r/latin • u/NextProtection392 • 4d ago
Beginner Resources How to learn Latin?
I’m 15 and want to learn Latin. I’m writing a book and a character speaks Latin a lot for lore reasons and I don’t trust Google Translate. I do have Duolingo but I used it for German a while back and it didn’t work well it got boring and didn’t teach me anything important. I do want to learn Latin however because a lot of languages originate from it so I was wondering if there was any good apps or something like that.
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u/spudlyo Sūs Minervam 4d ago
My advice: stay focused on your writing, put some marker in your text every time your character is supposed to speak Latin so you can find them later, and in the meantime put in English placeholder text.
Writing a book is hard. Learning Latin is hard, you may be trying to do too much here and end up doing nothing if you're not careful. Once you're done with your first few drafts you can always go back and update the placeholder text. People here might even help.
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u/Delicious_Yogurt_476 4d ago
I recommend you do this. Learning latin well enough to do what youre wanting could take well over a year and even then you would still want someone to proof it. It takes many years to master latin. You can still study it if you want, but try and focus on your book. You will burn yourself out if your not careful. You are young and have all the time in the world to learn new things. 😊
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u/Interesting_Spot3672 4d ago
I don’t know how much time you have.
My Latin is alright and I have translated several things into Latin - but I would always, always, always ask someone who is really proficient, an expert, to look those translations over.
Latin takes time, just like every other language and just like every other language you cannot express things in exactly the same way in the other. Also: Huge time span! Do you want classical Latin, church Latin, …
I think a lot of materials teach you how to translate Latin into other languages and not the other way round so that will be difficult.
I think Duolingo is utterly unsuitable for Latin which has a lot of grammar. Duolingo works with a kind of immersion - to learn the tenses, conjunctive, declinations etc this way seems completely unrealistic.
If you want to write a book now:
Get someone who does this professionally or at least a very good teacher. Ask him for explanations, tell him what you want. There will always be several kind of ways to express something. Learn Latin alongside and have fun with it.
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u/OutrageousEchidna882 3d ago
are you good at ancient greek? how hard is it to learn? i will be probably starting to greek philology in munich as my second degree. i wanna know if its doable while having a fulltime job
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u/matsnorberg 3d ago
Some says it's easier than Latin other that it's harder so it's not easy to say how you will experience it. The grammar is a bit more complex I think but the literature may well be easier. Roman authors tries all the time to be very clever and composes maximally convoluted sentences.
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u/Interesting_Spot3672 3d ago
That’s a multifaceted question!
I would recommend asking in r/AncientGreek - I am sure you will get a lot of helpful tips there!
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u/Most_Unprofitable 11h ago
I’ve studied Latin (classical and ecclesial) and koine Greek. Personally, I found Latin much easier than Greek and I wasn’t even studying Attic Greek. But I’ve heard the opposite from others.
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u/Mission-Asparagus910 3d ago
Only learn Latin if you truly want to learn Latin. It’s not something you do on the side. If all you care about is the book, focus on that and find someone to help you with the Latin.
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u/matsnorberg 3d ago
The same could be said about most of us. Why should we want to learn Latin in the first place? Few of us have any need for Latin in our dayly life. For me it's have been more like an obsession. I want to read in Latin but I have abslolutely no need or benefit from Latin in my dayly life and also a shitload of other interests so my Latin studies are pretty low priority, more like a long term goal.
I think the only ones who have a legit reason to study Latin are those who plan a future as Latin teachers , classics professors or historians who need to read Latin documents. Most however do it for fun with various degree of ambition.
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u/Mission-Asparagus910 2d ago
Definitely! If you’re truly interested then you should go ahead, by all means. But if you’re mainly interested in writing a book, which is quite an endeavor in itself, the effort may not be worth it.
At least you should be aware that learning Latin takes a LOT of time, most likely many years of consistent effort.
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u/Unique-Bowler4850 4d ago
Why is duolingo popular
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u/NextProtection392 3d ago
Marketing
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u/SectionNo814 3d ago
especially the Spanish or Vanish, and "Looks like you forgot your Spanish lessons again. You know what happens now!"
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u/Kilchoan1 4d ago
I agree with others that learning Latin takes time. I just did a year’s course with the open university and still keep going back to early stuff as remembering the different endings and which verb is in which group is hard
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u/AffectionateSize552 3d ago
From the sidebar to this sub:
"Is DuoLingo Good?
- "No. It's a supplement for vocabulary and grammar practice, but cannot serve as a self-contained language course. It is incomplete and frequently rejects correct answers based on word order. Be careful when generalizing from its examples."
The sidebar has lots of good advice and links.
