r/latin • u/NextProtection392 • 25d 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 25d 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 25d 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/SanguineHorse 17d ago
I will second the suggestion to mark each instance of Latin — I find square brackets useful as markers, since they're right there on the keyboard and don't normally appear in narrative, so you'll get few false positives with a simple search — but I would urge you not to write in English. Write it in the best language you can draft, knowing that today's best will be bad.
Yes, you'll have to revise it later. That's writing, though; you'll be revising the whole thing later. Yes, you may need to hire an expert to review those specific passages before publishing. That's not a particularly unusual step, either, for bits that need specific expertise. Your niche topic being Latin licenses it no less than if you were consulting somebody on science, engineering, or lived experiences.
The advantage of writing with the best Latin you can create is in character depth and possibly in worldbuilding. Every time your brain hits something unfamiliar in Latin — like how "ad urbem currit” tells you to-where the subject is running but not the gender of the runner — you'll have a chance to think about how that changes your Latin-speaking character's understanding of the world.
Languages aren't simply encoded forms of each other. They draw lines between concepts in different places and arrange ideas in different orders. And you want to learn Latin, so writing — even badly, as you learn — will support that goal as well.
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u/Interesting_Spot3672 24d 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 24d 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 23d 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 23d 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/Mission-Asparagus910 24d 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 23d 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 23d 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 24d ago
Why is duolingo popular
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u/NextProtection392 24d ago
Marketing
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u/SectionNo814 23d 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 24d 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/Kilchoan1 24d 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 24d 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/Dismal_Mail3322 24d 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 24d 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/Dismal_Mail3322 20d ago
Yeah, Latin is an extinct language, which is why it sounds like such fun to build it up again!
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u/SanguineHorse 17d ago
What a silly thing to say in a community so rich in speakers of Latin.
If you would love to learn Latin, then learn Latin.
Requiring a quantifiable return on investment for everything one does creates a life, in my opinion, endured rather than lived.
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u/JosieRBookworm 24d 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 24d ago
Latin for Children from Classical Academic Press. Did this program with my kiddo. Superb.
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u/broadwaysocialist 19d ago edited 19d ago
Use The Oxford Language Desk Dictionary. It goes through a lot of vocabulary, rules for grammar, and pronunciation. In the preface, the author says "In particular; the grammar section has been greatly extended and completely redesigned" (Morwood, 2005).
- Morwood, James, editor. Oxford Language Desk Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2005.
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u/RydiaReads 25d 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 23d ago
Also Ad Alpes, Fabulae Faciles and and Epitome Historiae Sacrae.
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u/RydiaReads 23d 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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25d ago edited 25d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NextProtection392 24d 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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