I have decided - - not using macrons in Latin from the beginning is stupid!

[katilac]

I realize some things need to be simplified for younger students, but not using macrons in Latin is not one of them, grrr. I think it's harder having to "re-learn" words with the macron, than simply learning them that way in the first place. Wouldn't they simply learn it as part of spelling the word?

[patchfire]

:iagree:

 

This is the primary reason we didn't use LC. No macrons.

[katilac]

:iagree:

 

This is the primary reason we didn't use LC. No macrons.

 

sheesh, you could have told ME. :D

[imhim]

SO which Latin cur. teaches macrons from the beginning?

[katilac]

I know that Matin Latin does (grammar level); Ecce Romani for logic level.

[ElizabethB]

I learned hundreds of nouns in German before I realized I needed to remember if they were Masculine, Feminine, or Neuter. I had learned Spanish previously, and the ending indicated the gender. In German this is not the case, but I did not realize this at first. It took months before I realized my error--to this day, the most common German nouns are running around in my head genderless. I am incapable of saying a sentence longer than a few words that is not a stock phrase I have heard without a grammatical error for this reason.

 

Thanks for the warning! We're going to start Latin this year, and I don't want to make a similar type of error with Macrons or anything else. Any more hints?

 

I have 5 Latin programs, Matin Latin is one of them. I didn't like the looks of it as much as some of the others, but it was $1 so I couldn't help myself, it may be more useful than I thought!

Edited August 12, 2009 by ElizabethB

[latinteach]

Lively Latin and Latin for Children use macrons from the beginning.

 

Lively Latin does have macrons, but isn't entirely consistent. I'm looking at the Handy Dandy Chant Sheet right now and can see that the macrons are given for the noun endings (1st and 2nd declension) but they are left off for many of the verb endings (except for the first person singular present tense.)

You can compare the verb chants with this chart here:

http://www.tabney.com/conjugation1.html

(Lively Latin is a very good curriculum otherwise.)

 

Latin for Children (looking through Primer A) seems to be pretty consistent with macrons.

[latinteach]

SO which Latin cur. teaches macrons from the beginning?

 

Many of them do.

Minimus

Cambridge Latin Course

Ecce Romani

Great Latin Adventure

Latin for the New Millennium

Artes Latinae

Henle

So You Really Want to Learn Latin

Latin Prep

Lingua Latina (Oerberg)

Lingua Latina (Traupman)

Latin for Americans

Wheelock's Latin

Oxford Latin Course

[buddhabelly]

it doesn't really emphasize them. Mostly because you are usually translating from Latin to English, and not the other way around. I just cannot memorize the macrons in the noun declensions. I shouldn't be so negative, but we've tried! It's not just "memorizing a word" and where the macron goes. The macrons appear and disappear depending on which declension the word is in and which case it is in and whether it is singular and plural.

 

We did have one chapter in Latin for Children Primer C that told us that whether a third declension noun was an "i" stem noun or not because of the macrons. Or something like that. But it kind of went over our heads.

 

Julie

[Hillary in KS]

Why does one need to learn the macrons? I admit I have been lax on this because so far I find them terribly confusing (and useless). But I am learning along with my son so I have no idea what is ahead.

 

:iagree:

 

We've finished the first two units of Henle, after 2 years of Latina Christiana. I didn't emphasize the macrons this year, because I have no idea what their purpose is. Will this come back and bite me later on? What are they used for?

[Caraway]

Macrons indicate that the vowel is long. Long vowels (those with the macron) are held about twice as long as short vowels. So, it matters for pronunciation.

 

Also, according to Wheelock's: "Students should regard macrons as part of the spelling of a word, since the differences of pronunciation they indicate are often crucial to meaning."

 

The example they give is that liber is a noun that means book, but līber is an adjective meaning free.

[Hillary in KS]

Macrons indicate that the vowel is long. Long vowels (those with the macron) are held about twice as long as short vowels. So, it matters for pronunciation.

 

Also, according to Wheelock's: "Students should regard macrons as part of the spelling of a word, since the differences of pronunciation they indicate are often crucial to meaning."

