Does the Grammar-Translation method work for Latin & Greek? (Rant)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
- I'm probably going to offend the die-hard fans of Grammar-Translation, but I've come to realise it doesn't do the job it promises. It fills you with a false sense of progress but your actual langauage ability only really comes from the reading and listening you do in the target language. Incidentally, people can become good at languages during or after attending G-T classes, but it is in spite of rather than because of such methods.
I don't agree anymore with what I said six years ago in 2015, but if you want to watch me manhandle Latin textbooks while praising grammar for 8 minutes, here is my old video: • Grammar or reading: Wh...
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 76 | คู่เอก "ผึ้งหลวง vs สมิงดำ"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9SBshmGQOIM/mqdefault.jpg)
I can sight read Latin. How did I do it? I used Wheelock first, then when I completed it I used LLPSI - Familia Romana. Then, I read through all three volumes of the Oxford Latin Course (just the readings and vocabulary - I did not do the exercises). I also read other things - many readings from old textbooks available on Internet Archive. And when I say "old" I mean OLD - textbooks and readers from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. So don't limit yourself to one textbook or style of learning - use multiple books/methods.
takes time but worth it!
That's what I'm so confused about this whole argument lol. Just do both. You need both. It's so silly. Learn the grammar and than acquisition comes from pure volume reading.
The obvious question isn't which one to do, it's how much of each to do. Sure, do both, but how much of each and when?
@@6Uncles 80 % reading, 20 % grammar study...for example. True acquisition comes from lots of reading. Grammar knowledge is only an instrument to make a text more comprehensible.
@@Laocoon283 right. Seems to me like you can posses the same bite of knowledge both implicitly and explicitly
Gratias! As someone who was raised monolingual in English and who now speaks seven to eleven languages (depending on level of fluency), this video very much matches my experience of learning modern languages as well. My wife and I are raising our kids multilingual, and it's involved me exclusively speaking to them in the foreign languages and a lot of reading, but as a result, they actually *use* the languages, with me and with each other. They read long books freely in any of the languages that they know (for example, they've read the Hobbit, works by George MacDonald, CS Lewis, Nancy Drew, etc. in either Spanish or Russian). They take pleasure in the languages because they're not just a series of abstract rules that we're imposing on them, but something that they comprehend and make active use of.
In our homeschooling curriculum, it recommends teaching Latin, but the books it recommends are all GT method, and I think that would be a waste of time. Instead, we're doing spoken Latin together and using it practically around the house, as well as reading, and it's only been a few weeks but they're really taking to it.
I *love* languages and all the doors they can open into other people and other aspects of the human experience, and it's a source of great regret to me that we teach them so badly that so many people are convinced that they're bad at languages and that languages are impossible to learn well. We could do so much better! Language learning can actually be really easy, if we just took a better approach to it.
I learned Ancient Greek under the grammar translation method and studied it for a decade before discovering the "natural approach" to language acquisition. I could translate a text just fine, but I couldn't read a sentence of it with any level of fluency. After ONE YEAR of switching up my study method I feel I've advanced more in "acquiring" Greek than I did in the prior 10 years, and it's left me quite frustrated with the way most courses are taught. I sympathize with your rant!
Any advice on how to learn koine through the acquisition method?
Thanks for these very insightful videos!
For my own perspective, I started off doing the pure Lingua Latina way and was finding that I was just not understanding the intricacies of the grammar (my Arabic proved way more useful than English in picking up much at all). So thankfully I stumbled across the Ranieri-Dowling method which seems to take the best from the Comprehensive Input and Grammar-Translation methods (basically understanding the grammar and doing route memorization of it BEFORE reading Lingua Latina) and I've found that to be a thousand times better than just reading Lingua Latina on its own and trying to figure out the rules of grammar from the text (many of which I later realized completely went over my head).
Memorizing the vocab and doing the Exercitia (once you've learned and memorized the grammar well) prior to reading the chapter allows me to thoroughly enjoy the story and put what I've learned into practical use and thankfully cement what I learned.
Also keeping a journal and practicing writing in Latin is a must to turn your passive learning into active.
I know this method is so counter to the advertised method of Lingua Latina, but I've found it usefully in helping one know the rules of grammar well while also benefitting from the sheer amount of reading and graded vocabulary that Lingua Latina provides (and Prof. Llewellyn was right about Prof. Ørberg being very sensitive in his writing).
I remain a little hesitant about the extent of how much memorisation is done in the Dowling method - personally I do get students to remember some of the key patterns that always repeat, like the personal verb endings (o, s, t, mus, tis, nt) and the case endings of the first three declensions, and then learn to recognise/apply the patterns when the variations occur, and to notice variations, rather than to memorise all lists with equal priority. I think that there can be a use for memorising the case endings, especially since case endings seem to be a late acquired feature under natural conditions. But I think Dowling-ing every single table 100 times is more likely to turn away non-committed language learners (thus "proving" the efficacy of the method, as the committed language learners are more likely to be successful, skewing the sample data) than to provide help for most language learners that is proportional to the effort they put into it. But in any case, it clearly worked out well for you and I'm glad that it helped you! When it's your own language learning, it doesn't matter if something is statistically likely to work or not, just as long as it did work for you.
