After recording myself and then hearing myself speaking, I feel like my wife needs a gold medal for listening to my goofy voice everyday for the past 20 years.
wow the shade was thrown at dowling right out the gates lol... but it's also definitely true. I remember actually starting with dowlings advice of copying out the forms 200 times and I did that for all the declensions and yet when I actually started reading Latin I found that my brain did NOT automatically recognize the declensions just cause I had copied them out 200 times without context. in fact, it was probably worse cause I found myself having to recount the tables over and over in my head just to work out what form a noun was taking which ultimately made my reading even slower I think than if I had never done the method to begin with. my reading and recognition of declensions only became adequately fast when i had done a lot of reading and became more familiar with the forms in context.
I've always been curious how common your experience was. I always assumed that memorizing those tables 200 time would not translate to actual reading ability, but plenty of people swear that brute force memorizing those tables immediately improved their ability/comprehension.
Oh don't you worry, there will be a much more detailed breakdown of the Dowling method in part 2 when I discuss specific methods used by Latin learners and things to be wary of
PS That idea of keeping a diary in one's target language is an excellent one. It was something assigned to us by our writing teacher at Polish language school. I found it to be a godsend in my learning. I have probably mentioned elsewhere in comments on your video that it is not true that waiting to communicate with others until you are able to speak correctly can't work. I have always taken a dim view of the idea that my goal should be anything less than perfecion - apparently even since early infancy. My parents tell me that I refused to speak to other people - preferring to practice talking to myself - until I was able to speak in full, correctly-built sentences. To this day, I think we should be cautious about telling people not to shoot for perfection, lest we encourage mediocrity. So there are people for whom this modus operandi can work. It is no doubt a matter of goals. Of course, if one's aim is simply to communicate, then perhaps one can dispense with concentrated practice of the details. But if one's goal is to communicate with literary perfection, I would contend that sooner or later, such practice will be necessary in order for making the right choices to become automatic - or at least fast enough to be able to make them consciously at a conversational pace. So I do think there is a place for exercises that isolate one or two variables for practice. No, I don't think this should happen for an indefinite period of time. As you rightly point out, this does not make sense. The goal is not to complete the exercises. The goal is for the choices being practiced to become automatic. When that has happened, the exercises have served their purpose, and one can move on to something else. So there is a definite end. It is not something to be done ad infinitum. There is also a place for intensive correction of one's writing by a knowledgeable person. Of course, it is preferable for the corrector to sit with one and propose a couple of alternatives for each questionable choice found in the text, discuss the pros and cons of each, and then ask one to choose the option one prefers. But this is not absolutely necessary in order to make progress. Even a good slathering of red ink can work. If one is already at an advanced level, a few weeks of that kind of slathering can lead to drastic improvement and result in writing that bespeaks literary talent (assuming one does in fact have such talent).
What an incredible essay! I just finished reading it off your site. Thank you for providing such valuable insight as to what really success looks like in language acquisition. You brought up many valid points worth considering, and especially loved the examples you provided to distinguish between meaningful vs meaningless activity Another big thank you for the wonderful list of resources you provided. I'm currently about 10 chapters into LLPSI and am excited to diversify my input with the resources you've provided!
11:54 #4- I'm working under the Theory of Everything in Moderation. For ex., besides your excellent Minecraftium, and similar Videos, I'm currently working through Orbis Pictus, and reading other simple Writings; eventially moving to Lingua Latina. I think I'm also going to try Flashcards to help memorize words like "qouquo & quoque" etc. I'm also eventually going to try the "How would a Roman say "Such & such a Phrase out loud in Latin"' method; since IMO, reading is the easier part compared to speaking from memory ! Remembering how as kids, we all learned a little German by watching Hogan's Heros, I wish these old Shows could be found dubbed in Latin. Either way Magistra, keep up the bonum opus !
Salve! Thank you for the video which I found via Luke over at polyMathy after watching your crossover video collaboration. I'm been using Duolingo, reading Lingua Latina, listening to music, and watching videos. As you say, it's easy to gain quick proficiency and be able to read and understand a lot of text, but speaking and forming sentences takes time. I'm still translating a lot of what I read in my head which I hate, but I understand it's a normal process of learning a language when presented with books and such. I'll be creating a journal or something similar and will start writing as I think that's one of the best ways to start to understand one of the harder topics, which is declensions. Speaking is a bit harder as I don't know anyone who speaks Latin and the few Discord servers I've found seem mostly dead.
Do you have previous Latin knowledge? If you start from scratch, I don't think translating in you head is inevitable, but if you learn to do it that way for years, perhaps it takes a while to get rid of, although I do think it will come naturally with time.
I took high school French with a friend of mine, Andy, and the textbooks were all-in on the grammar-translation method. We had a few extra reading materials available, but they were far too advanced for us. Andy worked diligently and got all A's through French IV. I got bored by the GT method and only earned C's. (It's possible the teacher took pity on me; I probably deserved a D.) For years, I thought the fault was mine, so I avoided learning another language for a long time, even though I really wanted to learn Latin, Russian, and several other languages. Flash forward a few decades, and neither Andy or I can read French. Andy has tried to learn more beyond the high school material, but he can't grasp phrases and turns of phrase, which, of course, French is famous for. The GT method has basically ruined his opportunity to master a language. But since GT was all I knew, that's how I approached Latin when I began studying during the 2020 lockdown. The GT method didn't work any better in 2020 than it had years earlier. But thanks to Carla and several others, I've changed my approach, and I'm now in Latin's Intermediate Zone. My grasp of Latin after 2.5 years of comprehensible input is higher than my French after 4+ years of GT. I've also used CI with Russian, and the results are the same - faster comprehension with far less boredom. Thanks, Carla!
Thank you for this wonderful video. I cannot wait until part 2. The concept here introduced that meaningful activities is inherently obvious as the most important when pointed out. I find this also equally applicable to any language learning, not just Latin. I am in the process of revisiting my learning methods for German skill development using these exact principles immediately.