 

The example they give is that liber is a noun that means book, but līber is an adjective meaning free.

 

So, it's really just a pronunciation issue? It doesn't affect word meanings or grammar?

 

So, why then is it stupid to not learn them?

[Caraway]

 

The example they give is that liber is a noun that means book, but līber is an adjective meaning free.

 

Quoting myself here... it DOES change the meaning.

[AudreyTN]

I didn't see Latin's Not So Tough mentioned.

[yvonne]

No, it is not simply a matter of pronunciation! You can tell what case/conjugation a word is based on the macrons.

 

I saw how important macrons are when I took a Wheelock's latin class this summer. Wheelock's uses the macrons. The instructor's slides did not have macrons. It was much harder to figure out cases & conjugations & translations of a number of words without some of those macrons!

 

I think maybe it does not matter so much once you know what you're doing, but they were extremely useful for me as a beginner.

[Hillary in KS]

Quoting myself here... it DOES change the meaning.

 

Oh! I missed that last sentence. Thanks! :001_smile:

[latinteach]

Why does one need to learn the macrons? I admit I have been lax on this because so far I find them terribly confusing (and useless). But I am learning along with my son so I have no idea what is ahead.

 

They're really not useless. You should think of them like an umlaut in German or a tilde in Spanish.

 

Now, it is true that many publishers of authentic, critical edition Latin texts (the type of books used by professors and philologists who have their doctorates and who study these authors professionally) don't include them. The ancient Romans and medieval writers didn't necessarily use them. But they spoke Latin and would be able to hear the difference. Philologists who study Latin using Oxford and Teubner texts don't need the macrons; they've been studying, teaching, reading and writing Latin for long enough, they don't need them anymore. Most beginners do. Macrons help you pronounce the words better and they can also help you determine the difference between two words that otherwise look alike. (Here's a good example: take a look at the nominative singular of "fēmina" and then take a look at the ablative singular "feminā." Having the macron helps you to figure out if that word is the subject of the sentence or the object of a preposition. Another example pair is "hic" and "hīc." "Hic" is a demonstrative pronoun, meaning "this" (as in "this man" or "this woman" from hic, haec, hoc). "Hīc" is an adverb that means "here."

 

Another illustration that Dr. LaFleur (Wheelock) gives is the difference between "cap" and "cape." Just as the e makes the "a" long and changes the meaning of the word, so does the macron function.

Edited August 13, 2009 by latinteach

[latinteach]

I didn't see Latin's Not So Tough mentioned.

 

I don't have a copy of that book. Someone else will have to take a look at their copy.

[CookieMonster]

Yes. This is one of my complaints about Latina Christiana....and a big shock when they hit another program.

 

Aaack! I was planning on using this. Man!

[Laura Corin]

SO which Latin cur. teaches macrons from the beginning?

 

It doesn't in the workbooks, to give practice at working out words without macrons.

 

Laura

[latinteach]

How often does this occur?

 

I asked my husband. He insisted it isn't necessary, that he never learned them that way. He did admit that they might help sometimes. I asked him how he distinguished the difference and he said he didn't know. LOL

 

For beginners, the macrons are extremely helpful. He probably is distinguishing the difference by context, since he is experienced enough at reading to figure out the meaning of the word without recourse to the macrons. Many teachers don't teach students to pay attention to the long marks. Many also don't teach students to use any particular pronunciation. However, both macrons and proper pronunciation do help students, especially at the beginning levels, master Latin. Critical editions of Latin texts (those used by scholars) usually don't have macrons, and they will generally include spellings that aren't necessarily standard as well, since these critical editions are based upon manuscripts (such as those found on parchment or those copied by monks in the middle ages. These editions are often designed to get as close to the original manuscript as possible.)

[Alana in Canada]

Oh dear.

 

Lively Latin has macrons: in fact, we just learned that the second declension verbs in the present tense keep the macron in the stem of the verb in the 2nd person singular and first and second person plural--but drop it otherwise. (This is in BB2, btw...not to scare you users of LL1)

 

And so far that's all I really know about macrons--excpt that I keep calling them "omicrons." When I know that's not right, I'll say "umlaut."