@@FoundinAntiquity Oh yea, I definitely didn't do each one 100x. Just the ones I found relevant and different (declinations, qui, hic, is, -ior, depondent) as they appear maybe like 20-50x each depending on how quickly I got it, as well as practice with websites that have you fill them in.
The actual brute writing doesn't take too long; the real benefit is in the practice (either re-writing or using the practice websites) a few minutes a day over a number of days and weeks to turn that short-term memory into long-term.
And yea it's much tougher as a teacher with students who have varying levels of dedication and time compared to the obsessed autodidact.
There is a role for explicit grammar, memorizing vocabulary and translation but I think it is after someone can read and understand the target language easily. We do this with the native language. Every language group has a grammar or composition class in the native language. In English we have them fairly early and sentences are diagrammed and style is discussed .
The rule, I think, should be that tit should be done in the target language only. After a student can read easily, it can be useful to see tables of grammar to see how everything works together.
And this is an issue that is not unique to language. In music education, someone can appreciate and even perform music without music theory or even ability to read music. Music is natural. Memorizing the circle of fifths and various scales has killed many passions.
I have taught chess and ballroom dancing and it’s similar. Some instruction methods for ballroom are very detailed describing a single step in a paragraph. Others see input intensive where an instructor emphasizes dancing even if it is riddled with errors.
In chess too, playing thousands of games is important but at some point learning will be accelerated by studying other games, memorizing openings, etc. but too early and too much can kill any joy of what is after all a game.
Great comparisons! Sports are similar. There are lots of coaches and sports fans who know every little detail of the theory of the sport, but who can barely play it, and many athletes for whom their play is entirely intuitive. In sports, too much theory and focus on "perfect" technique can actually make an athlete perform worse than before.
I find math to be similar as well. You don't get good at math by memorizing lots of theorems, you get good at math by doing lots of math problems. You don't teach a child number theory before you teach them arithmetic. In math there is a concept of "mathematical maturity," which is a mixture of mathematical experience and insight which cannot be taught directly. This mathematical maturity is considered essential for higher-level proof-based "pure math," where simply knowing theorems and formulas is not enough.
You're also correct that true mastery of any discipline requires both the intuitive understanding and the theoretical knowledge, and the theory is best taught after the student has already acquired a basic intuitive fluency with the subject.
In my opinion, acquisition is the ultimate goal but rule based learning might considerably accelerate the process, at least for some people. Acquiring without any kind of grammatical instruction might work but will take a lot longer. The error is in assuming that all you need to know a language is a knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. That is wrong, of course. Consider grammar as a crutch that will help you get to your goal of acquisition. Once you are there, get rid of the crutch. Don't forget that people are different, so the answer to which method is best might be different for each person.
Except, no one is saying there is no grammatical instruction... I.e., grammar rules are introduced as you encounter it... Think about teaching your toddler to speak, they get most of how to speak from listening to you and others around them... but you will correct them when they say something incorrectly.... you don't start by trying to get them to memorize English Grammar... heck, their are plenty of folks who are excellent writers or speakers of English but would have problems if asked to articulate English Grammar rules.
Thanks for uploading this video. I would say that if you're familiar with a lot of languages and know how languages work then you only need a smattering of grammer in the beginning in order to learn a lot. Anyone who has studied Indo-European languages knows that any Indo-European language will have verb conjugations and figuring out noun declensions is basically the same thing. I think the main reason why people fail with Latin is that they don't have fun with the language. Listen to modern spoken latin language podcasts of which there are many. By listening to those and reading some grammar and some texts here and there you can get to the point where you understand about 95% of what they're saying. Once you've gotten to that point there is just no amount of listening you can do to figure out the obscure idiosyncracies and irrationalities of the language. To get that final 5% you just have to slog through the grammar. So to learn the grammar rules first is to put the cart before the horse. You won't learn the language that way, you'll get bored with it and frustrated and it won't be fun. At the same time many of the grammar rules are counter-intuitive and simply cannot be learned through listening or reading, you just have to have someone else tell you what they are, but only delve into those details when you can already get a large chunk of modern spoken and written Latin. I also want to advise against reading the ancients at first. They're too hard. You'll get bored and frustrated with reading them. Read modern written Latin which is 10x easier. Once you can understand that, then move on to the ancients.
I agree! People should try to have fun while learning a language, but the hardest time to have fun is when you're a beginner and everything is so hard to do. That should be the time when you take in as much input as you can and enjoy easy narratives, modern Latin, etc. and then when you're more able to sustain yourself, that's a pretty good time to do more detailed grammar study and see if it helps. So often the reverse happens and there's no pay-off for learners who start to learn Latin but quit before they get to enjoy what they're reading.
