Learning Latin with Audiobooks

I have been very happy with my German progress, mostly centered around listening to audiobooks that I already know in English. So far mostly Tolkien translated to German and various fairy tales.

I’d like to try something similar for Latin. What are good resources? On the Greek forum, mwh once recommended Wilfried Stroh, and he sounds good, but I don’t know the Aeneid well. What is available as far as simpler texts with good – fluent-sounding – audio?

While learning Greek, I found that I didn’t care nearly as much about vowel quality and consonant pronunciation, but what did matter a lot turned out to be vowel quantity and fluency of expression.

I applaud your decision to learn Latin, my friend. Are you going with the Classical or Ecclesiastical pronunciation? If, as I think, you opt for the Classical pronunciation, you may want to check first

http://latinumpodcast.blogspot.com/ (some stuff is free, the other is low cost).
http://www.discamus.com/nunc/index.html (free conversational Latin mp3, the book is on Amazon..)

For easy Ecclesiastical Latin, check the Gospel readings from:

https://vivariumnovum.it/risorse-didattiche/propria-formazione/audiolibri

There is a full recording of the Gospel with Spanish pronunciation, which I don’t like.

If other easy stuff comes into my mind, I’ll edit this post. In any case, if I can be of help in your study of Latin, just email me.


Useful thread on Textkit
http://discourse.textkit.com/t/audio/5616/1

Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata has corresponding audio recordings available in either pronunciation for download from amazon.

I spent some time yesterday going through Evan Der Millner’s videos, and I really enjoy what he’s doing.

However the Evangelium Matthaei from Vivarium Novium is probably going to be my listening for now. I think that I might be able to figure out a good deal of the vocabulary after a few listens.

You’re right that I’m interested in the classical pronunciation – but I didn’t see anything that was a straight audiobook on Evan’s page. Perhaps I didn’t look hard enough.

I posted the link to Latinum since I couldn’t find a recording of an easy text with which you would be familiar read in the Classical pronunciation.

Maybe these fables will be useful. You are probably familiar with the Greek original or the English translation:

http://muzyabra.com/mp3/laura-gibbs-download.html

Evan has an audio version of Cornelia, which is a fairly simple reader.

Evan (who goes by the name Metrodorus on this forum) also has a recording of the Latin reader ‘Ora Maritima’, and I believe, its sequel.

If you wanted to get started with Ora Maritima, the book can be obtained here:

https://archive.org/details/cu31924031202850

and Evan’s recording of it is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yalv1qqD-BM

I tried to download from the Discamus.com site that bedwere mentioned. For some reason my computer
filter showed it to be a “suspicious” site which might harm my computer. I know often such reports are
baseless, and the site certainly doesn’t look problematic. But just to play it safe, has anyone used the site without later problems?

I suggest bedwere’s recordings on Librivox, and the New Testament from http://www.bible.is. Italianate pronunciation for both, but perfectly acceptable since the stress accent is usually correct.

I downloaded the bible.is audio that Nesrad recommended. I listened through the first couple of chapters of Mark a few times, picking up pieces here and there. Today I listened to the Latin with a Greek bible in front of me, and I was able to pick up a great deal. I’m hopeful this works like it did with German (possibly better than my Greek, mostly just from listening).

After a longish break, I am back recording regularly for my YouTube channel - in the format of ‘thing of the day’, collected into playlists - currently - word of the day, fable of the day, psalm of the day, advanced latin, colloquium of the day etc. Some of this material is presented in Latin, and then in Latin-English, other material is Latin only.

someone had beat me to it*

@metrodorus – Thank you for all of the audio resources. The Latinum site is very impressive.

You might also be interested in this newly started Latin conversation podcast series, episode 1: http://quomododicitur.com/2016/06/13/qdp-ep-1-de-nominibus/