 

My poor kids.

[japhmi]

Aaack! I was planning on using this. Man!

Yeah, I'm considering adding it in myself (at least to the vocab lists).

[tdeveson]

SO which Latin cur. teaches macrons from the beginning?

We use Minimus. It teaches macrons from page 1.

[AudreyTN]

I use Latin's Not So Tough. It does use macrons.

 

That's what I meant... :)

[Mom-ninja.]

I'll have to remember this when picking out Latin. What about School Song Latin?

[Moni]

. Wouldn't they simply learn it as part of spelling the word?

 

Yes.

 

:seeya:

[latinteach]

I'll have to remember this when picking out Latin. What about School Song Latin?

 

SSL is really an exploratory type of course. I wouldn't worry too much about macrons at that point.

[Guest Nick Oulton]

SO which Latin cur. teaches macrons from the beginning?

Hi,

I couldn't agree more - making pupils learn something one way, and then going back to learn it another way is totally stupid. So in our (Galore Park) books we teach macrons from the very first page: So you really want to learn Latin, and Latin Prep.

Let me know if you need more info on these.

Nick Oulton

[Guest Gawel]

If I may jump in the conversation... I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but the length of vowels often played a role in historical phonological changes. Short vowels tend to mutate much more easily that long vowels. That's why, in latin, the second and the third conjugations are so different. That's also why a short stem -a- regularly changes into -e- in the perfect stem of most verbs.

[kes]

I'm using Orberg's LINGVA LATINA for homeschooling my children. So, we've got a text with macrons.

 

Like others I've wondered about macrons and whether or not to require them as a learning objective.

 

I've finally come to the point of seeing macrons for what they are: remedial crutches to be done away with as soon a possible.

 

My interest in Latin for my children is that they use it. That is, that they read it, write it, and speak it. The best way for that to happen, I believe, is that they focus on using it. We spend a lot of time reading Latin from Orberg, and I ask them lots of questions in Latin. When they can answer in Latin, I know that they've gotten the grammatical point, and we move on.

 

Macrons are not even an item of interest. And I don't think that they should be. Macons were developed around 1600 by a dutch doctor named Smets. The Romans never used macrons. And you won't find macrons in printed texts past high school.

 

Are macrons an aid? Sure. Just like in an English dictionary where you find phonetic marks at a word entry. Do you take those those phonetic marks and use them in your writing? (Maybe I should make that "wr*I*ting" just to make sure that you get the sound right.) By they are not really a part of Latin. Sometimes, I think some people forget that. At least I did.

 

In the same way, why would anybody put macrons in their own written Latin, say in letters, or blogs, or on web sites? Again, it's not part of the language. Do you put macrons in your English to make sure that your readers pronounce it right?

 

I like what William Harris of Middlebury College wrote: "If students learn the longs and shorts by hearing Latin spoken by the teacher and speaking it themselves, there will be no problems later on, that is the long and the short of it."

[katilac]

I'm using Orberg's LINGVA LATINA for homeschooling my children. So, we've got a text with macrons.

 

Like others I've wondered about macrons and whether or not to require them as a learning objective.

 

I've finally come to the point of seeing macrons for what they are: remedial crutches to be done away with as soon a possible.

 

My interest in Latin for my children is that they use it. That is, that they read it, write it, and speak it. The best way for that to happen, I believe, is that they focus on using it. We spend a lot of time reading Latin from Orberg, and I ask them lots of questions in Latin. When they can answer in Latin, I know that they've gotten the grammatical point, and we move on.

 

Macrons are not even an item of interest. And I don't think that they should be. Macons were developed around 1600 by a dutch doctor named Smets. The Romans never used macrons. And you won't find macrons in printed texts past high school.

 

Are macrons an aid? Sure. Just like in an English dictionary where you find phonetic marks at a word entry. Do you take those those phonetic marks and use them in your writing? (Maybe I should make that "wr*I*ting" just to make sure that you get the sound right.) By they are not really a part of Latin. Sometimes, I think some people forget that. At least I did.