Thank you! I'm glad that the general advice here is helpful for languages other than Latin! After all, Latin is another natural human language at the end of the day
For me reading in languages I don’t or hardly understand is very useful. I catch meanings by and by. Also I can concentrate better on any texts, and speak better in languages I know.
I once met a lady at university who, as an adult, had spent 5 years living in Japan before I made her acquaintance. She did not learn ANY Japanese to speak of during that rather long stretch of time. This was a classic case of "meaningless exposure" to a language. Moral of the story: Without active and serious study to go along with what's naturally "heard in the air and on the streets," one simply will not pick up a language to any significant degree. That's just not possible. As to what qualifies as "active and serious," that's what's being debated here. I've recommended to my students cycles of different activities involving listening, speaking, reading, and writing. I advise CYCLES of study in which the difficult and tedious (grammatical stuff which cannot be avoided) be balanced with light/fun stuff where the teachers/characters (as in videos, tv, radio, movies) do all or most of the work.
Great video! It’s a revelation and a relief in some ways to hear the truth about non-meaningful activities that are so characteristic of school teaching of languages. It’s ironic that the appeal of Latin is to some extent for the very reason that it will not require us to parrot glib content shorn of meaning. I would speculate that unpleasant pedagogical techniques that alienate the learner serve the purpose, inadvertently or otherwise, that ascertaining outcomes becomes altogether difficult. You don’t have to worry about the success of the pedagogy if no-one is successful because of it, or is only successful in spite of it
κειρε thank you for this post. I found it very interesting and a bit reassuring that what I need more than any eight method is just the habit to keep going. Thank you
Gratias tibi ago, Magistra! A very interesting video confirming many of my own thoughts on language learning, but also giving me some new input. Looking forward to part 2.
I agree that reading out loud is not the best way to learn to read with understanding. Indeed, getting in the habit of vocalizing as one reads is something that eventually slows down one's reading speed, so that the habit must be broken in order to progress in reading speed. That said, I do see one valuable use for reading aloud, namely to work on the prosody of one's speech - getting the right rhythm, accentuation and intonation. Now, it is not possible to do prosody really right without understanding what one is reading. So I would contend that if reading aloud is approached in this manner, with this kind of purpose, it can be considered meaningful in the sense in which you use this word in your video. I would quibble about whether translating in one's head is a habit that will just go away naturally. I remember a certain person I knew at university who was a native speaker of Polish who had been learning English for quite some time. Her English was more than decent. I would not have suspected that she was, even after so many years of learning, still translating in her head as she spoke - until she admitted this to me one day. But then again, she was unusually intelligent, so I can see that she would have had the requisite brain power to be able to translate in her head at a normal conversational pace. I can imagine, however, that it was quite exhausting for her to speak English for lengthy periods of time. I mean, my situation when I eventually started to learn Polish some years later was in some way similar. At the beginning of full-time study of Polish in Poland, I had to think about each ending as I spoke. I was probably still doing this at the end of my first year there. I could even do it fast enough to carry on a normal conversation with correct grammar. But it did require a large amount of brain power and was rather tiring. While we are on the subject of how fast learning can take place, I might have been at A2 level when I arrived in Poland. I had gotten there by spending five weeks in Poland during one summer, then... going home and memorizing Bible verses in Polish, looking up vocabulary and grammar as I went along. At any rate, I studied Polish 4 hours a day for a total of 30 weeks that academic year, and used Polish outside the classroom as well. And I was probably at C1 level by the end of the year. I probably could have progressed faster if I'd been able to have private lessons instead of classroom learning. At any rate, the next year, I was enrolled in a two-year course that was probably intended to cover C1-C2 levels, along with a whole bunch of other subjects, some of which were apparently designed to give us the cultural capital of a native speaker of Polish, and others of which covered such subjects as dialectology and teaching Polish as a second language. The interesting thing is that this class was comprised of people at two quite different levels, as it turned out. Some were very advanced; indeed, some had even grown up speaking Polish at home. Others were struggling. And understandably so. The Koreans and the Indian had no Polish dictionaries for their languages. That Indian man wrote the first Polish-Hindi dictionary as his final project... At any rate, it became clear that the more advanced people in the group did not really need the main language course, so they were exempted from attending class, and just had to appear for the tests. Only those who actually needed it attended the class sessions, in order to get the help they needed to succeed. The reason I am guessing I was at C1 level already by the end of my first year is that I found myself among those who were exempted from attending that particular class. Now, that is a language only distantly related to my native language (English). Some years after that, I learned Spanish. I had 8 hours / week of private lessons. I was not really starting from scratch in that I already knew two other Romance languages. So I could already read almost anything I wanted. But no, I could not speak or write Spanish, so in that sense, I did have to start from scratch. It took me four weeks to get to a level where I could attend a Spanish conversation event. While there, I found myself explaining in Spanish to an Argentinian man who was learning Polish how to pronounce certain difficult and unfamiliar sounds in the Polish language. By the end of 7 months, we had worked through a C1 textbook and I could speak pretty fluently. So, I think that it is possible, under some circumstances, to acquire an advanced, though not native-equivalent active command of a given language in less than two years. On the other hand, there were other people who studied at that school for two years, learning Polish from scratch, who were able to communicate even quite fluently by the end of their time there, but never did learn to speak grammatically. So there is probably more to it than just the amount of time spent studying. And it is quite true that exercises don't necessarily guarantee improved language production. After all, we all did more or less the same exercises, but got different results. I think exercises can be useful, _provided that_ one clearly understands their purpose and focuses on that purpose while doing them. Finally, let me share my "secret sauce" for learning to read Koine Greek - which is probably applicable to learning to read Latin as well. First of all, I got a copy of _Teach Yourself New Testament Greek_ and read it through in one day to familiarize myself with the logic of the language. Then I took an interlinear New Testament and started reading one chapter per day. By the time I was finished the entire New Testament, I didn't need the interlinear anymore... If I'd known it would be so painless, I would have done it years before. Now mind you, I still don't speak or write Koine. I would like to learn, though. Just like I would like to be able to read, write and speak Latin one day. I guess you could say that as far as Latin is concerned, I'm still in the pre-learning phase - getting exposure to the language and figuring out its logic. I figure that will make it easier for me stick the details in their proper places in due time.