@@FoundinAntiquity Well, I was able to understand Saturam Lanx's podcast after only about 7 days or so of study and they are exceedingly fun to listen to. I did study Latin a little bit 15 years before that but not very seriously so I don't know if that was a factor, plus I know Italian so I don't know if everyone can get up to that point quickly.
I've been reading ancient Greek for 6+ years, I was taught via the grammar-translation method, and I can quite often intuitively pick up entire sentences without having to "translate or trans verbalize" in my head. The idea is that the grammar-translation method just gets you started, and then the grammar becomes cemented through simply, a sh*t ton of reading. Nor am I the only one. I am afraid this critique is simply based on ignorance. Could other methods be more efficient? Sure, thats possible. But the reality is, the grammar translation method works and will always work.
Absolutely!!! I and many other people (who learnt English as a second language primarily through immersion) are living proof to this.
Pretty much
The walking analogy is brilliant! Mirrors my experience closely, except I'd have to switch Latin and Greek in proficiency.
I'm also enjoying learning Biblical Hebrew via comprehensible input, currently with Aleph with Beth. :-)
Thank you so much for the time you put into this video. This brought a lot of clarity about my language learning and language teaching journey. I very much resonated with how you learned Greek.
I studied modern Hebrew with a typical textbook, but it was meeting at a coffee shop in immersion conversations, listening to Disney songs in Hebrew, watching videos, etc…this is how I acquired the language. When I wanted to pick up Biblical Hebrew, I sat in my teachers office speaking in modern Hebrew and reading the text of Esther, Ruth, and others in Hebrew. Extensive conversation and reading was how I learned.
You have inspired me to get back to the roots of effective and enjoyable language acquisition!
מאוד מרשים!
I took four years of Latin in high school, and one semester in college. I want to get back into it and this video is helping me consider various ideas. I have Wheelock's Latin, Latin Via Ovid, and a Latin reader from the late 1800s/early 1900s. I just want to read Virgil's Aeneid, Eclogues, and Georgics in Latin.
New Testament Greek is a goal, as well.
The walking with your hands analogy was brilliant.
Loving the channel
Glad you enjoy it!
Salve Magistra Hurt ♥. Do you know about Dowling method for learning latin? I found that, at early stages, it was really cool to know what a "higly inflected language" is, for example. I learned English, my first second language, through an approach of massive immersion (consuming 4-8 hours of content per day for at least 8 months). I studied the methods of the polyglots and the theories of Stephen Krashen, so that was my languague-learning background. Then I decided to learn Latin, I got into the community and found out about these different approaches. I thought that, as I'm already here, I could experiment with both and learn some grammar, as I never tried to do that. Dowling method combined both, and I added exposure while memorizing the paradigms. They helped a bit. I think grammar is useful as long as it makes the content comprehensible, but it is tedious, and I did it because I decided it. Is not something that I could have done being forced.
I have to say, if there were movies and Netflix series in Latin, I would have done that instead, as I did with English and I'm going to do with Italian/German/French. That's why I love your minecraft videos so much
Sorry for the long text, I wanted to share my experience uwu
Yet I'm almost 6 months in and I barely understand Latin. I'm on my way though, I cannot dedicate as much as I would like because I have to study for university and all that. But I do my Latin everyday, and I do have my small victories. Some days ago I understood general ideas of the "Luigi Miraglia de causis corruptae institutionis Latinae". Language learning can be slow, but consistency is key, I'm sure I'm gonna read Cicero one day, in a nondistant future uwu
@@publiusvergiliusmaro1125 that is a great attitude to have. I am not against memorising paradigms especially when it's for the most useful endings you'll see all the time (noun declensions 1-3, the present active and passive system, perfect tense endings, and a couple of the pronouns like qui). The Dowling method seems really extreme to me for going into allll the paradigms to the tiniest level of detail, but I can see it's helped people especially when there is relatively less input material available in Latin. I'm hoping that as we make more comprehensible Latin content, the need for paradigm memorisation will be less. I'm currently trying to improve my Ancient Greek, by input based methods. I had previously memorised all the verb paradigms for λύω but I just couldn't remember all the other verbs' principal parts or recognise them in context, so I made lists to memorise those... It was quite ineffective and didn't really stick. I've forgotten my chants from years ago but now through reading I'm slowly regaining all the verb forms bit by bit, common verbs especially, even with all their irregularities and weird principal parts, just by consuming more input. I'm really happy that my Minecraft videos have worked well for you and I hope to make a lot more.
@@FoundinAntiquity a brilliant thing about Minecraft in particular for language is that it is both domestic and fantastic. So it is intrinsically useful and engaging.
I started to learn/acquire Ancient Greek with Athenaze about 2 months ago (I took one course in university as well, G-T). Now I'm at chapter 5, and some weeks ago I said to myself: "Let's take a look to Plato". I was really suprised that I can understand a short line and few single words. That was a little victory and it motivates me a lot (as someone said in the comments). How will it be at the ending of the book II?... Now, other thing that I wanted to say is that I think that languages like Ancient Greek and Latin are special compared to modern languages. We don't have the same possibilities to have comprehensible input or immersion, and that makes the acquisition more difficult. So I think that in these languages (AG & L) is necessary to have both acquisition method and grammar. About AG, something that I feel that is useful is to watch people from Greece and hear the language. I saw that they mantain vocabulary, but have some changes too. Using the demothic pronunciation, and conecting Ancient and modern Greek makes me feel that Ancient is more real.
