To be honest, I didn’t find the other reading selections all that difficult and as I was using the book as a means to systematically review the grammar prior to reading Caesar rather than learning from scratch, the book was ideal. Aside from looking up words that I’d forgotten, reading the selections prior to Caesar went quite smoothly. As you mentioned, there are plenty of translations out there for Caesar, so when in doubt, I could go to Perseus and I’ll admit there were a few times when I was stumped in Caesar, particularly where he makes extensive use of indirect discourse as it’s easy to lose track of who said what or who did what to whom; however, usually slowing down and rereading the material several times was enough to get the meaning and if I still couldn’t figure it out, then and only then did I go to Perseus. Most of the reading, though, is like a sudoku puzzle-you know when you’ve solved it. I say that because quite often there are just a few ways that a sentence can make sense and fit the context of the rest of the section you’re reading. I also try to incorporate some of Hale’s techniques for reading Latin in my approach to the material. Here’s a link to a talk he gave on “The Art of Reading Latin”:
http://www.bu.edu/mahoa/hale_art.html
I found his ideas quite helpful. Hopefully they’ll help you develop a strategy for reading as well.
Interesting article by Hale, though never having learned Latin in high school or college, it didn’t have the
revelatory dimensions for me as it must have had for you. In order to suspend numerous interpretations in your head while you wait for the determining word requires much knowledge, more than I have except for simple sentences. In any case, the method is worth keeping in mind. I found Hale has a Latin Grammar book which I picked up from ABE for $4.00 (free shipping). I found one quite good review of it. It will be interesting to see if any mention of his method is found there.
Just an update on Hathitrust. There is a note dated March 4, 2019 on the SourceForge site you linked us to, Nesrad, that says due to changes at Hathitrust, this Download Helper app no longer works.
To my knowledge, there’s only three ways to download anything from Hathitrust. If you have a verifiable partner institution membership, such as I currently have from a local college, you can download the entire article or book as a pdf. (I don’t see a way for an individual to sign up for/pay for an individual membership unaffiliated with an institution.) Without that, anyone can still download individual pages, one at a time, as pdf’s. Lastly, of course, you can use screen grabbing software to capture a screen at a time; crude, but not bad if you wanted to paste a modest number of (uneditable) pages into, say, a Word document just to have them in one file (if you have pdf editing software that allows you to combine multiple pdf files into a single one, that would achieve the same thing).
I will lose my institutional access at the end of this semester, so if anyone does happen to know of a way to download entire articles as a pdf, I’d sure like to know.
Randy Gibbons
Hi pin130. I was looking for this thread because I wanted to refresh my memory on what it said about Hathitrust. But now that I’m looking at it, I see that I never noticed Aetos’ recommendation of the Hale method, which I heartily second. You wrote
In order to suspend numerous interpretations in your head while you wait for the determining word requires much knowledge
Yes, it assumes at the very least that you’ve mastered the paradigms. I’m sorry if I expressed myself a little harshly on that before, but IMHO, if you can’t do that then you’re wasting your time. Time, you suggest, that maybe you don’t have - understandable, but that’s life, there’s no silver bullet. Cycling through two then three then four grammars, two then three then four student editions of Caesar (or anything else) is just, well, spinning your wheels.
Back to Hale, though. It boils down to this: Grab your Caesar, read the first word. Stop and ask yourself what are the possibilities. For example, is the word a possible subject of the sentence (you have to know your paradigms)? Maybe even write the possibilities down at first. Then read the second word. Which possibilities does it eliminate, which new ones does it open up. Etc. Yes, initially it’s tedious and slow going, but the method is like an honest friend: It will tell you what you know and what you need to brush up on.
Continuing, let’s say at a certain point in your sentence the next word you unveil is cum. Does the meaning of the sentence so far allow for the possibility that cum is a preposition here? If so, which case(s) does the preposition cum govern? Is it also a possibility that it is introducing a subordinate clause (would a subordinate clause be allowed at this juncture in the sentence?)? If so, what are the kinds of subordinate clauses used with cum? Which kinds take an indicative, which ones a subjunctive, and of which tenses? Of those possibilities, which ones simply feel more likely in the context? Rather than passively reading a grammar or commentary or translation (and then, as you say, forgetting what you read), you are interactively learning the language in a way you’re much more likely to internalize and remember. Most importantly, you’ll be learning to read it and appreciate it in the order the author intended.