A high intermediate or low advanced level can absolutely be achieved in a year! For the experienced and dedicated language learner, It can even be achieved in six months, given that the target language is not too difficult.
I think we may have different definitions of 'Advanced level'. An intermediate student can read Advanced level texts but very slowly, because the text level is above their proficiency level. Definitely, people do get up to reading Advanced level texts in just 6 months of study. But that doesn't mean their proficiency level is advanced; they are reading texts above their level. This is something we can observe in modern languages too - distinguished texts, novels, literature, are readable but difficult for intermediate learners, and it takes usually much more than 1 year of dedicated study before these high level texts feel at-level. For another comparison, high school students in their native language often struggle to read literary language texts with ease, even more so if they are L2 speakers, even though they have been immersed in the school system for years. So... on the one hand, yes you can start to read Vergil 6 months after starting Latin. But it won't feel easy until the reader's proficiency level eventually catches up much later.
@@FoundinAntiquity I would still say it's possible to reach a level where reasonably complicated texts feel fairly easy. Maybe not the most complicated texts, but rather complicated texts can be read with ease if one is diligent and dedicated to learning the language.
Excellent video. It's always interesting to hear this more scientific side to language learning! definitely relate to the reading out loud part distracting from the text. I am looking forward to your reader getting published, I'm sure it will be beneficial for me. Are there any other readers you would recommend? I've been doing grammar translation at a university as well as doing llpsi fairly diligently on the side, and it's really nice (and presumably healthy for my learning)to get other input once in a while. I've reached chapter 29 in llpsi, and I could read pugio bruti fairly comfortably.
Thank you for the content on antiquity. I have a question. Is it advisable to learn ancient Greek if I don’t plan to learn Latin? When we read the Greek writers, will I get comparable benefit as people who know both languages, or will I not?
“The most vocal in insisting that it works for them.” (or words to that effect.) I would say that is a pretty accurate description of a reading method evangelist. It was the right method for them, so it must be the right method for everybody else. One obvious difference between an adult and an infant is that an infant doesn’t already have a first language, which enables them to ask questions such as, “why is this same word spelt in half a dozen different ways?” Without getting an answer, and that is just irritating. Treating Latin as if it was a heavily encoded version of English is a trap which can be avoided if you are aware of it.
yes, but 'grew up with' is key, isn't it. As a child we absorb language but as you get older ... not so much. Anyway, I'll keep listening to your input, thanks , Mark.
The method of how one should learn Latin depends on one’s goals. I would suggest a different method for someone who just wants to translate Latin texts, and I’d recommend something different for one who wants to become fluent in speaking Latin.
Probably, but I can't imagine a situation in which someone would genuinely only want to translate. And a person who has acquired the language naturally will make a better translator anyway.
did everhing essential latin in kindle,and completed it now on complete latin ty but fpping back to answers is hard as i have low vision, , advice? i had hs latin 49 years ago and high marks in french in college. my bros were pentaglots but had no common sense
Excellent, thank you very much! Subscribed and looking forward to Part 2. Btw, are you familiar with Ossa Latinitatis Sola Ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque by Reginald Foster and Daniel P. McCarthy? I'm curious, how good is this method/textbook.
I read the Ossa method in Reginald Foster's book, and am not very positive about the method because its main strategy seems to be to confront students with completely unadapted Latin from day 1 such as Vergil's ecologues and provide very little support (nothing to make the text more comprehensible) except spontaneous oral support from the teacher. He talks very low of any kind of adaptation of Latin (calling it "dumbed down"), provides no glossing or interlinear option for hard texts (every new word has to be discovered in the dictionary), and deliberately does not make any attempt to use easier authors first and difficult authors later. In the Ossa book, he also shows how he makes students sign an academic contract before starting the "Foster Experiences" saying that they must use no other tutors or learner textbooks or resources other than Foster when learning from him, which is exceedingly controlling, something I've never seen another Latin teacher do (banning the use of Latin tutors). The contract also tells students not to seek advice about learning Latin from anyone else (as if to prevent students from getting ideas about language learning that conflict with Foster's doctrine that would make them question it). It's possible that Foster was a good teacher in person, and the book does not capture the good parts of his method. But I strongly advise people not to use the method that is outlined in the Ossa book, especially not at the beginner phase.
@@FoundinAntiquity Thank you so much! I appreciate the details and explanations you have provided. It's really helpful, for I'm thinking about a proper textbook for self-study and I got recommended the Ossa book recently as a "unique and advanced approach". Though, from the beginning, I suspected that the recommending person was a bit biased about it. And since I need a book for a beginner, I'll work with those I already have, but not Ossa.
Do we have CEFR for Latin ? Is there a test that assesses the standard of language proficiency in Latin ? Learning a language initially may not be a pleasurable experience for lack of sound pedagogy, resources, helpful and encouraging teachers. It is rewarding and delightful when the learner begins to 'communicate' with the living who speak the same language, or even with the dead, the master spirits.
I can't find the link to it now, but I do believe someone has made a paid CEFR test for Latin and Ancient Greek. However it is not being widely used as far as I'm aware. Mostly people talk about their level at the beginner phase by saying what chapter of what textbook they're up to, and at the intermediate phase they say what they're currently reading and how hard they're finding it. I think language learning can be quite pleasant but there are certainly ups and downs, and there aren't as many really compelling learner friendly resources in Latin as there are in major modern languages. Even so, I'm going my channel and other content creators are helping to fill the gap and make pleasurable learner Latin content!
I'm really curious what you think of the ranieri-dowling method which involves lots of repetative copying of noun cases and verb conjugations. The creator suggests writing down all the noun cases 100 times.
I will analyse the Dowling method in part 2, so stay tuned for that! But my clue here is... is writing out tables 200 times from memory a meaningful language activity? Is it worth taking such substantial amount of time away from reading? Do the maths for how many forms you have to write in the Dowling method without encountering them in natural contexts and the answer will be clear. If you really want to learn the tables it would be much better to space them out so you encounter the table just-in-time, close to when the feature occurs in real reading.
