I am a beginner learner in Latin, using Wheelock’s. I have never really studied a language before having only experience of learning French at school and I was not enthusiastic about it all those years ago. My family are now amazed that I am learning Latin. I became interested through my master’s degree at which I had to look at some basic Latin and it also feeds into my first degree in which I studied History and English Literature.
I am really enjoying learning Latin and I try to find time several times a week developing my skills.
Seems like there are some overlaps between your background and mine.
Like you, Wheelock is my primary text. I have gone through it once and am going through it again with the aim of not only doing each chapter, but also the short translations at the end of the book. After that, I think I’ll try out the Wheelock Reader before jumping to any original texts.
I got my Master’s from St. John’s College, a Great Books school. There we covered the greatest writers in fields like Literature, History, Philosophy, Math and Science. Sounds similar to your background too. In fact, I would image most on this site have that kind of background.
I am also pursuing French, but, by the sound of it, you might not be!
Last, while this is a bit of a stretch, my favorite pet was a Lancashire Heeler. Not sure if they originate from your part of the world, but quite a coincidence if that is the case!
If you are interested, I’d be curious to know how you are going through Wheelock. I have my own technique and am interested to hear how others are learning from the same textbook.
Thank you for welcoming me ‘bedwere’ and ‘iamrian’.
iamrian- I had to learn some Latin during my master’s as I needed to be able to read old documents which were in Latin. Definitely not pursing French, my experiences at school regarding French weren’t great. Also I wasn’t really interested in French back then.
I am on the dyslexic spectrum (with visual stress too) and so finding it hard to learn Latin, but I am determined as I enjoy it. So I follow a spiral learning method. I am up to Chapter 12 of Wheelock, but plan to recap the last few chapters over Christmas. Chapters 9 and 11 were soooo difficult. I have also started OCR Latin to GCSE to help me in the spiral learning. This involves revisiting concepts already visited to help me embed them. I was never diagnosed with dyslexia at school or college, despite one teacher wanting me to be tested (the powers that be refused). My son has been diagnosed with dyslexia and visual stress, which is when I realised that I too have visual stress. I now use coloured paper and overlays.
I work through Wheelock, complete the exercises in the back, then the exercises in the workbook before tackling the questions at the end of the chapter. I also make my own revision cards- on coloured card It would be great to hear your strategy or any others as that may help me along my learning path.
While you have your challenge of dyslexia, I have the all-too-common complaint of a bad memory! While I am only in my mid-thirties, I swear that if I did not create a hundred reminders for myself on my phone I would end up going home to the wrong house! There have even been times when I have created a reminder for myself, read it, marked it as complete, and then forgot to do what I reminded myself to do! So the idea of someone like me committing to memory the demonstrative pronouns of Latin (not to mention the gargantuan task of memorizing verb forms) seems rather ridiculous. And yet, it is a path I have chosen for myself. I can’t imagine adding your challenge to the already difficult task of an ancient language.
Good for you!
Your method sounds like a solid one. I am on my second round of going through Wheelock and I too have created color-coded flashcards for myself. My current method is to work through the “Sententiae Antiquae”, make flashcards of important points of grammar, and then work on each paradigm that comes my way. I am also making flashcards for Latin sentences that I find charming, like “festina lente” (make haste, slowly).
It has occurred to me that language learning is very much like math. If you hurry onto the next section without learning what is before, you will only find yourself baffled by what is next on account of exactly what you didn’t take the time to learn before. My determination this time around is not to move to the next chapter of Wheelock until I really feel confident with the chapter I am in. That takes patience, but I can already feel a stronger foundation forming underneath me.
Many thanks for your reply and kind words. I like your idea of making Flashcards for the sentences that you like. I agree that if you are too eager to move on then there is a danger of not really learning the concept. The Latin demonstratives are really hard to commit to memory and trying to learn them is one of my goals this Christmas. I think that if I don’t embed the skills from Chapters 9 to 12 it will become more difficult as I move forwards.
Good luck with your learning path and have a good Christmas.
It would be great to hear your strategy or any others as that may help me along my learning path.