I am teaching Latin part -time, trying to complete certification. The director of my program sat in to observe my practice teaching recently & afterwards snarled at me for my pronunciation (She isn’t one of the people I studied Latin with). None of my instructors put a lot of emphasis on pronunciation, and I assumed, after @ five years of study, that the way I pronounce the words was a t least acceptable. Now, i’m concerned-Is there some standard, correct way of pronouncing Latin, & if so, how do you learn it? This person has a lot of influence on my finishing the program, and I’m not sure how to react-I certainly don’t want to mis-inform the students, but how do you improve your pronounciation? Anybody dealt with this before? Thanks.
Well, this is rather difficult to answer, since hearing how you are pronouncing the words would help, but I would recommend looking at Allen and Greenough 8 (the section on pronunciation).
Also you could listen to YLE radio’s Nuntii Latini: http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/audi/ and see how they are pronouncing the articles.
You also might ask her how she thinks you should be pronouncing things.
Shrug
Cheers!
You can also hear some of our own recordings at: http://discourse.textkit.com/t/audio/5616/1 Here you will hear at least three accents: Spanish (mine), Italian, American and American-Italian. You’ll have to search through the posts, though.
The most important thing, in my opinion, is pronouncing the accent, length, and elision correctly. I’m ambivalent on pronouncing u as either W or V, and one doesn’t always have to trill their R’s. The vowels also should all be clearly distinguished.
Hallo again, I have an Amazon link for you, if you’re interested. This morning Mark Miner, a Rhapsode came to our Greek class and he did an excellent job of reading the restored pronunciation in Greek. Well, he also does latin and did the companion cd to this book:
Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency
Cheers!
CanadianGirl,
You might do worse than listen to the amazing Laura Gibbs:
http://proverbs.bestlatin.net/audioproverb/2007/04/musica-laetitiae-comes-medicina-dolorum.html
‘Subscribe by email’ and you can listen to an audio recording of a fresh Latin proverb every breakfast. Her readings are very pleasant even though, as she freely admits, she does not concern herself with differentiating between long and short A (she has her reasons).
You could also listen to her rendition of Ritchie’s Fabulae Faciles. That might in fact be something for your students too.
Otherwise, follow Amadeus’ excellent advice.
Cheers,
Int
Gang-Thanks for the advice. I think probably the main problem is, for the last couple of years I have just been doing written translations, & not saying the words aloud. I will look into all this advice. I would really love to hear a rhapsode sometime! There is so much difference between reading a text and HEARING it. Thanks-Paige.