 

In the same way, why would anybody put macrons in their own written Latin, say in letters, or blogs, or on web sites? Again, it's not part of the language. Do you put macrons in your English to make sure that your readers pronounce it right?

 

I like what William Harris of Middlebury College wrote: "If students learn the longs and shorts by hearing Latin spoken by the teacher and speaking it themselves, there will be no problems later on, that is the long and the short of it."

 

Question: I've seen macrons used as the way to tell 2nd and 3rd conjugation verbs apart - - is there another way? or do you start off using them and then, by the time you drop them, you know which verbs belong to which conjugation?

[Rhondabee]

Question: I've seen macrons used as the way to tell 2nd and 3rd conjugation verbs apart - - is there another way? or do you start off using them and then, by the time you drop them, you know which verbs belong to which conjugation?

 

I'm no expert. My 9th gr DS is in Latin 2 (an online Henle class) after using LC I and II and Latin I at home without macrons. When this thread first appeared, I went through and looked to see exactly how helpful macrons would be for my 6th gr DS (doing Henle with me at home). The only time it seems helpful is for differentiating between the 1st declension nominative and ablative (and that helpfulness is minimal).

 

Since all the 3rd conjugation verbs are irregular, we have had to memorize all four parts - hence we just *know* they're 3rd conjugation. The bummer being the unexpectedly high number of irregular 2nd conjugation verbs. ;)

 

The long and short of it for me is that it seems just as easy to memorize, "compleo is a 2nd conjugation verb" as it is to memorize, "compleo, complere has a macron in it, so it's a 2nd conjugation verb." But to each their own~

[latinteach]

I'm no expert. My 9th gr DS is in Latin 2 (an online Henle class) after using LC I and II and Latin I at home without macrons. When this thread first appeared, I went through and looked to see exactly how helpful macrons would be for my 6th gr DS (doing Henle with me at home). The only time it seems helpful is for differentiating between the 1st declension nominative and ablative (and that helpfulness is minimal).

 

Macrons are much more important than you think. Here's a couple good examples, and there are many, more: vēnit vs. venit, "he she or it has arrived" vs. "he, she or it is arriving," and "hīc" meaning "here" vs. hic (from hic, haec, hoc) the demontrative adjective meaning "this." The macrons are way more important than just differentiating between the first declension nominative and ablative. Not learning the macrons won't make that much difference when you're still in LCI/II, but as you progress, knowing them can make a huge difference, and it's better to learn them right away than have to go back.

 

If you plan to work all the way up to Advanced Placement Latin, you'll be reading Vergil's Aeneid, and knowing macrons will make a big difference when it comes time to scan the poetry and read it metrically.

 

You wouldn't leave the tilde of an ñ of a word in Spanish or the umlaut of an ö or ü in German. To do so would change the meaning of a vocabulary word.

 

Learning them isn't absolutely mandatory, but knowing them will be incredibly helpful later on.

Edited November 24, 2009 by latinteach

[FlockOfSillies]

Great Latin Adventure.

[angela in ohio]

If you plan to work all the way up to Advanced Placement Latin, you'll be reading Vergil's Aeneid, and knowing macrons will make a big difference when it comes time to scan the poetry and read it metrically.

 

I thought there were no macrons on the Ap Vergil exam? (We aren't that far yet, so I haven't seen a sample exam, just read a lot about it, so I could have bad info.)

 

 

I tend to agree with the poster who said they are a crutch. When you have no context, such as when you are translating one random sentence in a Latin workbook, you may need help deciding which word to use. But when you start translating from longer works, students should be taught to use context clues. Even with macrons, you still sometimes have to make a judgement call on how to translate a Latin sentence.

 

I agree that they are more like a long vowel mark in English than a tilde in Spanish. In Latin, it distinguishes a different sound of the vowel. In Spanish, it distinguishes an entirely different letter. It would be like using a long vowel mark to distinguish rEad from read. We usually figure out what is meant by context.

 

Anyway, I am not a fanatic about macrons (or about pronuncation) in my early Latin classes. :001_smile:

[christine in al]

hurumph.

 

I was happy to have discovered them before we were too far in , Song School Latin doesn't have them, but Getting Started with Latin does.