(I blogged something about Hale a few years back, which is why this finally caught my eye. I was largely experimenting with the application of Hale and an associated method to Greek as well as to Latin. Here it is, if it’s of any use to you.)
Meanwhile, here’s hoping you and Caesar have made some satisfying progress!
Once again,
Textkit, and these forums in particular continue to impress with their generosity and their learning. Excellent thread!
Cathexis
Pin130,
I’ve struggled with paradigms and Latin in general too. Have you tried the Dowling method?
http://www.wcdrutgers.net/Latin.htm
I found it to be excellent advice. I keep the exercises in the back of my work binder and then write out the paradigms if I’m stuck in a meeting or conference call. It’s a better use of my time, it brightens my time, and it improves my proficiency.
Also, Rusty Mason has a nice listing of paradigms for daily chanting here:
http://www.rustymason.com/latin/daily_latin_chants.pdf
I’ve found that I have an easier time memorizing paradigms if they are laid out horizontally instead of vertically.
I also recommend the link of RandyGibbons that he posted. It’s excellent.
Nice work, Randy!
Here are some things that helped me.
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Write out by hand the paradigms again and again.
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Speak the paradigms aloud, in a singsong way.
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I nearly always read the Loeb Classical Library texts. At first I covered the English translation with a card, but now I’ve learned, by focusing my attention on the Latin, not to see the translation until I need it. Because I read Latin very slowly, this is not a big expense.
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I used William Whitaker’s Words program, not just for lookups, but also for self-testing. For example, I challenge myself to spell the dative singular of femina, type it in the program, hit enter and see if I got it right.
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If a long sentence overwhelms me, I write it out longhand, breaking the lines at grammatical breaks.
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I find John Traupman’s student dictionary helpful. First, it’s mass-market paperback, about $6.00 US new. It includes proper names. The first 30 pages or so lay out paradigm tables. I have also used Gaffiot’s student dictionary in French. Gaffiot has very well-chosen examples, and they are all translated, into French of course.
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Sometimes, by typing a hard phrase in the google search box, I find a link to commentary on just that text.
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Sometimes, I read a text at https://www.thelatinlibrary.com. I copy a passage into a text editor (or word processor), break the lines into grammatical units, and type in little notes about the grammar. I don’t save this material, but I believe in writing to learn. For Latin classics, one can always find an English translation online, and sometimes you can find a helpful older commentary.
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I the early days, I used Caesar’s Gallic War Completely Parsed, which can be read here: https://archive.org/details/CommentariesOnTheGallicWarCaesarCompletelyParsedBookI/page/n7
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Only recently have I started trying to conform to “The Ten Basic Reading Rules for Latin”. If I could start over again, moving back some years in time, I’d do this from the beginning. You can find this here: https://www.cornellcollege.edu/classical_studies/latin/Reading%20&Translating%20Rules.pdf
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I find Allen and Greenough’s grammar very helpful. It prints tons of examples, and they are all translated. (One of my pet peeves is a dictionary entry whose untranslated examples are too hard for me.)
If I could start over again, moving back some years in time, I’d do this from the beginning.
Amen. Again, I highly recommending getting Hoyos’ complete pamphlet.
Salve,
Just wanted to add an extra thanks to HumilisAuditor for his links which lead to the online “Dowling Wheel.”
The only thing I could fault the more traditional method of Dowling (writing out by hand) is that the slow
creep of arthritis of my writing hand’s thumb means copying out even a single page can get painful.
The Dowling Wheel bypasses that and is just as helpful for memorizing the forms. I am grateful.
Thank you,
Cathexis/Andrew
I will echo hlawson38 and RandyGibbons. After discovering Hoyos and using his approach I have gotten much more enjoyment out of reading Latin. I have since read through De Bello Gallico Book 1, In Catilinam 1, Livy Book 1, Aeneid Books 1 and 2, reading about 30 minutes a day. I am currently working on Livy Book 2 and Sallust’s Bellum Catalinae.
There is apparently another book that has an explicit discussion about reading word-by-word. Latin, A Structural Approach, by Sweet. There is a scan on the archive (https://archive.org/details/latinstructurala00swee/), but it’s not freely available - you have “check it out”. I currently have it checked out, not clear if more than more person can check it out at a time.
