Learning Latin is not like learning a modern European language because you cannot have the full immersion experience that forces you to use your language skills everyday in a real life context. With this obstacle in mind we need to look for the best way to learn Latin in a world that considers it to be a 'dead' language.
I have successfully learnt Latin. I tried many different courses and books along the way and the following hints and tips are the fruits of my experience so you can save yourself all the trouble and wasted time that I went through.
I never studied Latin at school so if you are a complete beginner never fear, you are in good company. The best book I ever used was one called Lingua Latina. The strength of this book is that it imitates the full immersion experience by being written completely in Latin. This is not as scary as it might sound, in fact it is a stroke of genius. The book begins with incredibly simple Latin and very few words. From there it gradually introduces more vocabulary and grammar as you progress through the book.
By starting you off in the shallow end of the language and gradually leading you into deeper and deeper Latin you quickly make headway, almost in spite of yourself. The progression into the more difficult parts of Latin is made much easier by the use of a simple storyline throughout the whole book, this is a great memory aid. Each chapter has a brief grammar lesson at the end which reinforces what the chapter taught. Even these lessons are in Latin.
A trap I often fell into while trying to find the best way to learn Latin was buying books that didn't come with the answers to the practice exercises. The Lingua Latina book that I stumbled across comes with an exercise answer booklet so that you can keep follow your own progress which helps to keep you motivated. There's nothing more demotivating when learning a language than not having some way of telling whether or not you're making headway.
As good as this immersion book is there were still days when the mere thought of picking it up to study Latin turned my stomach. On these days I discovered that I needed some other 'low intensity' Latin activity for a change of pace. I was delighted to find children's fairy tales in Latin, Asterix books in Latin and even Harry Potter in Latin! The beauty of reading these books lies in already knowing their story-lines so it is easy to follow them without too much effort and yet still advance your Latin comprehension.
After these 'Latin-lite' sessions you can return to a regular diet of Latin with greater vigour and you'll be surprised at how much you have unconsciously progressed by having had some days of different input.
One final stepping-stone that I found useful was taking an eight-week 'introduction to Latin' night course. The main benefit here is learning the pronunciation of Latin, which is quite intuitive. In so doing you ensure that when you are learning by yourself you have the correct sounds echoing in your head and not a foreign pronunciation that you have invented. And if you're lucky you might discover a fellow Latin-lover to study with.
Latin is a beautiful language and much more logical than English. With a sustained effort it won't be long before you are able to start reading some of the great Latin Classics.
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