Salvete! That means “howdy, y’all” in Latin. This will be the first in a series of tips for learning Latin.
1. You will almost certainly be learning to read Latin, not to speak it.
Latin is one of the few languages that we learn primarily to read rather than to speak (there are, however, some excellent programs for spoken Latin, for example The Paideia Institute or Latinitium). This means that rather than depending on spoken practice and immersion, watching videos or movies in the language, or listening to songs, we depend almost entirely on our engagement with the written word.
2. Do your homework.
Seriously, do it. Unfortunately, rote memorization does seem to be the primary way that Latin is taught (besides, as mentioned above, in spoken Latin courses). The reality is that the study of Latin requires assiduous study, memorization, and repetition of a huge number of different word forms and endings. This is especially true as Latin is an inflected language, meaning that most words have a different ending or form depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. In English, we retain few inflected forms, notably pronouns, where for instance “she” is the form used for the subject and “her” for the object. This means that you will need to know many specific word forms (we call this “morphology”), and the only way to do that is by memorizing and practicing them. Once you do, however, it will all begin beautifully falling into place (and making sense in a way that modern English never could).
3. Rewire your brain to recognize Latin word order (and read to the end of every sentence before attempting to translate it)!
Because Latin is inflected, i.e. there are different endings depending on a word’s syntactical function, it depends less on word order for meaning than English does (a largely uninflected language). This does not mean that Latin words are placed at random, however. While in English we typically use SVO word order in a sentence (subject-verb-object, “Ash kicked the ball”), in Latin SOV is more common (subject-object-verb, “Ash the ball kicked”). This is by no means a hard and fast rule, but especially textbook Latin and simpler prose will follow this order. On the other hand, Latin poetry often deviates from this rule.
4. Find the verb, and the rest will follow.
After you read to the end of the sentence, find your verb. It may be lurking at the end of your sentence, as a German verb would (on account of the SOV word order). Once you find your verb, it will tell you whether the subject is singular or plural and when the action took place (the tense). Once the verb is found, the subject and object (typically nouns) easily follow, as these are distinguished by their different endings. This, incidentally, is why you need to memorize all of your verb and noun endings (and to read to the end of the sentence).
5. Make flash cards.
Quiz yourself (and others!) with your flashcards, front and back. Repeat ad nauseam (“to the point of nausea,” i.e. until you’re sick of it). It’ll work even if you don’t want it to.
6. Brush up on your English grammar.
I learned far more about English grammar (or grammar in general) in my study of Latin than in any English class I ever took. This will likely be the case for you unless you received a truly stellar education in English grammar. Still, it can be very beneficial coming into Latin with basic grammar and grammatical terminology under your belt: subject, object, verb, noun, adjective, adverb, preposition, clause, etc. You will thank me later. Your instructor will thank me. You are both welcome :)
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