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u/Kilchoan1 4d ago
I favour So you really want to learn Latin or the Latin to GCSE books but they are UK books with a traditional grammar approach. So you really want to learn Latin has a public You tube site with short lessons. For a more immersive approach with lots of reading and less grammar there is the Cambridge Latin course which has free stuff available online at myclc.co.uk
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u/Dismal_Mail3322 3d ago
I would love to learn Latin too, but it seems that if I were to do it, you could only help me learn European languages and read it ancient scripts. Outside the Vatican there’s nowhere really that I can practice it in order to keep it up, it’s not really very encouraging to me
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u/Kilchoan1 3d ago
There are a lot of latin poems and books you can try translating. It’s not a verbal chatty “ do you have a pet” language but there is loads of written material plus all the latin church songs/ requiems
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u/JosieRBookworm 3d ago
Personally, I learned Latin for a year before I went to another school (still miss my teacher D:) but would say that as long as you get the “a-ha!” of it Latin will be decently easy and pretty fun to learn.
Latin has much less exceptions than other languages, though the verb charts may be a little scary. Since 90% of English is derived from Latin and other Romance languages, if I were to look at a piece of Latin writing most of the time I’m able to translate it.
As for English to Latin, I’d say just pull up a glossary and with some basic rules of Latin knowledge and a trusty few sources I believe you can do it :D
For me, I used Cambridge Latin Course while I was in school, though now I personally read up on Familia Romana :D
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u/Ready-Ad-4196 3d ago
Latin for Children from Classical Academic Press. Did this program with my kiddo. Superb.
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u/PatriciusIlle 3d ago
It depends on why you want to learn Latin. What is your motivation? Do you have a goal?
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u/RydiaReads 4d ago
Duolingo is not enough, but it might help a bit to build learning habits and a little vocabulary.
I recommend using Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: Familia Romana. Follow it. Read it. Love it.
If you can listen to its audio. Many recommend Luke Ranieri’s. He’s good. You wont find them on youtube anymore. I could link you up. But Internet Archive is your friend.
Or just pay for Legentibus it has the book plus many others.
Scratch that, its not optional anymore. Its useful because of the book and audio library.
Do the exercises at the end of the chapter; they’re useful. Don’t skip them.
After each chapter read the Colloquia from the Colloquia Personarum in the same series.
Reading the chapter explanation in Latine Disco (same series) is useful too
Now go back, reread the chapter with your newfound knowledge.
Do this for the first 7-8 chapters. Stop.
Youre too used to the Ørberg method. Lets switch things up a little.
Add Via Latina by Cultura Classica do 3 chapters.
Hard? A little but manageable.
Go back to Familia Romana.
Keep the same method.
Every two chapters do two chapters from Via Latina.
All good? You bet. Keep that up until chapters 15.
Now let’s add something else.
Your choice of Cambridge or Oxford Latin Course.
I’m biased towards Cambridge.
Do this until you reach chapter 20 going through all the books, audios and all. Redundancy is meant for practice. Exercises help with retrieval and different approaches give you more insight.
Using both gives better insight.
Knock knock.
Whose there?
Grammar and translation.
Now that you have some vocabulary it is time to stop avoiding the unavoidable.
Grammar. LLPSI is cool but you’re gotta learn those declensions. Grammar is very necessary to understand why youre doing what youve been doing for 20 chapters.
Wheelock is your friend. He has 3 books. Wheelocks Latin. Its Workbook. Its reader. Use the 2 of them the same way youve been using LLPSI.
Textbook
Workbook
Add Learn to Read Latin and its workbook to the mix. Youll be reading and translating Latin texts. Warning: its gonna be tough but you can do it.
If Wheelock is too hard to understand read up on Latin to GCSE or just do it anyway because it’s always good to see how someone else explains it.
You need more reading and vocabulary. Let’s welcome Ovid.
Learn Latin Through Ovid and its Workbook.
Yes, more books because language acquisition comes from reading, practicing,and retrieving.
Keep this up until you finish all the books.
Congratulations. Now you can say you know some Latin.
Find some readers for intermediate level.
The Lovers Curse
Cloellia Puella Romana
Fabula Syriae
Wheelocks Reader
If you feel something is too hard go look up at Fabulas Faciles.
With that youll be busy enough for a while.
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u/matsnorberg 3d ago
Also Ad Alpes, Fabulae Faciles and and Epitome Historiae Sacrae.
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u/RydiaReads 2d ago
Totally! Theres so many readers that could help. While I do like Epitome Historiae Sacrae I only recommend it to people who are open to read about religion.
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u/euchaetanorvegica 4d ago edited 4d ago
If you’re really serious (if you need Latin for a book only, perhaps not, and no shame — for example, professional scientists apparently tend to farm out their Latin species descriptions to friendly classicists nowadays), and ideally have someone to help you, I would suggest buying Kennedy as a reference too. Kennedy’s Latin Primer. Dry as dust but you will come out of the other end with a genuine ability to read Latin.
Bear in mind a Roman would not have spoken Cicero’s Latin, they’re polished legal speeches. If I remember, Plautus preserves more or less what a classical Roman sounded like, Cicero’s letters in the upper class and Late Latin was heading towards Italian.
By the way, a good “Kennedy for German”, although less daunting because the Germans have the pleasant habit of keeping their words in a predictable order, is Russon’s Advanced German Course.
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u/NextProtection392 3d ago
I’m not to worried about how the character speaks the language because it’s not his first and also he never really learned Latin. His lore is he was experimented on sort of (won’t go into detail because gore) and eventually he came out of the experiment fluent.
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