By way of introduction, I have a degree in Classics (to advanced level / research in both Latin and Greek) which I completed following three years of Latin and Greek (NT and Attic) in High School. I then, following a sojourn in Greece, (mis)spent a few years (3) failing to obtain a graduate degree in Byzantine and Modern Greek language / literature. Along the way, I managed to obtain a decent knowledge of German (reading), Italian (basic) and Spanish (conversational competence at this point and reasonably fluent reading).
The end point of the above academic summary was more than 30 years ago. Latin stopped 35 years ago. For a number of reasons, I can still make my way around most Greek from the New Testament to today without much difficulty. Latin not so much. Well, not at all, at least without excruciating effort.
I’m resurrecting the Latin and I have ideas about the best way to go about it. I wish to employ / adapt the Rassias method to make Latin reclamation fast and thorough. These ideas keep changing, naturally. I would not mind discussing with / learning from others. I am only interested in prose, including prose composition, history and oratory / rhetoric being my main reading interests.
I’m glad you posted about your interests. I too like to study languages, as I have been studying Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek, and some Hebrew lately. I’m mostly a beginner/intermediate in all of these, but I would like to discuss anything of interest.
I’m resurrecting the Latin and I have ideas about the best way to go about it.
You must do what you feel suits you best. I know nothing about the “Rassias method” but from what I read on the Dartmouth College website it seems to put some emphasis on drills. This could be a good thing and is undoubtedly important if one wishes to speak a foreign language.
Most of us learn latin to read rather than converse. It you have not come across the Oberg series Lingua Latina per se illustrata (LLPSI) I suggest you investigate the two books Familia Romana and Roma Aeterna. If you carefully read these and do the exercises in the accompanying Exercitia Latina I and II as well as the Pensa in each chapter I feel sure you would revive your Latin quite quickly. If you are interested in prose composition then you could supplement these books with North and Hilliard or any other prose composition book you prefer.
I think it is a pity you have decided to exclude verse from your areas of interest. Although I think students usually rush to read verse before they are ready to enjoy it, not reading it all is to deprive yourself of a great treasure. Latin verse is of course highly rhetorical, in fact as I am sure you know, the Roman education system made this inevitable. I think one can only have a partial view of Latin rhetorical practice if one eschews Virgil, Ovid and Seneca and Lucan. Indeed there is some evidence to suggest that prose writers were influenced by poetical works. For example Tacitus arguably draws on Seneca in his highly theatricalised account of the murder of Agrippina.
But all of that can wait until you have restored your knowledge of Latin. You can also supplement LLPSI with the Duolingo website which has a Latin course which seems pretty good for practicing vocabulary and grammatical forms, although one couldn’t use it to actually learn Latin, in my opinion. There is also a website Memrise which has a course designed to test vocabulary of LLPSI. These may be useful but are probably more helpful for a complete beginner.
Oh wow, thank you. I will get to all your recommendations right away.
I agree with you about verse. That was the problem with my high school and college Latin. It was all poetry. I’ve got personal reasons / professional reasons for the prose obsession.
Hello, I took Latin in 6th and 7th grades, then went on to study Spanish in high school, then majored in French and German in university, but only now at age 41 am I getting back to re-learning Latin!
Over the years I’ve talked to students from several countries about their experiences with language learning, and the most common issue was “we just did a lot of boring translation,” which is why I appreciated my teacher’s more conversational and lively method of teaching.
Good luck on whatever you do, I am looking to do some projects in the future using Latin language and ancient culture as well, but only have plans right now (but I have bought supplies to make papyrus scrolls and clothing which will be at least more accurate than the costumes available in many places).