Hello. Thank you very much for your work. If you understand correctly, before you learned about LLPSI, you studied Frederic M. Wheelock and completely passed it. Do you think if you didn't learn Latin from Frederic M. Wheelock and started with LLPSI right away, would you spend more money on studying? And what would be the quality of knowing your grammar?
No, I didn't learn Latin from Wheelock. I learned Latin from high school in which the teachers used the Cambridge Latin Course, a reader based course, but my teachers emphasised explicit grammar memorisation when I was learning. However I have taught many cohorts of students as a school teacher from year 7 to year 12 and I've tried a variety of approaches - from grammar-heavy to CI-based approaches - and I'm generally more happy with the increased proficiency outcomes for a wider variety of students from taking input based approaches. If you want to learn explicit grammar for its own sake as the goal in itself, go and learn explicit grammar for its own sake. But if you desire reading fluency and lifelong skills to sustainably keep up language development through enjoyable extensive reading, a reading based approach is much more practical.
@@FoundinAntiquity , Thanks for the answer. I like the grammar itself, its beauty and structure. But I also like the method of induction in LLPSI. If I understood correctly, then you also know the Greek language?
Have you seen how those who studied the first part of LLPSI, moving on to the second part, encounter problems of understanding? Please make a video with recommendations on how to overcome these difficulties. Thank you in advance.
@@antivirusantivirus3139 You mean the difficulty jump people have when moving from Familia Romana to Roma Aeterna? That is basically the difference between sheltered textbook stories and authentic texts - it turns out it's not just readers of Familia Romana who experience that as a big jump, basically anyone who moves from a beginner textbook into unadapted classical texts struggles in the intermediate zone for a while. I talk briefly about intermediate strategies in the section at 16:42 in this video
As I listen to Carla’s sage advice I feel really conflicted. Because as I’m listening I am writing hundreds of declensions and adjectives that I have painstakingly memorized as per the Ranieri-Dowling method. Caught in this diligence trap, and only 2 and a half months in, I’m a little confused as to how to proceed.
Also curious how you are getting on. As for me I worked through LLPSI and for every chapter that introduced a new set of inflections, I drilled those (and the ones previously learned). It didn’t make declensions or conjugations super daunting, and I got to learn them in context as I went along. But it was rigorous enough not to leave a chapter behind me with knowledge gaps remaining. It worked well for me.
Does it always have to be gratias tibi? To me { mihi : tibi : sibi } and | gra' :: grati : gratio |. Therefore, gratias already meant 'thank you' and gratias tibi means 'thank you to you'. Now, I know that there is nothing wrong is having both ways of saying things. However, I was watching that Barbarian show where this Roman senator was teaching his adopted son Latin and he keep saying gratias ... gratias ... gratias. I thought it was quite strange to keep on hearing gratitude ... gratitude ... gratitude.
Note2: There are many a school teacher that may have missed out the fact that the architect of modern English language had imbued English with many characteristics of Latin, not in its part forms (partes), but in its part substances (partus). Therefore, it is always fun to write a long sentence in English and then analyze the heck out of it with the contemporary imposter's grammar and then with my internal English-Latin grammar (humanus universita grammatica). Funny that I regularly uses the term dative and such terms as datify :: datification : datified when I used to criticize those imposters for not able to provide a satisfactory ELI5 (beginner's) definition.
It is possible to shorten 'gratias tibi' to 'gratias'. The phrase 'gratias tibi' is already shortened from 'gratias tibi ago'. Sometimes Latin speakers like to leave words implied, especially in common phrases like this one. 'gratias' would be something like an English speaker saying 'thanks' which is pretty close in meaning to 'thank you' but shorter, perhaps slightly less formal, but still appropriate.
@@FoundinAntiquity grato respone tui Looking at the meanings of all the three forms {grat', grati', gratia} I think this provides a good case study to explain how other verbs such as laudo and moneo worked. verb = an action where "to verb" literally means to give {movement, feeling, conceptual.item}. [grat'] = thanks (movement) magnitude: simple gesture grato = I thank *you* (I give thanks movement)
+i movement complete [grati] = grateful (feeling) magnitude: joyful gratio = I am feeling grateful *due to you*. However, it would be illogical to think that such feeling could be easily transferred. Therefore: [grator] (verb.agent.form ) A person who gives others the feeling of joy ( equal to the grateful feeling in grati) grāti' feeling of joy+ => [gratus] pleasing ADJ::gratus grata gratum CMP::gratior gratissimus ADV::gratē 100 years later… political flavor requires a new word. From the neuter conceptual gratum & grata, we get gratie✗ & gratia✓. Due to suitability as new noun, only gratia is choose and decline like 1st Declension noun. [gratia,gratiae.f] grace (conceptual.item) popularity/esteem/credit (w/bona); partiality/favoritism; Note: The concept of gratitude probably came later in Late Latin with grātitūdō.f.
So you clicked on a 50 minute video expecting a quick message? The complete essay is linked in the description, if you want to control + F to get to the part you want. I also arrange chapters so you can skip ahead based on chapter titles. Otherwise sit back and enjoy soaking in those 50 minutes of video you clicked on.
After recording myself and then hearing myself speaking, I feel like my wife needs a gold medal for listening to my goofy voice everyday for the past 20 years.
Hahaha that's great!
If it's any consolation, no one seems to like their own voice (I know I don't lol)
@@Ant42Leeme too. Which kinda weird
I like the way you speak
wow the shade was thrown at dowling right out the gates lol... but it's also definitely true. I remember actually starting with dowlings advice of copying out the forms 200 times and I did that for all the declensions and yet when I actually started reading Latin I found that my brain did NOT automatically recognize the declensions just cause I had copied them out 200 times without context. in fact, it was probably worse cause I found myself having to recount the tables over and over in my head just to work out what form a noun was taking which ultimately made my reading even slower I think than if I had never done the method to begin with. my reading and recognition of declensions only became adequately fast when i had done a lot of reading and became more familiar with the forms in context.
I've always been curious how common your experience was. I always assumed that memorizing those tables 200 time would not translate to actual reading ability, but plenty of people swear that brute force memorizing those tables immediately improved their ability/comprehension.