From pages 34 - 35:
Analysis of Basic Sentences
We will now analyze the utterances word by word, observing > both > the lexical meaning and the structural meaning. For a Latin subject, give an English subject, something that fits into the frame > A ____ does something> ; for a Latin object give an English object, something that fits into the frame > _Somebody (Something) does something to a _____> . > Vestis > therefore means > Clothing does something> , while > vestem > means > Something > or > Somebody does something to clothing> .
…
Now go through the Basic Sentences with your teacher by metaphrasing. > Metaphrasing > is the technique of showing both lexical and structural meaning of each item as it occurs.
For outside work, review this metaphrasing. Then commit the ten Basic Sentences to memory. To help you practice metaphrasing at home, here is an analysis of each sentence:
Vestis …
Clothes > do something
Vestis virum …
Clothes ____ > the man> , Clothes do something to > the man
Vestis virum facit
Clothes > make > the man.Furem …
Something happens to a > thief
Furem fur …
A thief > does something to another thief.
Furem fur congnoscit …
A thief > recognizes > another thief.
Furem fur cognoscit et …
A thief recognizes another thief, > and > something else happens.
Furem fur cognoscit et lupum
A thief recognizes another thief, and something happens to a > wolf> .
Furem fur cognoscit et lupum lupus.
A thief recognizes another thief, and a > wolf > does something to another wolf.In a situation like this, where there is no verb, we infer that the verb is so obvious that no information would have been added if we had included it. What is the only verb in the world that would fit into this frame?
(He continues with more examples, and there are other examples later in the book).
Hi, Danbek.
That looks interesting.
I read what I think is an early version (graduate thesis?) of Latin a Structural Approach (LASA).
I think only one person at a time can check that book out. I just tried.
Thank you danbek and HumilisAuditor for calling my attention to Waldo Sweet’s Latin: A Structural Approach.
I was curious enough to get my hands on a used copy (2nd ed., 1966; unfortunately, while the book is apparently still in print, it is prohibitively expensive). It is, as you aptly pointed out, similar to Hale and Hoyos, especially Hale. It’s first sentence, in its Introduction, is LANGUAGES ARE DIFFERENT (authors’ caps). Very similar to Hale’s “The Latin sentence is constructed upon a plan entirely different from that of the English”. Sweet uses structural linguistics, in a digestible, not heavy-handed way, to illustrate this. Most importantly (for me), its approach to teaching Latin proceeds on the premise that Latin is structurally quite dissimilar to English, specifically, IN LATIN, WORD ORDER IS NOT STRUCTURALLY SIGNIFICANT (again authors’ caps). This is illustrated initially with the utterances (a technical term in structural linguistics) vestis virum reddit, virum reddit vestis, vestem reddit vir, reddit virum vestis, virum vestis reddit.
Picturing myself in Hale or Sweet’s classroom makes me wish I was learning Latin all over again. Because I think I would have been learning Latin, not the Latin equivalent of English.
Do either of you (danbek and HumilisAuditor) or does anyone else happen to know if Sweet’s textbook or at least his approach is being used anywhere today?
R
Randy, Many of Sweet’s instructional books are on sale here:
Hi, Randy. I don’t know. Waldo Sweet greatly influenced the University of Michigan Latin program, so I would imagine someone who went there would be able to speak to his influence better. He also wrote the Artes Latinae textbooks, as mentioned above.
Nesrad » Wed Aug 15, 2018 3:12 am wrote:
"To save you and others the trouble, I’ve gone ahead and uploaded it to the Internet Archive, as I should have a while ago. "
It’s best for learners to try reading Ad Alpes on its own but, if you get stuck or are slowed down by vocabulary problems, I am gradually uploading the text with interlinear translation to my own site and have now reached chapter 22. The completed chapters are in three Word files downloadable from
https://linguae.weebly.com/ad-alpes.html
You may be interested joining the transcribe project on Distributed Proofreaders Canada:
https://www.pgdpcanada.net/c/project.php?projectid=p180716001
Can I reuse your audio files? Or at least, take the first chapter as an example of your reading, with proper crediting of course?
THIS is called reading Caesar: James O’Donnell’s new translation of the Gallic Wars, with a must-read introduction.