Greetings.
That's really good to hear! I'm glad you've been making good progress with Athenaze in reading Greek! Those early wins are so encouraging.
I think with the rise of the internet age we have so much more opportunity to pool our talents and create large amounts of high quality, rich compelling comprehensible input. Grammar can give you some tools to handle the language when you're struggling, and it's a fascinating area of knowledge when you're an advanced learner and want to know every last rule, but reading and understanding becomes so much easier in input-based methods. But I understand that we don't yet have as much input material in the ancient languages. I hope each thing we create and share will make it easier for all learners to acquire things!
I think if you're just interested in being able to read, the acquisition method is the best. If you're interested in acquiring a more formal understanding of the language, you also need to study grammar. I don't blame universities for assuming students are also interested in the theoretical linguistic aspect, but I do think that it makes sense that primary/secondary education should focus on acquisition.
I think it's relatively easy to gain a formal understanding of grammar if you only want to know it for grammar's sake, but very hard to learn a language through formal grammar. My gut feeling about universities is that most of them are offering extremly intense grammar-heavy courses because they're (seemingly) easy to teach and the overworked grad students who are teaching those courses don't have time or resources to explore better practices in language pedagogy. The universities in my country seem to only reward their employees for writing research papers, and there's no real system for rewarding or allowing time for developing good teaching practices. But I have no problems with people who are interested in grammar - I think it would be a good thing if universities offered a shorter intense unit on Latin grammar alongside a more input-based course in Latin reading, if they want to train students for being able to handle Latin texts on both the level of comprehension and formal analysis.
Several of my Latin teachers were not able to speak a single sentence in latin spontaneously. They always had to prepare themselves before.
It's a challenge for a lot of teachers, if they didn't have spoken Latin in their classroom when they were in school. It's hard to teach in a way you weren't taught before. Latin teachers are still learning. I'm always learning. I think the more we admit that we never stop learning, the better role models we can be as teachers. It's very hard for teachers to take a risk with speaking Latin in front of students, but I think the results are so worth it.
I used LLPSI. Before going into that book I did practice to memorise all the conjugations and declensions by raw memory to give me a solid base going into the text.
Now after 9 months, I can read a Latin text sans macrons. The only thing lacking is fitness in reading, but I am confident by another year I will be to read Latin as naturally as in English, Spanish and French.
Would it not have been easier to memorize these forms parallel to the reading? The first 18 chapters are written in the present tense so at this point you don't have to know the other tenses (so you can focus on other things first).
Very valuable. It’s very beneficial for language learning in general, not only Latin. You did a great job.
A primer is essentially a reference book that also walks the reader through the concepts starting at the very beginning. It tends to be closer to a reference than a teaching narrative so by itself it might be deficient as a textbook, but would be used in conjunction with other material.
For an analogy, consider primer paint - it's a solid foundation but you wouldn't use it by itself.
I think the separation between "learning" and "acquisition" is artificial. Instead, they feed off each other. I am studying Wheelock and Lingua Latina in parallel. Already knowing declensions and conjugations from Wheelock speeds up my understanding of what I am reading and enjoying in Familia Romana. Wheelock provides a base, while Lingua Latina provides a feel for the language. The two approaches are inseparable, and I believe the combination of the two makes for much speedier language acquisition than either one on its own. Anyway, that's my two asses worth.
PS It is just unfortunate that none of us can go to ancient Rome and be immersed in the language like we can, if we want to learn Italian, for example.
I think you're right about immersion being slower initially, but I think in the long run, it is better. That is my experience, at least. I learned Latin and Greek in a very traditional manner. In college, I took up Arabic, somewhat traditionally taught, but with lots of input--I later lived in an Arabic speaking country, and continued to get massive amounts of input together with study. Several years ago I decided to conduct an experiment to see if I was able to learn a language strictly through input. I started listening to Icelandic 2-4 hours/day, and did that for a year. In the three years since, I have been able to listen to and read 1-3 hours/day very consistently. I am at the point now where Icelandic feels second nature to me, even more natural than my Arabic sometimes, despite the fact that my Arabic vocabulary is larger. It was a fairly long process, but I think it has worked better than any other method I have used.
I have acquired 4 languages and I am working on 6 other languages. But not Latin or Greek. I have used various methods and I have taught using various methods. And I have read the research on language acquisition.
Even Stephen Krashen, who is a researcher and proponent of comprehensible input, says that even in the worst kind of grammar class, there is some comprehensible input. All that vocabulary and the exercises are comprehensible and are input. Two big problems though are that they are not meaningful to the student, and that they are not compelling.
And as you stated, and as Krashen says, there is a certain order we acquire grammar in. So, even if we learn it in school, we still don't use it properly until we get to that stage of language development much later. So, early explicit grammar instruction does little good.