Oh don't you worry, there will be a much more detailed breakdown of the Dowling method in part 2 when I discuss specific methods used by Latin learners and things to be wary of
PS That idea of keeping a diary in one's target language is an excellent one. It was something assigned to us by our writing teacher at Polish language school. I found it to be a godsend in my learning.
I have probably mentioned elsewhere in comments on your video that it is not true that waiting to communicate with others until you are able to speak correctly can't work. I have always taken a dim view of the idea that my goal should be anything less than perfecion - apparently even since early infancy. My parents tell me that I refused to speak to other people - preferring to practice talking to myself - until I was able to speak in full, correctly-built sentences. To this day, I think we should be cautious about telling people not to shoot for perfection, lest we encourage mediocrity. So there are people for whom this modus operandi can work. It is no doubt a matter of goals.
Of course, if one's aim is simply to communicate, then perhaps one can dispense with concentrated practice of the details. But if one's goal is to communicate with literary perfection, I would contend that sooner or later, such practice will be necessary in order for making the right choices to become automatic - or at least fast enough to be able to make them consciously at a conversational pace.
So I do think there is a place for exercises that isolate one or two variables for practice. No, I don't think this should happen for an indefinite period of time. As you rightly point out, this does not make sense. The goal is not to complete the exercises. The goal is for the choices being practiced to become automatic. When that has happened, the exercises have served their purpose, and one can move on to something else. So there is a definite end. It is not something to be done ad infinitum.
There is also a place for intensive correction of one's writing by a knowledgeable person. Of course, it is preferable for the corrector to sit with one and propose a couple of alternatives for each questionable choice found in the text, discuss the pros and cons of each, and then ask one to choose the option one prefers. But this is not absolutely necessary in order to make progress. Even a good slathering of red ink can work. If one is already at an advanced level, a few weeks of that kind of slathering can lead to drastic improvement and result in writing that bespeaks literary talent (assuming one does in fact have such talent).
Gratias, Magistra. Very well argued and organized! Looking forward to Part 2.
Thank you! I'm looking forward to sharing it!
What an incredible essay! I just finished reading it off your site. Thank you for providing such valuable insight as to what really success looks like in language acquisition. You brought up many valid points worth considering, and especially loved the examples you provided to distinguish between meaningful vs meaningless activity
Another big thank you for the wonderful list of resources you provided. I'm currently about 10 chapters into LLPSI and am excited to diversify my input with the resources you've provided!
I'm really glad you enjoyed my essay and I could help you find some good supplementary resources!
11:54 #4- I'm working under the Theory of Everything in Moderation.
For ex., besides your excellent Minecraftium, and similar Videos, I'm currently working through Orbis Pictus, and reading other simple Writings; eventially moving to Lingua Latina. I think I'm also going to try Flashcards to help memorize words like "qouquo & quoque" etc.
I'm also eventually going to try the "How would a Roman say "Such & such a Phrase out loud in Latin"' method; since IMO, reading is the easier part compared to speaking from memory !
Remembering how as kids, we all learned a little German by watching Hogan's Heros, I wish these old Shows could be found dubbed in Latin.
Either way Magistra, keep up the bonum opus !
Salve! Thank you for the video which I found via Luke over at polyMathy after watching your crossover video collaboration. I'm been using Duolingo, reading Lingua Latina, listening to music, and watching videos. As you say, it's easy to gain quick proficiency and be able to read and understand a lot of text, but speaking and forming sentences takes time. I'm still translating a lot of what I read in my head which I hate, but I understand it's a normal process of learning a language when presented with books and such.
I'll be creating a journal or something similar and will start writing as I think that's one of the best ways to start to understand one of the harder topics, which is declensions. Speaking is a bit harder as I don't know anyone who speaks Latin and the few Discord servers I've found seem mostly dead.
Do you have previous Latin knowledge? If you start from scratch, I don't think translating in you head is inevitable, but if you learn to do it that way for years, perhaps it takes a while to get rid of, although I do think it will come naturally with time.
I took high school French with a friend of mine, Andy, and the textbooks were all-in on the grammar-translation method. We had a few extra reading materials available, but they were far too advanced for us. Andy worked diligently and got all A's through French IV. I got bored by the GT method and only earned C's. (It's possible the teacher took pity on me; I probably deserved a D.)
For years, I thought the fault was mine, so I avoided learning another language for a long time, even though I really wanted to learn Latin, Russian, and several other languages.
Flash forward a few decades, and neither Andy or I can read French. Andy has tried to learn more beyond the high school material, but he can't grasp phrases and turns of phrase, which, of course, French is famous for. The GT method has basically ruined his opportunity to master a language.
But since GT was all I knew, that's how I approached Latin when I began studying during the 2020 lockdown. The GT method didn't work any better in 2020 than it had years earlier.
But thanks to Carla and several others, I've changed my approach, and I'm now in Latin's Intermediate Zone. My grasp of Latin after 2.5 years of comprehensible input is higher than my French after 4+ years of GT. I've also used CI with Russian, and the results are the same - faster comprehension with far less boredom.
Thanks, Carla!
Vīdeō bonum! Amō contentum tuum. Mūtō studium Latīnum ad melius cōmunicandum.
τοῦτο ἀρέσκει μοι. βουλοίμην ἂν τὸ δεύτερον μέρον ἰδεῖν!
Thank you for this wonderful video. I cannot wait until part 2.
The concept here introduced that meaningful activities is inherently obvious as the most important when pointed out.
I find this also equally applicable to any language learning, not just Latin. I am in the process of revisiting my learning methods for German skill development using these exact principles immediately.
Thank you! I'm glad that the general advice here is helpful for languages other than Latin! After all, Latin is another natural human language at the end of the day
For me reading in languages I don’t or hardly understand is very useful. I catch meanings by and by. Also I can concentrate better on any texts, and speak better in languages I know.
