I’m taking the self-paced beginner course through UT Austin and so far I really like it. It’s a combo of Wheelock and lecture videos on canvas.

Do experienced learners here have any studying tips?

Hi, I am having some doubts about the translation of this sentence.

"Everyone knows you were about to leave"

I was thinking about translating it like "omnes sciunt vos discessuros FUISSE" . My friend says "Discessuros ESSE".

We can't find an agreement so here I am.

Can you help me?

Horace wrote in the Ars Poetica (133–134), nec verbo verbum curabis reddere fidus interpres, don't bother translating word for word. I know he was telling a poet how to handle borrowed Greek material, not giving advice on translation, but people have used the line against literal translation for two thousand years.

I'm not so sure. Every time you leave the words behind you make a choice the author didn't make. You pick a word order, you decide what gets the stress, sometimes you decide what the sentence means at all. A good readable translation is made of hundreds of those choices, without telling the reader which parts are Virgil and which parts are you. A literal one is bad English, no question, but you can see what the Latin does and make up your own mind.

So where do you draw the line? How close to the words can you stay before it stops being a translation, and how far can you move away before it stops being the author's text?

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I'm a beginner in Latin, and my textbook has the following passage:

Hīc quoque, nē possit fierī mēnsūra cubantis,
iniectā lateant fac tibi veste pedēs.

I've noticed a rather puzzling difference between Latin dictionaries.

Gaffiot, Georges, and Lewis's An Elementary Latin Dictionary all give the following forms:

mētior → mēnsus → mēnsūra

But Lewis & Short gives:

mētĭor → mensus → mensūra

This seems especially odd because mētior, mēnsus, and mēnsūra are normally treated as belonging to the same mē- root/word family.

Is there a particular philological reason why Lewis & Short considered the e in mensus and mensūra to be short? Or is this an older analysis/pronunciation tradition that was later abandoned?

What was Lewis & Short's evidence or reasoning for mensus / mensūra rather than mēnsus / mēnsūra?

I was reading How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill and he had a section where he mentions how St. Augustine deliberately referred to Carthage as "boiling like a cauldron" (in part because Augustine himself was also "boiling" with temptation) because cauldron (sartago) rhymes with Carthage (Cartago). Cahill says this is the first deliberate rhyme in Latin he knows of (he says that the Vulgate's "bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi" was not a deliberate rhyme just an "unavoidable" translation of the Greek). He says that in Latin this was considered "indecens" which he translates as "rustic" or backwards (not indecent), but that Augustine liked to deliberately rhyme (including referring to good gifts or bona dona) because that was more acceptable in the African use of Latin.

Is this true? Was deliberately rhyming looked down upon in classical literature?

I took advanced Latin in high school but stopped learning it once I went to college. Now I am in grad school, and will need to possess reading competency for my degree (I’m allowed to use a dictionary for my language exam). Earlier this year I found myself with enough grammatical knowledge to be able to slowly work through a text (Vulgate).

My question is, how do you recommend I go about refreshing my Latin? I will need to catch up on some grammar and of course relearn vocab.

My current idea is to pick a Latin text which I find interesting and just sit down and work through it, while pausing to investigate unknown grammar/words. I just don’t know if there is a better way that anyone can recommend, or any recourses that might be helpful.

Thank you!!

Hi,

I have to admit that I still struggle with knowing what to do with “quod”. I know that it can mean “because”, that it can introduce a subordinate clause, etc., but I can’t seem to determine what function it has when I’m translating.

Thank you very much!

English has a term for "island" and for a collection of islands, namely an "archipelago." However, while English has a word for a single body of water fully enclosed by land (lake), it lacks a term for a "system of lakes" other than that fairly lengthy phrase. I'm assuming Latin also lacked such a term, but I would like to try creating (for use in English) a compound term using Latin roots. Would you all be interested in brainstorming?

If any reddit group would know if something like this exists, it's here.

Our Latin program was cut this year. Yes, we were the lowest enrolled language, but vibrant and quirky. I taught both middle school and high school. I know I shouldn't be sad because I was just moved to teaching other subjects (actually making more), but honestly, I'm having a HARD time coping with it--especially the loss of middle school Latin, and the youngest learners (my favorite).

I don't suppose there is some kind of support group for Latin teachers whose schools cut the program? I cannot be the only one in this situation over the past few years!

I am way too far into my career (I've seen the beginning of the aughts, the teens, and the 20s!) to try to jump ship to a school that has Latin (I am also not religious enough for those in the area who still have it), so I am just looking for a place to be sad with other sad people, so we can be sad together, but specifically Latin focused. People who understand how funny it is when 12 year olds fake fight and go "tux tax! tux tax!"

Anyone know of anything?

i was at a christian wedding, and the officiant said something, it was Latin, but I have no idea on what the words actually were. it was something along the lines of “ebull upverche hosduras. what god has joined together let no man cast asunder.”

i have no idea what the words were, how to spell them, or what it means.

any help is appreciated!

​

Exercitum 1

1- In taberna Albīenī sunt multae gemmae et margaritae et alia ornāmenta.

2- Albinus tebernarius quī ōrnamenta vēndit

3- alia tabenārī mala et pira vēndunt

4- quī tabernam habet tabernārius est.