I too can't understand not using them from the beginiing, but .. oh now you tell me they are only SOMETIMES there.

oh my.

this whole ,, learning thing,,, is hard work.

~c.

[latinteach]

e

I like what William Harris of Middlebury College wrote: "If students learn the longs and shorts by hearing Latin spoken by the teacher and speaking it themselves, there will be no problems later on, that is the long and the short of it."

 

There's the problem. Students are being taught Latin but not learning proper pronunciation. The macrons help instill good pronunciation from the beginning. This good pronunciation helps students really get the difference between tenses (as in the venit vs. vēnit example, the first being a present tense verb, the second being a perfect tense.) It's true that advanced Latin readers don't have macrons, but at that point, they shouldn't be needed. If you're using Lingua Latina, you're likely using the audio and therefore hearing the macrons, even if you're not seeing them, so you're still learning the difference between a long and short vowel, even if you aren't using the notation.

[latinteach]

I thought there were no macrons on the Ap Vergil exam? (We aren't that far yet, so I haven't seen a sample exam, just read a lot about it, so I could have bad info.)

 

You are correct that there aren't any macrons on the test.

 

However, most students who study the Aeneid and other Latin poems will also spend time working on the metrics of the poetry and scanning. The basic unit of Latin verse is measured by the length of syllables. You can learn the rules of syllabification when you get around to reading Vergil, which is what a lot of people do, but it's good to be making the distinctions between long and short vowels from the beginning and then it's not such a chore.

[Jlynn]

hurumph.

 

I was happy to have discovered them before we were too far in , Song School Latin doesn't have them, but Getting Started with Latin does.

I too can't understand not using them from the beginiing, but .. oh now you tell me they are only SOMETIMES there.

oh my.

this whole ,, learning thing,,, is hard work.

~c.

 

I use LFC and I don't think she means that they appear and disappear without reason. Its simply that the same verb or noun may have a macron in one case/tense but not in another. We like LFC quite a bit, but I do wish they would emphasize translating from English to Latin a bit more for this reason.

[kes]

Question: I've seen macrons used as the way to tell 2nd and 3rd conjugation verbs apart - - is there another way? or do you start off using them and then, by the time you drop them, you know which verbs belong to which conjugation?

 

As others have said, first you know the word itself. If you don't know the word, context clues you in.

 

It's funny how we worry about not being able to identify the function of a word if it doesn't have a macron. The Romans could. Why shouldn't we be able to? Any and every language has ambiguity. Don't we realize that we do things similar and more complicated in English all the time? Perhaps we don't give ourselves enough credit. (I bet you didn't think about grammar for one second while reading the above.)

 

Let me point out that unless our focus is grammar, morphology, linguistics, etc., for its own sake (worthy pursuits, no doubt), the goal of any language is communication. Unfortunately, because of the way we think about Latin, the question of identifying a word as belonging to the second or third conjugation (or any other grammatical or linguistic nuance) becomes too abstract and separated from this fundamental goal. Latin becomes a language to figure out, instead of one to enjoy, to read and to speak. (How's that for ending a sentence with three present active infinitives, or didn't you notice?)

 

I gather from some videos I've seen that one of the approaches at the University of Kentucky is to let people speak in Latin without constantly interrupting and correcting their errors of grammar and pronunciation. Yes, they will eventually correct those errors, but it's more important to use the language than it is to use it 100% correctly.

 

I don't want to do away with grammar and/or macrons. I just want to remember that they are tools and aids, not the point.

[kes]

e

 

If you're using Lingua Latina, you're likely using the audio and therefore hearing the macrons, even if you're not seeing them, so you're still learning the difference between a long and short vowel, even if you aren't using the notation.

 

Orberg's DVD is recommended. Not only can it help with pronunciation, but develops aural proficiency.

[Annabel Lee]

Which Latin programs teach w/ macrons (auditory and/or written - both at once preferred) in the beginning for use as tools but drop them at some point to allow more independent practice? Oh, and programs which allow for plenty of translation both ways - English to Latin and Latin to English - are preferred. ETA: This would be for grammar stage, but it would be nice to have suggestions for programs that will remain consistent (i.e. not having to unlearn or redo anything for major changes) and flow nicely through high school. :D

Anything fit the bill?

