi est nonnullos illam consuetudinem habere vel castigationis in ludo vel docendi ignavi signum. Atenim sicut tu et alii hic dicitis, actus exscribendi memoriam adjuvat, nihilominùs et commentarios tenens. Eò magìs adducor ut credam in chartam scribere oportuniùs memoriae esse quà m dactylographare. Nescio autem de hac re aliquod studium, necnon mirum mihi videri debet quia consuetudo exscribendi in morem non est, quod me paenitet.
Cum scribendo, non inutile est, propriè in discendi independentis casu, exercito “exscribendi dilati” (sicut Lucus describit). Potiùs quam textum verbatim exscribere, meliùs est, apud auctores suprà citandos (et quos ego accordo), te locos quà m maximos memorare, et deinde solùm exscribere et dumtaxat sine verba initialia adspectanti, nisi tandem opus attestari aut quidem si memoria tibi deficiat.
Hi all,
My year-long intensive Latin course starts in two weeks at NYU, and I was thinking of starting a new thread with a question. However, this thread is in the direction of what I wanted to ask. So let me start with this excellent recommendation by poster Ken:
If I read Cicero (I assume from a Loeb or similar text) what might I reasonably expect to progress to after that? If this seems premature, it’s not, because I would like to have something to look forward to. The proverbial carrot, if you will.
Would Ovid’s Metamorphoses be too hard? Virgil’s Aeneid? I adore them both in English translation.
I expect to make fast progress but want to make sure I don’t pick up anything too tough for someone immersed in Latin for a year. I’m a good student, a hard worker, but no Michael Ventris.
Recommendations and remonstrations are welcome.
Best,
K
I imagine the spirit of the original poster’s suggestion was to be reading some connected and unaltered Latin text, even before one is able to understand it fully without the English help, so as to be exposed to the rhythm and cadence of the period and the ‘feel’ of Latin idiom, & c.: a suggestion I heartily second. There’s nothing special about Cicero, for this purpose; you could use Suetonius, Seneca, or Sallust with just as much benefit (though it might be a good idea to wait on the poetry until you have a grasp of metre).
From my own experience as a beginner, I would suggest Cicero’s philosophical works -mainly his Academica. I am now with LLPSI II and have no troubles with vocabulary nor comprehension either.
One of my students has come up with a translation that she must have found somewhere for Capitulum V; it has “thy” in it, and other words I know she doesn’t know.
Where did she find it?