On the other hand, vocabulary in context with repeated learning does help. I think there is a big distinction between explicit grammar instruction and vocabulary. Vocabulary can be successfully learned through practice and repetition. It should be learned in context, and repeated many times, and in sentences usually, not just individual words. That way you also learn the grammar and syntax and because it is a sentence, it has meaning and is therefore better retained.
However, much of the vocabulary will be forgotten.
Reading and listening to interesting stories, videos, movies, books, etc. is the way to acquire a language. Lots of reading and listening in a way that is comprehensible is great. Comprehensible input works great and is enjoyable. Grammar-translation does work but is slower and tedious.
Thank you for your videos. This is an excellent discussion of the topic.
Why not both? lol I feel that when I was learning Spanish, we had to learn “tables” and also we had to talk to each other, read, listen and do grammar exercises… is this too hard to understand? We also had to watch movies, tv shows, listen to music and any other things that provide “immersion”. I have Wheelock’s and I am going to order Lingva soon.
Hmmm, I'm kinda half and half on this one. I started out learning Latin via the GT method for a couple of years until I'd finished a Christian Latin course I was taking, then I basically switched to the CI method and just dove straight into reading the Latin Vulgate, starting with Genesis and ending with Revelations. The grammar was a cinch of course, I just needed a dictionary for unfamiliar vocab. At first I was using the dictionary a lot, but by the time I'd read through the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible) I was racing along, 'reading for pleasure' as they say, and using the dictionary hardly at all. I remember I found the Maccabbean books and Gospels ridiculously easy...
This all changed when I hit the Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul's letters, and I was suddenly using the dictionary/internet a lot again. Finally, Revelations was surprisingly easy. Anyway, through all the vocab I'd acquired from the Bible, I now find other Christian authors fairly easy to read.
Just my experience, make of it what you will.
It's good hearing your thoughts about the relative ease of books in the bible. I feel a similar way with reading Paul's letters in Ancient Greek, where they seem to have a lot more grammatical complexity than most narrative portions of the bible. In any case, I'm really happy that you could get yourself hooked into large amounts of input with the Latin Vulgate!
The best way to learn grammar that I know is to first learn how to recognise a grammatical construct and how to interpret it. Then I read and listen a lot in the target language while paying attention to that grammar. That way I don't need to translate while still understandig what things mean all the while developing a strong intuition for the grammar. That is how I have learned English and how I am now learning Italian. I hope this helps someone.
2:39 I personally like to memorise the noun declension or verb conjugation which I'm about to learn, then I try to immerse myself in the target language. I've no problem with grammar but I do NOT like translating Latin to English and English to Latin.
ahhh I've always loathed English-to-Greek or English-to-Latin translation. If anything, free writing (being able to choose the words and phrases you want to express yourself with) is a better way to develop the skills that the English-to-Latin tasks are supposed to be developing, because there is something innately motivating about being to express yourself (not someone else's sentences) in Latin.
@@FoundinAntiquity Ohhh. I personally don't like to output unless I've a massive TL (target language) input.
Somebody once asked Dr Johnson (18th century British scholar) how he got to be so good at Latin.
"My master whipped me very well," he replied. "Without that, sir, I should have done nothing."
I'm a victim of the grammar translation method. Despite a higher degree in Classics, I still feel like texts are a puzzle I have to work out. I have since learned two modern languages, mainly through listening and reading, and I understand them in an intuitive way. The difference could not be more profound.
When they taught Grammar in the late middle ages they were referring to the study of Latin.
They were seen as one and the same thing. They didn't study Latin they studied Grammar.
Thank you very much. I am French and i am eager to discover how Latin is taught in the UK. In France we mainly learn with a grammar book and translations from authors (very hard).
I'm surprised that it's very hard for a Romance language speaker! I took four years of French in an American (USA) high school and found it the whole time to be _très difficile._ 😞
To this day I'm sort of okay reading it but I still need a dictionary, and speaking it? Only a few fragments! ☹️
Listening to videos like this is like listening to somebody evangelising about the one true religion. “Well it worked for me,” is not a valid argument, we are told. On the contrary, it is the only valid argument, and you shouldn’t be tied to the “one true method” just because somebody told you so.
A nice analogy between these two modes of instruction that I've heard is that it's the same as the difference between telling time and learning how a watch works: You could have a 6 month, intensive course on watch-making, but you still wouldn't be able to tell time. However, having learned what makes a watch tick can definitely be instructional to a new learner of time telling.
Well thought out.
I'm about to start the Cambridge Latin course. The acquisition method looks best to me and, as I am a 58 year old with a particularly poor memory, the fact that the course is aimed at adolescents suits me fine.
Absolutely it ‘works’ - I know because I completed Wheelock on my own, THEN moved to Ørberg, as well as the ancillary material (eg Fabulae Syrae). This then made me more capable of reading Latin for myself, in a manner that I find enjoyable.
Basically, I am what you suggested.