5- multae fēminae ante tabernam cōnsistit

6- Eae quae pecūniam habet ōrnāmenta emit.

7- quae pecūniam nōn habet ōrnamenta aspicit et rūrsus abit.

8- Aemelia multae ōrnamenta ā virō suō accipit.

9- Aemilia ānulus in digitō et margaritas in cullum habet.

10- Margaritae cullum Aemiliae ōrnat.

11- Gemmae Aemeliae ānulō ōrnatur

12- quī magnam pecūniam habet pecūniōsus

is accent important (ā, ī, ē, ū, ō)?

I think that there’s very little Latin teachers but that’s also because the market isn’t popular

but I am already a teacher so don’t need pedagogy practice but perhaps need to master Latin languag. perhaps I should get actual credits?

is there anyone who is a Latin teacher without full classical degre or Latin degree or just full mastery but sufficient to teach Latin I and II and AP Latin?

Hi everyone,

I’ve been wondering about the exact phonetic realization of the voiced stops /b d g/ in Classical Latin.

I understand that the standard reconstruction treats them as voiced stops, i.e. roughly [b d g]. But I’ve also come across the idea that, especially in intervocalic position, they may have had fricative or approximant realizations such as [β ð ɣ], perhaps due to lenition.

For example, would words such as:

- solidus be pronounced [ˈsɔ.li.dus] or could the intervocalic d have been [ð]?

- habēre have [b] or [β]?

- rogāre have [g] or [ɣ]?

I’m specifically asking about Classical Latin, rather than Late Latin or the Romance languages.

What is the evidence for the reconstruction of [b d g] in Classical Latin? Do ancient grammarians, inscriptions, transcriptions into Greek, or comparative evidence tell us anything about possible intervocalic lenition?

And if [β ð ɣ] are considered possible phonetic realizations in Classical Latin, how strong is the evidence for them, and what contexts would trigger them?

Thanks.

Anyone have any more laid-back passive learning resources I can use to pick up a little latin while I’m spending most of my mental energy everyday on studying for other subjects in college?

I want to be able to read classics in latin someday but I don’t have a lot of time right now to focus on it.

Currently I’ve been listening to gregorian chant music to relax and I’ve been picking up some latin just from that, does anyone know other songs or musical traditions that use a lot of latin outside of the ecclesiastical latin context?

Or maybe videos with illustrations and very basic vocabulary that I can watch for five minutes everyday.

I’m okay with the learning going really slowly, as long as I can fit it into my free time and it’s more relaxing than draining.

Not really an assignment, more a favour that I'm doing for somebody. These are lines from a song that I am asked to translate for a gift for a retiring teacher. I asked if it should be freer, but metric, or closer to the text but prose; answer: the latter.

My time is scarce, I know I disappear at times
can't stay in touch with everyone the way I'd like
let me sing, let me play
Let me breathe, give me zen

Tempus mihi deest, scio me interdum elabi

Mihi non licet omnibus convenire quoties velim

Ut cantem et psallam,

spirem, ataraxian inveniam

I am not quite sure what to do with the "let me" phrases, I think the intention is an adhortation at the first person. I honestly never quite know how to express these in Latin and my Rubenbauer-Hoffmann is not very helpful. The "me" is pondering about how much work they put into their band project and that is sometimes overwhelming.

I think I'll be going for ataraxian for zen because it's a foreign word. On thing that was difficult was finding a word for "to stay in touch".

A tutti i cultori del latino vivo (metodo natura / Orberg): vi è mai capitato? A me sì, più volte negli ultimi mesi. Un'esperienza affascinante 😅

I've come across some sentences in Latin when reading philosophy writings and literary works. Translating each of them, using websites, Google Translator and other online resources, has been tiring for me, so I decided the best thing to do is learn Latin. However, as a complete beginner, I don't know where to start, or how to start learning that language the accurate way. I wish you to recommend me some books (or even apps) and tips.

I have some last questions:

• Is Duolingo good for learning Latin? (Many people use it for learning languages)
• If there are different recommended books, in what order should I read them?

Thank you for your attention!

Salvete omnes,

I’ll cut straight to the chase: I have worked through Moreland and Fleischer’s Latin (if anyone has a recommendation for a textbook in a similar style but in attic Greek it would be much appreciated) as well as LLPSI and am currently enjoying Roma Aeterna as well as whatever Roman author I can decipher with the aid of a dictionary. It must be said I have gone through these textbooks at a breakneck pace as I have a somewhat unique way of learning languages, though the unfortunate result of such an approach is a lacking vocabulary. This problem is exacerbated by the penurious quantity of audible Latin available (I am aware of many YouTube channels, podcasts, websites etc… though people’s pronunciation is often lacking), which is how I would normally consolidate more vocabulary quickly. Hearing it and saying it in my own phrase. Aside from vocabulary Latin poses no real grammatical problem for me (aside from declensions still not feeling natural) and so I wonder if my best course of action is to simply read voraciously. I have been enjoying Cupid and Psyche though the process can be tedious when I have more than 15 new vocabulary words taken from less than a full page of Apuleius. The work of Lucretius seems still a far away dream…

It should be stated that my overall goal with Latin is to become as proficient and “fluent” as possible.

Where should I learn Latin as a beginner? Any books. That break it down and simply it?