My progress in Latin, and how I might do it differently, if. . . .

Latin Learning Latin
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I started working on Latin in 2009, when I was fretting too much about the first health scare of old age. Needing an absorbing diversion, I decided to take up Latin. At that time, I thought that the two years of high-school Latin studied in the middle 1950s would come back to me. Under that illusion, I bought a second-hand copy of one of the Loeb volumes of Cicero and a student dictionary. I imagined that if I looked up the words, and checked them against forms tables, the grammar would return. Wrong!

Because the grammar and vocabulary refused to come back, I started over with Moreland and Fleischer, and then turned to Latin classics. Since then I’ve read Caesar, a good bit of Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Boethius, some Augustine, and some other authors. In all that time since 2009 I have not read in company with another person, not a single time. A look at my textkit profile shows that I’ve been a regular since 2010. I have read Latin classics exclusively, nearly always in the Loeb volumes. They cost me about $25 US each, but one lasts for a long time. In the years since 2009, I believe I have missed no more than fifty days of study.

So where am I now? I can sight-read Steadman’s edition of Fabulae ab urbe condita pretty well. Cicero is still a challenge, but I always know what I need to do with a resisting sentence. Nearly always, with almost any prose author, when I read the English translation I see the Latin grammar of the difficult sentence fall into place.

My next stage in difficult prose reading is to go beyond grasping the literal meaning, sentence-by-sentence. One wants to spot figurative meanings, and see how the sentence under study relates to what came before and to speculate intelligently on what might come up in subsequent sentences.

So far, Horace is the most difficult author I’ve read. I’ve read a little of Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, and for some reason I find his prose difficult. Although I’ve seen Suetonius recommended as an easy author, I find him difficult.

If I could go back to the beginning of my Latin study, I’d begin in accordance with comprehensible input principles, while working a little on grammar. I believe that less attention on classic authors and more on comprehensible input in the first two or three years would be more efficient.

Besides that, I’d pick out some Latin authors I hoped to read, and read biographies, literary studies, and English translations of their works, before I ever attempted to read them in Latin.

Because I dislike memorizing in solitude, I’d try harder to find another person with whom to practice reciting the forms. Many kinds of arid drills become more bearable if done with others. If I still couldn’t find such a person, I’d look for some other gimmick to promote solitary memorizing. This is still an obstacle for me.

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I like these reports of yours if for no other reason that I’m sure it encourages others. Your journey is proof that Latin is attainable and enjoyable, even if the way you have gone about it might differ from the ways others go about it.

My next stage in difficult prose reading is to go beyond grasping the literal meaning, sentence-by-sentence. One wants to spot figurative meanings, and see how the sentence under study relates to what came before and to speculate intelligently on what might come up in subsequent sentences.

So far, Horace is the most difficult author I’ve read. I’ve read a little of Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, and for some reason I find his prose difficult. Although I’ve seen Suetonius recommended as an easy author, I find him difficult.

Whenever someone says an ancient author is easy, someone else will come along and say “Not for me!” Any ancient author who actually knew the language as a living language can present challenges, and silver age Latin can be quite different at times from golden age.

If I could go back to the beginning of my Latin study, I’d begin in accordance with comprehensible input principles, while working a little on grammar. I believe that less attention on classic authors and more on comprehensible input in the first two or three years would be more efficient.

This is precisely Ørberg’s approach in Lingua Latina. Lots of reading seeing grammar and syntax in context, and short sections of “Grammatica Latina.” I currently have a student, however, who claims he likes grammar the best. At the beginning of class the other day, he said “When are we actually going to see those future tense forms! I can’t wait.”

Besides that, I’d pick out some Latin authors I hoped to read, and read biographies, literary studies, and English translations of their works, before I ever attempted to read them in Latin.

If you are enthusiastic about an author it can make all the difference. Personally I like to dig into the author and then do all that other stuff you mention. Latina prima! But certainly prior familiarity can help greatly.

Because I dislike memorizing in solitude, I’d try harder to find another person with whom to practice reciting the forms. Many kinds of arid drills become more bearable if done with others. If I still couldn’t find such a person, I’d look for some other gimmick to promote solitary memorizing. This is still an obstacle for me.

What’s Latin for misery loves company? :slight_smile: What worked for me was saying the paradigms over and over until I could say them without looking, and writing them over and over until I could write them without looking, and then briefly reviewing them once a day for at least 6 weeks. Tedious, yes. Effective even more yes.

Here’s a reading strategy I found especially helpful for doing Tacitus’ Annales over the summer (I consider that difficult Latin):

  1. Read through the section rapidly making no attempt to translate, but seeing how much registers. Often it’s more than you think.

  2. As necessary, then go back and work through the text more carefully, using a dictionary and/or grammar. Take notes if you need to, but don’t write out a translation.

  3. When done with that, go back and re-read the text as in 1 above, but a little more slowly, aiming for understanding without translation.

  4. If necessary, have a look at commentaries and/or translations to vet what you have done.

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Barry wrote:

Here’s a reading strategy I found especially helpful for doing Tacitus’ Annales over the summer (I consider that difficult Latin):

  1. Read through the section rapidly making no attempt to translate, but seeing how much registers. Often it’s more than you think.

  2. As necessary, then go back and work through the text more carefully, using a dictionary and/or grammar. Take notes if you need to, but don’t write out a translation.

  3. When done with that, go back and re-read the text as in 1 above, but a little more slowly, aiming for understanding without translation.

  4. If necessary, have a look at commentaries and/or translations to vet what you have done.

Those look good. Many thanks.

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I do something similar to what Barry mentions, but in step 1 while reading through a section, I also make note of the words I do not know and then look those up afterwards. I find that the more I read, the fewer words are written down -until I have to put it down for a period of time.

In cases of words that I know but have multiple meanings and I am not sure which, I hold off on trying to figure out which until I go back. Doing that, I can generally tell by context.

I also try to avoid looking at something in terms of grammar, i.e. is this an ablative of this or an ablative of that. Because I learned Latin with Wheelock, which is pretty grammar intensive, that kind of thing is always floating around somewhere in my mind, so I often find that while I am reading the grammar terms will pop into my head as an, “okay that’s an ablative of whatever”.

I try more to read Latin in the same manner I read English now and I find it is much more enjoyable, because I often recognize why the author put a word where he did or why he phrased a statement the way he did. I also find I move through material much more rapidly.

Of course, when I hit something that stumps me I turn to a translation and, like you said, the grammar often becomes apparent.