(That said, the hard dogmatism surrounding the likes of Wheelock is irritating. Not that you display that here, at all, I’m just speaking generally. Adult learning especially is characterised by a desire not just to DO something with knowledge (ie translate a text), but to understand WHY it works. The grammatical approach serves that end well, even if there are obvious shortcomings in other ways.)
I am currently using Latin 101 and Wheelock, as LLPSI doesn't work in my case, but I am using LLPSI and the Cambridge course as readers. Why not getting the best of both worlds.
1st, all I want to see are grammar manhandling channels.
2nd. I have some classic video games that I’ve been romhacking into Latin, how do I get in touch with you to work out a let’s play!
Oooh that is exciting! I would love to do Latin Let's Plays of classic video games! How about you message me on Discord - my username is CarlaHurt (FoundinAntiquity) #4604
@@FoundinAntiquity added
Gaming in Latin? I would love to see Cities Skylines done in Latin!
Very nice channel. Some embarrassingly narrow perspectives afoot, and I think stereotyping. The picture is rich and as you suggest, nuanced. Take the evil grammar-translation camp: In the 19th century Ritchie provided Latin teachers with his graded reader Fabulae Faciles, hugely popular, and a stream of excellent graded readers starting at earlier points of Latin learning were published and widely used in the US and UK (eg "Civis Romanus") throughout the 20th century. Wheelock and the better "grammar-translation" texts have abundant graded reading (usu. with supplements); there is also a pool of poor texts in this mode, "the pencil of my aunt" books, relatively easy to cobble together; you showed one, perhaps. One can ignore these. There are few *competent* Latin teachers using, say, Wheelock who don't make use of graded readings and produce spoken Latin in the classroom. (Or is that not the case worldwide?) Hans Orberg did wonders by taking the graded reader to the very beginning of Latin study and making it standalone for beginning language acquisition. This path serves especially well the general student. He or she will get much knowledge helpful for reading English, studying Spanish, or studying science for that matter, and few will be seeking a fast entry in real literature. There's going to be formal grammar supplementation to it (a number of texts geared to that are available) if the student is the rare person to actually attempt to read the Latin classics in Latin. The dichotomy in approaches in practice, if you will, is overstated. What is the goal, finally? The US Defense Language Institute (Monterey) employs immersion without grammar-translation to prepare soldiers for everyday oral use of a foreign language at their posting. Perfect. The summer language institute at Brooklyn College uses Moreland and Fleischer's brilliant "Latin: An Intensive Course" for the very committed liberal arts students who go there with the goal of reading Augustan Age Latin with some confidence after two months' intensive work. No student will be marked for life with either approach.
Very informative comment, thanks.
I’m definitely good to need some advice from you. I’m starting with Wheelock Latin and I have the 7th addition text and and Latin reader, I need the audio tapes and workbook, but now I’m going to add Lingua Latina to my list.
*going to need
Let’s consider how to prove this. Divide a group into two parts, say 500 students each randomizing ability and experience, age, etc. teach half the acquisition method and half the translation method. Have each teacher teach one class of each and each teacher must be about equally trained in each method and try not to bias the results (you could choose half the teachers to prefer each method).
At the end of a year, you could test the results. The problem is the testing of results. Would it be a translation test? “Decline more, mortis and list 3 dependent verbs”. Or would it be a comprehension test? What about motivation? I would like to ask “how enthusiastic are you about learning Latin? About learning in general? About reading?” Then see if this changes over time.
The "permanent impairment" thing is such bullshit. They say the same thing about learning Japanese through Romaji first - that if you do so you will permanently impair your ability to understand Japanese. I'm living proof that this is not true. When I started to study Japanese, all the learning materials available in English were in Romaji. I used those, eventually graduating to using books that utilized the kana and kanji. There was no "impairment" at all.
You need both acquisition and learning. The learning should act as a support to acquisition. You can't intuit a grammar rule. You only intuit a pattern. I could not learn my language by only pattern recognition as some patterns didn't make sense without the explanation of Grammar.
My impression has always been that "grammar-translation" has two goals: comprehension of written language, and learning explicit grammar and style analysis which can be applied to, for example, English, and that level of English comprehension is the actual goal rather than developing a practical skill in Latin. Nothing wrong with that in theory, but I would call it a lost opportunity, especially if rules are merely applied mechanically without any understanding of the abstract principles behind them. And at some point you run out of rudimentary exercises and you have to move on proper language input anyway.
Latin and English have significant structural differences, so rules and formal grammar are valuable, but there really isn't an advantage to not pursuing true fluency in the language. For example, Latin poetry, because it is not structured the same way as English poetry, really can't be appreciated from only knowing written language; you need to learn the spoken language. Language learning ordinarily has the goals of both comprehension and production, and for both written and spoken language.
