Laura Corin Posted July 31, 2010 Share Posted July 31, 2010 In my daily newspaper today came a free gift. Joy unbounded! It was Alan Bennett reading an abridged version of Alice in Wonderland. I'm prepared to overlook the abridgement because I so love his reading. Anyway, as we drove home from getting haircuts (before attending two friends' civil partnership ceremony tomorrow) I heard this: (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen, in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) But.... that's all wrong! That's not the British order. When I got home I consulted Wikipedia, only to find: The sequence NOM-VOC-ACC-GEN-DAT-ABL has been the usual order taught in Britain and many Commonwealth countries since the publication of Hall Kennedy's Latin Primer (1866). It reflects the tendencies of different cases to share similar endings (see Syncretic trends below)..... However, some schools teach it in the order NOM-GEN-DAT-ACC-ABL-VOC... I thought some things were solid in my world, among them that all Brits chanted their declensions as I do. Not so, not so. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz CA Posted July 31, 2010 Share Posted July 31, 2010 I NOM-GEN-DAT-ACC-ABL-VOC...[/i] I thought some things were solid in my world, among them that all Brits chanted their declensions as I do. Not so, not so. Laura When I was taught Latin in school (Europe), it was Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Vocative and Ablative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted July 31, 2010 Share Posted July 31, 2010 My son did Latin for Children up to C. He's now learning Latin from CNED - the French way. The declensions are not in the same order, and that's giving him trouble because he's not reciting them the way the teacher wants. It's silly because he knows how to use those declensions, and isn't that more important than just reciting them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted July 31, 2010 Author Share Posted July 31, 2010 When I was taught Latin in school (Europe), it was Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Vocative and Ablative. This article gives details. But I thought the UK used just one system. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz CA Posted July 31, 2010 Share Posted July 31, 2010 This article gives details. But I thought the UK used just one system. Laura Very interesting. Looks like my school followed the old Italian (Roman) version. I just dug out my very old Latin book and indeed the title is: " Cursus Latinus _ Roman Themes." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keptwoman Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Tomorrow morning I'm going to make some enquires on what Australia uses so we can be sure we are the same. Tell me more about chanting? Based on the LP order, how would a chant look for the first declension? I think we need to add some chanting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted August 1, 2010 Author Share Posted August 1, 2010 All we do is make sure that the boys can recite, from memory, all the declensions and conjugations, as well as using the individual parts. Theo Zinn recommends getting to the '3am stage' - if someone woke you up at 3 in the morning, could you recite them without a hitch in your sleepy state? Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 And then again, you have the approach that my son has to follow (from France, although I have no clue if it's generalised or not). Instead of learning one declension fully, they learn all cases. So they'll learn all five genitives, then all five accusative, etc.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted August 1, 2010 Author Share Posted August 1, 2010 And then again, you have the approach that my son has to follow (from France, although I have no clue if it's generalised or not). Instead of learning one declension fully, they learn all cases. So they'll learn all five genitives, then all five accusative, etc.. I suppose I can imagine that working: you concentrate on one case and learn it really well before moving on to the next. There's a logic to it. It sits strangely with me though, and it's not how I've learned any language: Latin, French, Spanish. Chinese has no case changes, has optional plurals and barely has tenses. Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaissezFaire Posted August 2, 2010 Share Posted August 2, 2010 LOL. I have had the same thoughts. I can quote most of Alice by heart, especially that scene as my daughter played the mouse in a pretty large production of Alice in Wonderland. I chuckled when I saw this because every single rehearsal I thought of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keptwoman Posted August 2, 2010 Share Posted August 2, 2010 All we do is make sure that the boys can recite, from memory, all the declensions and conjugations, as well as using the individual parts. Theo Zinn recommends getting to the '3am stage' - if someone woke you up at 3 in the morning, could you recite them without a hitch in your sleepy state? Laura So that's Nom Sing Nom Plural Voc Sing Voc Plural Acc Sing Acc Plural etc or all the singular and then all the plural? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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