There is something very powerful about simply reading a lot
I once met a lady at university who, as an adult, had spent 5 years living in Japan before I made her acquaintance. She did not learn ANY Japanese to speak of during that rather long stretch of time. This was a classic case of "meaningless exposure" to a language. Moral of the story: Without active and serious study to go along with what's naturally "heard in the air and on the streets," one simply will not pick up a language to any significant degree. That's just not possible. As to what qualifies as "active and serious," that's what's being debated here. I've recommended to my students cycles of different activities involving listening, speaking, reading, and writing. I advise CYCLES of study in which the difficult and tedious (grammatical stuff which cannot be avoided) be balanced with light/fun stuff where the teachers/characters (as in videos, tv, radio, movies) do all or most of the work.
Great video! It’s a revelation and a relief in some ways to hear the truth about non-meaningful activities that are so characteristic of school teaching of languages. It’s ironic that the appeal of Latin is to some extent for the very reason that it will not require us to parrot glib content shorn of meaning. I would speculate that unpleasant pedagogical techniques that alienate the learner serve the purpose, inadvertently or otherwise, that ascertaining outcomes becomes altogether difficult. You don’t have to worry about the success of the pedagogy if no-one is successful because of it, or is only successful in spite of it
Thank you. God bless
κειρε thank you for this post. I found it very interesting and a bit reassuring that what I need more than any eight method is just the habit to keep going. Thank you
Grazie.
di nulla! And thank you so much for the super thanks!
Gratias tibi ago, Magistra! A very interesting video confirming many of my own thoughts on language learning, but also giving me some new input. Looking forward to part 2.
Thank you! I look forward to sharing part 2 with you!
I agree that reading out loud is not the best way to learn to read with understanding. Indeed, getting in the habit of vocalizing as one reads is something that eventually slows down one's reading speed, so that the habit must be broken in order to progress in reading speed.
That said, I do see one valuable use for reading aloud, namely to work on the prosody of one's speech - getting the right rhythm, accentuation and intonation. Now, it is not possible to do prosody really right without understanding what one is reading. So I would contend that if reading aloud is approached in this manner, with this kind of purpose, it can be considered meaningful in the sense in which you use this word in your video.
I would quibble about whether translating in one's head is a habit that will just go away naturally. I remember a certain person I knew at university who was a native speaker of Polish who had been learning English for quite some time. Her English was more than decent. I would not have suspected that she was, even after so many years of learning, still translating in her head as she spoke - until she admitted this to me one day. But then again, she was unusually intelligent, so I can see that she would have had the requisite brain power to be able to translate in her head at a normal conversational pace.
I can imagine, however, that it was quite exhausting for her to speak English for lengthy periods of time. I mean, my situation when I eventually started to learn Polish some years later was in some way similar. At the beginning of full-time study of Polish in Poland, I had to think about each ending as I spoke. I was probably still doing this at the end of my first year there. I could even do it fast enough to carry on a normal conversation with correct grammar. But it did require a large amount of brain power and was rather tiring.
While we are on the subject of how fast learning can take place, I might have been at A2 level when I arrived in Poland. I had gotten there by spending five weeks in Poland during one summer, then... going home and memorizing Bible verses in Polish, looking up vocabulary and grammar as I went along. At any rate, I studied Polish 4 hours a day for a total of 30 weeks that academic year, and used Polish outside the classroom as well. And I was probably at C1 level by the end of the year. I probably could have progressed faster if I'd been able to have private lessons instead of classroom learning.
At any rate, the next year, I was enrolled in a two-year course that was probably intended to cover C1-C2 levels, along with a whole bunch of other subjects, some of which were apparently designed to give us the cultural capital of a native speaker of Polish, and others of which covered such subjects as dialectology and teaching Polish as a second language.
The interesting thing is that this class was comprised of people at two quite different levels, as it turned out. Some were very advanced; indeed, some had even grown up speaking Polish at home. Others were struggling. And understandably so. The Koreans and the Indian had no Polish dictionaries for their languages. That Indian man wrote the first Polish-Hindi dictionary as his final project...
At any rate, it became clear that the more advanced people in the group did not really need the main language course, so they were exempted from attending class, and just had to appear for the tests. Only those who actually needed it attended the class sessions, in order to get the help they needed to succeed. The reason I am guessing I was at C1 level already by the end of my first year is that I found myself among those who were exempted from attending that particular class.
Now, that is a language only distantly related to my native language (English). Some years after that, I learned Spanish. I had 8 hours / week of private lessons. I was not really starting from scratch in that I already knew two other Romance languages. So I could already read almost anything I wanted. But no, I could not speak or write Spanish, so in that sense, I did have to start from scratch. It took me four weeks to get to a level where I could attend a Spanish conversation event. While there, I found myself explaining in Spanish to an Argentinian man who was learning Polish how to pronounce certain difficult and unfamiliar sounds in the Polish language. By the end of 7 months, we had worked through a C1 textbook and I could speak pretty fluently.
So, I think that it is possible, under some circumstances, to acquire an advanced, though not native-equivalent active command of a given language in less than two years. On the other hand, there were other people who studied at that school for two years, learning Polish from scratch, who were able to communicate even quite fluently by the end of their time there, but never did learn to speak grammatically.
So there is probably more to it than just the amount of time spent studying. And it is quite true that exercises don't necessarily guarantee improved language production. After all, we all did more or less the same exercises, but got different results. I think exercises can be useful, _provided that_ one clearly understands their purpose and focuses on that purpose while doing them.
Finally, let me share my "secret sauce" for learning to read Koine Greek - which is probably applicable to learning to read Latin as well. First of all, I got a copy of _Teach Yourself New Testament Greek_ and read it through in one day to familiarize myself with the logic of the language. Then I took an interlinear New Testament and started reading one chapter per day. By the time I was finished the entire New Testament, I didn't need the interlinear anymore... If I'd known it would be so painless, I would have done it years before.
Now mind you, I still don't speak or write Koine. I would like to learn, though. Just like I would like to be able to read, write and speak Latin one day. I guess you could say that as far as Latin is concerned, I'm still in the pre-learning phase - getting exposure to the language and figuring out its logic. I figure that will make it easier for me stick the details in their proper places in due time.
Another fascinating essay. Thank you!
Thanks for the upload. There is much to think about here.