The grammar-translation method was typical of high schools (which rarely teach Latin or Greek now) and universities in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as a look at textbooks of that period quickly demonstrates. Schoolboys in British public-schools and some American prep schools received writing 'lines' of Latin or Greek as punishments. In 1910, James Fernald (of Funk and Wagnall's) wrote in his very interesting book, 'Expressive English' (he is here arguing for the value of English translations of great works rather than expecting people to read them in Greek or Latin, or modern foreign languages for that matter):
"…the average college graduate is more to be pitied than blamed . From the time when he plowed through Vergil and Cicero in the high school , he has been forced to treat the classic authors simply as exercises in etymology . In old time the classics were endeared to the schoolboy by sound floggings , and in more recent times by "keeping after school ." … Hence , they must go into the garden plot of one of Vergil's most beautiful descriptions , and pull up every word by the roots to see what it is made of . They must massacre every line of Homer , till the slaughter of Greeks and Trojans becomes a negligible quantity . If by any chance a student is caught feeling any real interest in a passage , he is dragged through some wire - fences of syntax or some underbrush of Doric or Æolic variants , till not only the conceit is taken out of him , but also all interest in the author's thought. … We know one boy who was kept two hours after school because he was indiscreet enough to see the joke in a story in his German reader and to laugh at it ."
In other words, this 'traditional' method did not encourage the student to 'think' in the language, nor read the classical writings for their meaning, let alone poetry, as one would read a native-language story or poem: instead, they wrote lines for punishment and 'construed' the text for the schoolmasters. We teach differently today, and modern languages like French and Spanish are taught with far less rote learning and more attention to practical conversation than they were a hundred years ago (Fernald also spoke of college graduates who passed exams in French but could not converse as well as a French child). True, Latin is not the same-very few people learn it in order to hold a fluent conversation with a first-century Roman hotelier-but it still seems that the 'analytic method' is contrary with the psychology of linguistic use.
Great video on comparing the methods! Thanks!
people should really read jack c richards book approaches and methods in language teaching
Most teatchers rely themselves on a method, that was formed in the last period of the roman empire. Ist a book written in latin by martius Cappella Mercurius nuptae philologia. This book discribes how to learn grammer one of the seven liberal arts. But overall you have to learn the words and than the grammer.🎉
The best method would be to read something supervised by an experienced tutor one on one. The tutor could supply words that are not known and very rarely explicate a grammar point. The issue is how to replicate this in a classroom environment with 20 students or in a self-learning environment. One grammar illustration at a relevant time is helpful but memorizing 200 grammar rules is not. But by definition a beginning learner can’t discern which grammar rules are relevant or not at the time.
Maybe the analogy of learning to swim works. Putting Livy in front of a newbie and saying “read this until you understand it. There will be a test in 2 months. D” is throwing them in the deep end and hope they don’t drown.
Input based is starting with putting your face in a basin of water and blowing bubbles. Then standing in water up to your waist. Then your neck. Then floating on your back. Etc. then you watch others swim and experiment.
The translation method is reading about the perfect swimming stroke in each discipline. Then memorizing the sequence for arms and legs. Chanting “rotate head leftwards 40 degrees, quick exhale 1/4 second, inhale 3/4 second, extend right arm….” Etc. each stroke is broken down into 50 parts and each are memorized and repeated. Now they know how to swim without ever being in the water.
If you only use manuals like CLC, Suburani or Lingua Latina, good luck afterwards being able to read REAL Latin: Virgil, Horace, Tacitus or even some Cicero! You'll be struggling almost as much as a beginner who barely touched Latin. That's what I see with most 6 formers when we start the OCR program. They barely studied grammar, they barely read any REAL Latin texts, and as a result, they understand close to nothing when they suddenly get exposed to big quantities of Latin literature. Learning grammar and vocab is essential to learning all languages, at least if you want to truly master them.
Excellent video! Thanks!
excellent video
7:42-8:15 I also think that is the case.
Great video! :-)
Thank you!
How is it possible that the new testament is in ancient greek in church? Which church is yours?
Thanks. Excellent reasoning. You have beautiful hands.
You mentioned you go to church. May I ask what type?
I go to a church in Melbourne, Australia called "City on a Hill". It's a low Anglican church with really great, well-researched sermons, plus guitar-and-drums worship. Most of the sermon series are around exploring entire books of the bible, so that everything is in context and we're not cherrypicking what to focus on. The pastors sometimes quote the wording from the original languages, but never haphazardly. Old testament narratives are explored in their own contexts but also set in context of the cross. I really like being part of this church. I was a research volunteer with them once so I saw how much work they put into making sure things were accurate. Now I'm a full-time teacher at a school and I don't have as much time to serve in the church, but I hope God uses my work in language teaching to bring grace and love to people outside.
@@FoundinAntiquity I see. I used to be an Anglican too. Have you ever considered going to the traditional Roman rite? Sometimes (if the priest's pronunciation is good enough) I can understand the Gospel or Epistle without looking at even the Latin text!
@@augustinepinnock7740 I had a period in my life where I was reading about more traditional Christianity, Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism. I appreciate the connection to the apostolic tradition and the deep respect that is given to the eucharist. Haha but if I were to choose a rite just for its ancient language, I'd have to go with Greek Orthodox over Latin rite because my Ancient Greek needs a lot more practice than my Latin.
