The joys of self-study

Textkit Community Open Board
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Hello everybody,

I just want to introduce myself as a newcomer on Textkit - wonderful site - and share some of my experiences of approaching Latin through self-study, since I imagine many of you will have been through a similar process and may have valuable advice.

Somehow I managed to go through an entire educational system with no classical languages at all, only to discover much later in life that I really would have needed some solid background in Latin. My personal avocations revolve around the history of Western intellectual culture; lacking Latin is no big issue if you restrict yourself to, say, post-1750, but anything earlier requires the ability to read Latin. And I mean read, not laboriously decipher.

I’ve tried to make up for lost High School/college opportunities by studying on my own, beginning at a rather late time in life (in my 40s). First fighting my way through an elementary textbook, and then plunging into the first texts, realizing to my dismay that actual texts were about ten times as difficult as the reading passages I’d encountered and that sight-reading Latin is fiendishly difficult.

Vocabulary, grammar and syntax all conspire to make self-study slow and at times even frustrating in the extreme. Add to that the lack of anybody to guide me, once I finished the textbook, in what to do next. After tackling some passages of Caesar I thought I’d find some text that was less concerned with 50 ways to slaughter Germanic tribesmen, and tried reading Suetonius: a bit of juicy gossip on the lives of corrupt emperors. What I soon found out, is that Suetonius’ prose is utterly impenetrable for beginners. Same for Apuleius: a great novel (I’ve found out from translations!), but a vocabulary way beyond Wheelock-level proficiency, and sentences that seem to meander across half a page. So, back to Caesar and the tripartite Gaul.

Well, I’ll continue slugging along, and try to think less of how much there is left before being able to pick up a 16th century humanist Latin text and just read off the page what the author is saying, and more of how far I have after all come since “Lesson 1: The First Declension”. Linguistic genuises aside, we are all in the same boat, few people can have found Latin easy.

So: greetings to the community of Textkit users, who tread a similar path, per ardua ad (hopefully) astra… I’d be interested to hear of your experiences!

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waits for the inevitable recommendation of Lingua Latina :wink:

Welcome to the board!

Latin is indeed difficult to master on your own, but not impossible. I recommend getting some readers and slowly building up to the original texts.

This site has a lot of good materials:

http://www.bolchazy.com/

best of luck! :slight_smile:

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Hi and welcome Ohammer,

You will find, here in Textkit, always someone willing and with the knowledge to help you with any question about Latin. Questions of what book to study next usually are met with a debate from the community and you probably never get only one answer. That it isn’t bad since you will get many indications and reasons to choose from one of them or you will end choosing your own as mixture of the ones suggested.

I have been told that Medieval Latin is much easier then Classic, so maybe you already are able to read it well.

My final goal is to be able to read Classical Latin prose, starting with the 50 ways to slaughter Germanic tribes :laughing: , but I’m very far to be able to laboriously decipher any text. I’m finishing the “Latin for Beginners?, that can be download here in Textkit, and I will soon order “Lingua Latina? (I will let the ones that already know the book and that are strong adepts of it to talk about it). If you already finish Wheelock then probably the “Latin for Begginners? isn’t much use for you but you can always look at it, since it is free and a great book.

I think we can’t forget that to be able to read every Latin text is an enormous task, as we are talking of a time span of about 1700 years, and to not mention the Geographic question. I know I can’t read “Portuguese? written at 400 AD (well there weren’t Portuguese at that time, but you get my point).

Best luck with your studies and once more welcome to Textkit.

Andrus

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Don’t be so hard on yourself - I do this sometimes yet forget how far I have actually come. You should consider this too, and it is funny that you should mention Apuleius - if there is one author I have extreme difficulty in reading it is him - your comments about his vocabulary are my sentiments exactly. The same goes for Suetonius, whom I will NOT attempt reading for a long while. Just keep going and it is worth noting that the top classics universities expect a level of unseen ability nowhere near unadapted original Apuleius/Suetonius.

~E

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Welcome, ohammer.

I suggest you look here and here. Miraglia (representative of living Latinity, he is a fully fluent speaker) recommends Cambridge up to a point; he recommends Lingua Latina all the way, as a complete course which will get you where you want to be, without laboriously deciphering.

Whatever you decide to do, enjoy :wink:

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min ven, jeg er så glad for at du kom her, og gide du bliver! jeg har lige begyndt at lære dansk og skal behøve din hjælp fordi jeg elsker dit land!
beskyld, men jag vidste ikke at du boede i Danmark - din engelsk er udmærkt. latin er ikke let, men jeg skulle forsøge hjælpe dig hvis du har nogle problemer. (jeg siger ikke at jeg her inge problemer - jeg søger hjælpen af andre venner også!)

~E

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Welcome to Textkit!

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Western intellectual culture … what a broad, fascinating subject.

I suppose you don’t need Latin for Western intellectual culture pre-100 BC either - tis Greek you need then.

In any case, good luck!

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Thanks for the many suggestions.

The topic of medieval Latin that one of you (Andrus) mentioned as an easier accesss to latin is a thread in itself (and may of course have been discussed on this site many times before). IMO, some medieval Latin is very simple, some is not at all. Early writers such as Augustine are still so steeped in classical education that they write a prose as complex as any classical author.

Western intellectual culture – just my shorthand for an omnivorous interest in Medieval and Renaissance philosophy and religion. Greek is obviously relevant for the earlier background, but one difficult language (Latin) will be enough. Vita brevis, ars longa…

I’ve had a look at Lingua Latina, which seems to be an elementary level book (i.e.: anything that I can sight-read must by definition be elementary :smiley: ) Have any of you tried continuing with the follow-up volume Roma Aeterna? Any opinion on that book?

And to Episcopus: godt klaret, dit dansk er rigtig fint!

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Very sensible. Still, it’s remarkable that you have the drive to teach yourself Latin. Evidently it’s more than what your educational system could muster.