A high intermediate or low advanced level can absolutely be achieved in a year! For the experienced and dedicated language learner, It can even be achieved in six months, given that the target language is not too difficult.
I think we may have different definitions of 'Advanced level'. An intermediate student can read Advanced level texts but very slowly, because the text level is above their proficiency level. Definitely, people do get up to reading Advanced level texts in just 6 months of study. But that doesn't mean their proficiency level is advanced; they are reading texts above their level. This is something we can observe in modern languages too - distinguished texts, novels, literature, are readable but difficult for intermediate learners, and it takes usually much more than 1 year of dedicated study before these high level texts feel at-level. For another comparison, high school students in their native language often struggle to read literary language texts with ease, even more so if they are L2 speakers, even though they have been immersed in the school system for years. So... on the one hand, yes you can start to read Vergil 6 months after starting Latin. But it won't feel easy until the reader's proficiency level eventually catches up much later.
@@FoundinAntiquity I would still say it's possible to reach a level where reasonably complicated texts feel fairly easy. Maybe not the most complicated texts, but rather complicated texts can be read with ease if one is diligent and dedicated to learning the language.
@@SouthPark333Gaming What in your experience has led you to this conclusion?
@@BenB5 Having learned multiple languages.
Thank you
Excellent video. It's always interesting to hear this more scientific side to language learning! definitely relate to the reading out loud part distracting from the text.
I am looking forward to your reader getting published, I'm sure it will be beneficial for me. Are there any other readers you would recommend? I've been doing grammar translation at a university as well as doing llpsi fairly diligently on the side, and it's really nice (and presumably healthy for my learning)to get other input once in a while. I've reached chapter 29 in llpsi, and I could read pugio bruti fairly comfortably.
Nvm I checked out the rest of the essay and I see you've mentioned a few there:)
Thank you for the content on antiquity. I have a question. Is it advisable to learn ancient Greek if I don’t plan to learn Latin? When we read the Greek writers, will I get comparable benefit as people who know both languages, or will I not?
“The most vocal in insisting that it works for them.” (or words to that effect.)
I would say that is a pretty accurate description of a reading method evangelist. It was the right method for them, so it must be the right method for everybody else.
One obvious difference between an adult and an infant is that an infant doesn’t already have a first language, which enables them to ask questions such as, “why is this same word spelt in half a dozen different ways?” Without getting an answer, and that is just irritating.
Treating Latin as if it was a heavily encoded version of English is a trap which can be avoided if you are aware of it.
yes, but 'grew up with' is key, isn't it. As a child we absorb language but as you get older ... not so much. Anyway, I'll keep listening to your input, thanks , Mark.
Well done video! Have you come across Fr. William Most's "Latin by the natural method"?
The method of how one should learn Latin depends on one’s goals. I would suggest a different method for someone who just wants to translate Latin texts, and I’d recommend something different for one who wants to become fluent in speaking Latin.
Probably, but I can't imagine a situation in which someone would genuinely only want to translate. And a person who has acquired the language naturally will make a better translator anyway.
did everhing essential latin in kindle,and completed it now on complete latin ty but fpping back to answers is hard as i have low vision, , advice? i had hs latin 49 years ago and high marks in french in college. my bros were pentaglots but had no common sense
Magistra Hurt?? I recall you from the Latin Minecraft series!
Excellent, thank you very much! Subscribed and looking forward to Part 2.
Btw, are you familiar with Ossa Latinitatis Sola Ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque by Reginald Foster and Daniel P. McCarthy? I'm curious, how good is this method/textbook.
I read the Ossa method in Reginald Foster's book, and am not very positive about the method because its main strategy seems to be to confront students with completely unadapted Latin from day 1 such as Vergil's ecologues and provide very little support (nothing to make the text more comprehensible) except spontaneous oral support from the teacher. He talks very low of any kind of adaptation of Latin (calling it "dumbed down"), provides no glossing or interlinear option for hard texts (every new word has to be discovered in the dictionary), and deliberately does not make any attempt to use easier authors first and difficult authors later. In the Ossa book, he also shows how he makes students sign an academic contract before starting the "Foster Experiences" saying that they must use no other tutors or learner textbooks or resources other than Foster when learning from him, which is exceedingly controlling, something I've never seen another Latin teacher do (banning the use of Latin tutors). The contract also tells students not to seek advice about learning Latin from anyone else (as if to prevent students from getting ideas about language learning that conflict with Foster's doctrine that would make them question it). It's possible that Foster was a good teacher in person, and the book does not capture the good parts of his method. But I strongly advise people not to use the method that is outlined in the Ossa book, especially not at the beginner phase.
@@FoundinAntiquity Thank you so much! I appreciate the details and explanations you have provided. It's really helpful, for I'm thinking about a proper textbook for self-study and I got recommended the Ossa book recently as a "unique and advanced approach". Though, from the beginning, I suspected that the recommending person was a bit biased about it. And since I need a book for a beginner, I'll work with those I already have, but not Ossa.
Do we have CEFR for Latin ? Is there a test that assesses the standard of language proficiency in Latin ? Learning a language initially may not be a pleasurable experience for lack of sound pedagogy, resources, helpful and encouraging teachers. It is rewarding and delightful when the learner begins to 'communicate' with the living who speak the same language, or even with the dead, the master spirits.
I can't find the link to it now, but I do believe someone has made a paid CEFR test for Latin and Ancient Greek. However it is not being widely used as far as I'm aware. Mostly people talk about their level at the beginner phase by saying what chapter of what textbook they're up to, and at the intermediate phase they say what they're currently reading and how hard they're finding it. I think language learning can be quite pleasant but there are certainly ups and downs, and there aren't as many really compelling learner friendly resources in Latin as there are in major modern languages. Even so, I'm going my channel and other content creators are helping to fill the gap and make pleasurable learner Latin content!
I'm really curious what you think of the ranieri-dowling method which involves lots of repetative copying of noun cases and verb conjugations. The creator suggests writing down all the noun cases 100 times.
The dowling method is writing it down. The ranieri part is speaking it out loud to get a feel of the sound in your mouth, ears, and mind.