TIA!

Edited November 28, 2009 by Annabel Lee

[siloam]

Oh dear.

 

Lively Latin has macrons: in fact, we just learned that the second declension verbs in the present tense keep the macron in the stem of the verb in the 2nd person singular and first and second person plural--but drop it otherwise. (This is in BB2, btw...not to scare you users of LL1)

 

And so far that's all I really know about macrons--excpt that I keep calling them "omicrons." When I know that's not right, I'll say "umlaut."

 

My poor kids.

 

I think LL teaches them correctly, but going back to the problems with the answer keys, they are not always included properly. I have found several times where I had to refer back to the earlier text to make sure I had done it correctly because the answer key had dropped them.

 

But that is an on going problem with LL. I adore the program as a whole. Love the sequence, how gentle the program is, how there isn't tons of busy work, but I can't decide if I can continue to deal with all the typos.

 

Heather

 

[lauracolumbus]

Another question:

What do we do if we're already too far invested in LC products? Do we wait til we get to Henle (please tell me Henle uses them)? Do I try to teach macrons now on top of LC?

 

Thanks,

Laura

[Laura Corin]

Which Latin programs teach w/ macrons (auditory and/or written - both at once preferred) in the beginning for use as tools but drop them at some point to allow more independent practice? Oh, and programs which allow for plenty of translation both ways - English to Latin and Latin to English - are preferred. ETA: This would be for grammar stage, but it would be nice to have suggestions for programs that will remain consistent (i.e. not having to unlearn or redo anything for major changes) and flow nicely through high school. :D

Anything fit the bill?

TIA!

 

The text book uses macrons but the workbooks deliberately do not, to allow for a bit more memorisation practice. There is tons of translation practice in both directions.

 

I don't normally recommend starting the course before age 9. Doing books 1, 2 and 3, followed by So You Really Want to Learn Latin III will set you up very well to start reading original texts - you could finish in middle school or high school, depending on your pace.

 

Laura

[brehon]

Laura or anyone else who might know: My ds will finish LL1 in a few months and I've been thinking about starting him in Latin Prep 1. Are the only books I need the textbook and workbook? Thanks.

[Laura Corin]

Laura or anyone else who might know: My ds will finish LL1 in a few months and I've been thinking about starting him in Latin Prep 1. Are the only books I need the textbook and workbook? Thanks.

 

Calvin did LP1 and I only bought the text book and work book. It's a complete course as it stands. Hobbes doesn't have quite such a good memory, so I have ordered the workbooks (1a and 1b) as well as the answer book for those. We are also playing with the Cambridge Latin online resources for fun and extra vocabulary.

 

If your son has finished LL1, then I suspect you might be fine with just the text book and work book. What age is he?

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[brehon]

Calvin did LP1 and I only bought the text book and work book. It's a complete course as it stands. Hobbes doesn't have quite such a good memory, so I have ordered the workbooks (1a and 1b) as well as the answer book for those. We are also playing with the Cambridge Latin online resources for fun and extra vocabulary.

 

If your son has finished LL1, then I suspect you might be fine with just the text book and work book. What age is he?

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

 

Thank you very much. He'll turn 9 in the summer; so, I don't think I want to start him too soon in LP1. Additionally, he finds Latin very easy, reads well, and memorizes easily. I also don't want to be in a position of finishing LL1 (and he's more than halfway finished right now) and not keeping up with his Latin until LP. Hmmm....decisions, decisions.

[Laura Corin]

Thank you very much. He'll turn 9 in the summer; so, I don't think I want to start him too soon in LP1. Additionally, he finds Latin very easy, reads well, and memorizes easily. I also don't want to be in a position of finishing LL1 (and he's more than halfway finished right now) and not keeping up with his Latin until LP. Hmmm....decisions, decisions.

 

If that's not an option, you could always start on LP1 early, but buy the workbooks and expect to do it over two years rather than one. I wouldn't want to hit LP2 with a nine year old.

 

Laura