@@FoundinAntiquity There are the Eastern Catholics ;-) You are right though that the language isn't the most important thing, that being the truth. Thanks very much for your videos; they are very interesting.
@@FoundinAntiquityYou look into Roman Catholicism, Apostle Peter was our first Pope.
I think a huge part of the problem is that Latin and Greek never really left the academia. Which left 2 marks: it SHOULD be or at least seem difficult or it won't be elitist and the academia is notoriously hard to reform, so good luck introducing some new ways into it.
I recently decided to study Ancient Greek and Latin.
And it literally bombards you with useless info
Because, while I think it is important to learn explicit grammar rules for better learning speed
You don't need every single rule immediately told
While, say, in Spanish the subjunctive mood is an important part of educated/official speech
You don't need it to start reading. You will encounter it, but you can just look it up for the time being
There are nouns with irregular gender, but you can get quite far with something as simple as "-o for masculine and -a/-n for feminine"
But Greek and Latin just bombard you
You learn grammatical gender? Here is a 2-page list of words with irregular gender
You learn conjugation? Here are some irregular words you will see once in your life and only if you read Caesar, mah man
People can notice that something isn't right. That gender agreement seems odd or a verb-form is clearly not a standard one
And if that seems unresolvable by any other means -- to look the form up in the dictionary
And that is, actually, the point of many of this books
To be complete and include even obscurest of rules so that you could look them up if needed
Not so that you had to memorize 1000 pages of etymologies and verb conjugations
I just had to pause the video to comment how horrible the Latin Primer is. Pain
Note: I didn't use it; it's just my reaction to the video.
@@CulusMagnus in fairness, a primer like the one shown is designed for elementary school students who are doing one or two classes a week. The goal is not just to get a little bit of a head start on a "real" Latin course, but also to provide an route to teaching grammar/word roots/etc through exposure in a different context, in a manner transferable to English.
My very large local public district does foreign language through a textbookless CI method in elementary school, K-6, one or two lessons a week. Language offering is different by school, which allowed an interesting test: how much of an advantage did students who went through elementary school language learning have in grades 7-12 when they continued on with their ES language, vs students who came to it fresh?
The answer is... (drum roll!) none whatsoever. No difference in grades or test scores for the "experienced" students compared to the ones new to the language.
It is possible that the my local public district just is terrible at teaching languages in elementary school. I am willing to believe this. But to me, it seems like the more likely alternative is just that one or two class sessions a week is just insufficient to learn much of the target language. Given this, it's possible that a primer is actually superior, because even if one isn't learning an appreciable amount of Latin, maybe some of the grammar practice might be sticking. At least they'll probably know what a noun is.
Matt vs. Japan didn't learn japanese solely by pure exposure. That's not true.
What u said also is not true. You completely switched her words. She said Matt vs. Japan MAINLY learned it through input, not purely or solely
Comprehensive input sucks. I've been immerse to Spanish 24/7 for 25+ years. I was born into it and I can't speak a lick of Spanish.
That's interesting to hear. What kind of exposure were you given? How much freedom did you have in choosing what to listen to? Do you find what is spoken in Spanish interesting? I found that, despite having heard Mandarin in the household, I didn't pick up very much Mandarin Chinese when I was young, other than the sound system, because a lot of what was said was "adult talk" and conversations not directed at me, and when it was directed at me, it was just commands for me to brush my teeth, put on my socks, go to bed, etc. that weren't very interesting. There was nothing in between in difficulty that the adults said to me - I was either spoken to like a toddler or listening like an adult. I think that sometimes the older generation within a household doesn't necessarily know how to include the kids in the conversation, or expects the kids to just pick things up they don't care about, or expects kids to be interested in the same things as the adults, and that really shuts off a lot of joy and learning potential. And I think it gives people a sense of "guilt" for not knowing the language despite having had so many years of exposure to it, which also makes it hard to actually make progress in the language. If a language makes you feel stressed and inferior, your brain will go into self-defense mode around it and pick up less of the language.
When we're talking about comprehensible input, we're talking about producing the best conditions for learning a language, and that means working at an appropriate level of difficulty (i.e. not expecting learners to jump from obeying A1-level commands to following C2-level conversations), making the material interesting to the listener (often that involves them being able to choose what interests them), and reducing stress (the weight of family expectations can be really damaging to the learning). There are many people who have had similar experiences with growing up in a language speaking household and not being able to speak that language, and I think it very well proves that simple "exposure" or "immersion" is not enough. Immersion =/= comprehensible input.
LLPSI was written before SLA was even considered a serious field of study, to this day second language acquisition is not well understood scientifically and every method is good in some ways so it's mostly personal preference, if it has the information and you like it, it will work...
Usus sum libro LLPSI. Hic liber me iuvat multum ad discendum linguam multarum legum quae sit lingua latina.
Methodo huius libri facit res faciliores esse.
Ita errores facio cum scribam sed possum lingua uti cum multa fide.
Errare est humanum ☺️