I will analyse the Dowling method in part 2, so stay tuned for that! But my clue here is... is writing out tables 200 times from memory a meaningful language activity? Is it worth taking such substantial amount of time away from reading? Do the maths for how many forms you have to write in the Dowling method without encountering them in natural contexts and the answer will be clear. If you really want to learn the tables it would be much better to space them out so you encounter the table just-in-time, close to when the feature occurs in real reading.
Hello. Thank you very much for your work. If you understand correctly, before you learned about LLPSI, you studied Frederic M. Wheelock and completely passed it. Do you think if you didn't learn Latin from Frederic M. Wheelock and started with LLPSI right away, would you spend more money on studying? And what would be the quality of knowing your grammar?
No, I didn't learn Latin from Wheelock. I learned Latin from high school in which the teachers used the Cambridge Latin Course, a reader based course, but my teachers emphasised explicit grammar memorisation when I was learning. However I have taught many cohorts of students as a school teacher from year 7 to year 12 and I've tried a variety of approaches - from grammar-heavy to CI-based approaches - and I'm generally more happy with the increased proficiency outcomes for a wider variety of students from taking input based approaches. If you want to learn explicit grammar for its own sake as the goal in itself, go and learn explicit grammar for its own sake. But if you desire reading fluency and lifelong skills to sustainably keep up language development through enjoyable extensive reading, a reading based approach is much more practical.
@@FoundinAntiquity , Thanks for the answer. I like the grammar itself, its beauty and structure. But I also like the method of induction in LLPSI. If I understood correctly, then you also know the Greek language?
Have you seen how those who studied the first part of LLPSI, moving on to the second part, encounter problems of understanding? Please make a video with recommendations on how to overcome these difficulties. Thank you in advance.
@@antivirusantivirus3139 Yes, I know Ancient Greek, and I'm currently learning Modern Greek
@@antivirusantivirus3139 You mean the difficulty jump people have when moving from Familia Romana to Roma Aeterna? That is basically the difference between sheltered textbook stories and authentic texts - it turns out it's not just readers of Familia Romana who experience that as a big jump, basically anyone who moves from a beginner textbook into unadapted classical texts struggles in the intermediate zone for a while. I talk briefly about intermediate strategies in the section at 16:42 in this video
As I listen to Carla’s sage advice I feel really conflicted. Because as I’m listening I am writing hundreds of declensions and adjectives that I have painstakingly memorized as per the Ranieri-Dowling method. Caught in this diligence trap, and only 2 and a half months in, I’m a little confused as to how to proceed.
well? you getting on okay 5 months later?
Also curious how you are getting on.
As for me I worked through LLPSI and for every chapter that introduced a new set of inflections, I drilled those (and the ones previously learned). It didn’t make declensions or conjugations super daunting, and I got to learn them in context as I went along. But it was rigorous enough not to leave a chapter behind me with knowledge gaps remaining. It worked well for me.
Does it always have to be gratias tibi? To me { mihi : tibi : sibi } and | gra' :: grati : gratio |. Therefore, gratias already meant 'thank you' and gratias tibi means 'thank you to you'.
Now, I know that there is nothing wrong is having both ways of saying things. However, I was watching that Barbarian show where this Roman senator was teaching his adopted son Latin and he keep saying gratias ... gratias ... gratias. I thought it was quite strange to keep on hearing gratitude ... gratitude ... gratitude.
Note2: There are many a school teacher that may have missed out the fact that the architect of modern English language had imbued English with many characteristics of Latin, not in its part forms (partes), but in its part substances (partus).
Therefore, it is always fun to write a long sentence in English and then analyze the heck out of it with the contemporary imposter's grammar and then with my internal English-Latin grammar (humanus universita grammatica). Funny that I regularly uses the term dative and such terms as datify :: datification : datified when I used to criticize those imposters for not able to provide a satisfactory ELI5 (beginner's) definition.
It is possible to shorten 'gratias tibi' to 'gratias'. The phrase 'gratias tibi' is already shortened from 'gratias tibi ago'. Sometimes Latin speakers like to leave words implied, especially in common phrases like this one. 'gratias' would be something like an English speaker saying 'thanks' which is pretty close in meaning to 'thank you' but shorter, perhaps slightly less formal, but still appropriate.
@@FoundinAntiquity grato respone tui
Looking at the meanings of all the three forms {grat', grati', gratia} I think this provides a good case study to explain how other verbs such as laudo and moneo worked.
verb = an action where "to verb" literally means to give {movement, feeling, conceptual.item}.
[grat'] = thanks (movement) magnitude: simple gesture
grato = I thank *you* (I give thanks movement)
+i movement complete
[grati] = grateful (feeling) magnitude: joyful
gratio = I am feeling grateful *due to you*. However, it would be illogical to think that such feeling could be easily transferred. Therefore:
[grator] (verb.agent.form )
A person who gives others the feeling of joy ( equal to the grateful feeling in grati)
grāti' feeling of joy+ => [gratus] pleasing
ADJ::gratus grata gratum
CMP::gratior gratissimus
ADV::gratē
100 years later…
political flavor requires a new word. From the neuter conceptual gratum & grata, we get gratie✗ & gratia✓. Due to suitability as new noun, only gratia is choose and decline like 1st Declension noun.
[gratia,gratiae.f] grace (conceptual.item)
popularity/esteem/credit (w/bona); partiality/favoritism;
Note: The concept of gratitude probably came later in Late Latin with grātitūdō.f.
...meanwhile me, using this video to improve in English...
I'm glad it's helpful for your English too! I think it's a great idea to learn about other things using your target language.
Wait, so you're saying that stopping your reading exercise every 30 seconds to fully parse each verb is NOT a meaningful exercise??? Shocker!
why did you learn latin do you have a use for it
I like your intentions and message but godamn can you get to the point already. You sound like a college professor 90% words 10% meaning no hate
So you clicked on a 50 minute video expecting a quick message? The complete essay is linked in the description, if you want to control + F to get to the part you want. I also arrange chapters so you can skip ahead based on chapter titles. Otherwise sit back and enjoy soaking in those 50 minutes of video you clicked on.