I would like to know what do you consider the most difficult thing about Latin?
Apart from reading, writing or speaking it? Mastering it.
Separatìm eum legere, scribere, loqui? Latinum domare.
Vocabulary, surely. No matter how many words I learn, there are always many more (true of any language).
Certo vocabularium. Cum multa verba discam, semper multa manent (cuiuslibet linguae idem dici potest).
Sure, thesaurus. In other languages, however, common usage will highlight archaic words and idioms. Nowadays Latin fluency is so uncommon that, without mastery, one can’t discrimate, so we try to swallow whole the vocabulary of many periods.
Ita est, thesaure. Aliis autem linguis, consuetudinis communis causâ archaica vocabula atque idiomata se ostendunt. Vix possible est his diebus vocabula insueta latinè discriminare, tam rarò exercitur illa lingua. Proinde nos integrum tot saeculorum vocabularium vorare conamur.
I think I agree with you all, mastering the vocabulary is probably the most difficult thing… It’s fairly straightforward to learn, say, the 90% or 95% most common words… But if you think of it like a bell curve, there is still an enormous amount of rare, poetic, or technical terms under those remaining 5% or 10%. Probably the only solution is just to keep reading and reading and reading lots of Latin - the more you read, the more it is reinforced.
It might also be interesting to point out what I think is NOT the most difficult thing about Latin: the word order. Beginners may find it frustrating that the words can come in seemingly any order (although in fact, certain orders are much more frequent than others), and modifiers can be far removed from their heads. But if you train yourself to read and mentally process the words in the order they come, you really can get used to it, and understand them the way a Latin speaker would. You even start to see the nuances and reasons why certain word orders are preferred in different contexts. Maybe the hardest thing, which I’m still working on, is to mentally process a line of poetry, in left-to-right order, on the first pass, correctly construing all modifiers with their heads. I find that I can do this sporadically, sometimes more often, sometimes less, particularly depending on the author and how familiar I am with his tendencies. But I would like to be able to do it consistently, (almost) all the time.
I’d like to echo these sentiments, as I agree completely. Word order is a difficulty at first, but with time it becomes more of a pleasure–it’s a special aspect of the language that you learn to appreciate.
I am also struggling to adjust my mental reading process. When it works–when you read a number of lines with everything clicking into place as you read–it’s magical, and you really get to enjoy the poetry at that point, which is lost when you’re trying to piece it together.
Has sententias dictare volo et ego qui assentior. Imprimis ordo verborum molestia esse videtur, atque dehinc fit magis voluptas. Hoc est linguae latinae propria indoles quam pedetemtim nobis validior placet.
Etiam ego modo carmina legendi potiri molior. At cum nonnullos versus feliciter legamus, paene magica fit voluptas. Tum poesi vere fruimur, haud idem cum caesim legimus.
My memory!
Hahahaha!!! I second tha… ummm, what was the question again?
True enough. Sometimes my memory forgets the meaning of a word, but doesn’t forget to torture me by remembering that I looked it up twice or thrice before!
An ill-prepared, disobedient mind rarely manages to successfully recall words not used frequently.
Mente parùm paratâ parenteque parsa verba pari parcè prosperè peractum est.
I do not believe, my dear Adrianus, it is a question of frequency but one of age!
Repetitio est mater memoriae.
I agree that preparation helps the memory, but repetition is the preparation. I’m not sure what disobedience (to what?) has to do with anything, except Adrianus being a prig.
Of course, age doesn’t help. Nor does having a mind that is not naturally geared towards the memorization of massive amounts of data. Some people just have a gift. Some of us, unfortunately, do not.
An ill-prepared, disobedient mind, very old and enfeebled by the never-ending nature of troubled experience, most rarely manages to successfully recall words not frequently used but previously browsed when looking up answers to questions.
Mente parùm paratâ parenteque pervetere perimbecillâque perturbatâ per peritiae perpetuitatem, parsa verba priùs prae percontationem perlustrata pari parcissimè prosperè peractum est.
People will always surprise you. From not knowing, insults! Yes, “prig” does begin with the letter “p”.
Semper sunt qui nos opprimant. Ex ignorantiâ injurias! Ita, “prig” anglicè per “p” litteram incipitur.
Yes, I am sometimes surprised at how quickly people become insulting in this forum. Thankfully it’s not as bad as the other one, http://www.latinforum.org.
Si Adriani procacitatis causam scire vultis, eius sententias latinas legatis oportet. Ut parum dicam, est litterarum causa.
And if you’re troubled by “an ill-prepared, disobedient mind,” I recommend practicing meditation. I recently started it, and it’s mind-training par excellence (I’m not sure if it has helped my Latin yet, but we’ll see!).
Si “mens imparata parum parens” vos sollicitat, commendo ut meditationem exercitetis. Nuper hac via ingredior atque mentem callide exercitat (utrum latinitatem callidius calleo anne, etiam inspiciendum est!).
OK. Let me fill in the spaces between the lines. The mind is an imperfect instrument that doesn’t always do what we want, especially with unusual words, so it needs trained or prepared. It gets worse as you get older, of course. Meditation is good preparation, sure, as Thesaurus says, but memory devices help too: repetition, singing, note-taking, memorable sentences, etc. I was composing a sentence with only the letter “p” for words I find hard to remember: “parco” “pareo”, “pario” “paro” and so on. My medium was the message. I have a hard time remembering everything and anything.
Licet. Ut spatia inter lineas impleam. Imperfecta est mens ut instrumentum. Interdùm facit aliter quàm velis, maximè cum verbis perraris. Tantùm senior fis, quantùm setius problema. Eâ ratione, mens paranda vel exercitanda est. Ut dicit Thesaurus meditatio mentem propitiat; articifia quoquè memoriae eam adjuvare possunt, uti repetitio, cantus, annotationes, sententiae memorabiles et caetera. Sententiam faciebam quae continet cum maximis vocabula difficilia ad mihi memorandum per “p” litteram incipientia. Medium mihi erat nuntium. Difficile est mihi ut memoriâ teneam aut omnes res aut ullam.
Adrianus:
Thanks for that priceless mnemonic!
Gigas phoberos:
What makes Latin ESPECIALLY difficult? I’d swear it was:
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THE INFLECTIONS. Latin words are like red-bottomed baboons in a green jungle to a colour-blind explorer. Getting the mind’s eye to take in AT ONE SWEEP all those red bottoms (inflections) in a sentence is what you have to aim at. This can only be done once you’ve assimilated a fairly large chunk of ‘the system’ (including vocab) and have thereby adjusted the wavelength(?) of your vision. Once you’ve gained ‘sweep’, wandering modifiers in poetry are just a hiccup away I’m sure.
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WORD LENGTH. It took me ages to feel comfortable with a simple word like ‘appropinquabat’. And fewer prepositions to act as traffic-police. In the beginning, the size of the bricks seem to make the wall in front of you (that paragraph of Latin) even more opaque and impenetrable than ever.
Excuse the muddled metaphors. 
Cheers,
Int
An ill-prepared, disobedient mind, very old and enfeebled by the never-ending nature of troubled experience, most rarely manages to successfully recall words not frequently used but previously browsed when looking up answers to questions.{quote]
Thank you for adding to the list my “old and enfeebled” mind. I feel better for that. 
However, for this … never-ending nature of troubled experience, … I serve the Risen Savior who gives life abundantly, mostly w/o troubled experiences due to the presence of His Comforter - the Holy Spirit!
But I do have an “an ill-prepared, disobedient very old” mind & that I willingly submit to the study of Latin henceforth for possible correction.
It seemed as though Adrianus was becoming insulting, by saying that anybody who has trouble memorizing has an ill-prepared and “disobedient” (un-disciplined?) mind. But maybe I pulled the trigger too quickly on the counter-insults? Maybe English is not Adrianus’ native language, in which case I should cut him some slack.