Latin-Getting over the intermediate hump

[frogger]

So my son will be doing 4th Form Latin next year. He has started supplementing with Lingua Biblica also and will hopefully finish that also next year.

 

The problems I see are that it's boring and he has been doing this awhile and also there is not a huge focus on speaking or hearing or context. It feels almost entirely grammar and vocab with little context or making things natural.

 

He is not going to change programs but would like to get something else less focused on grammar to supplement the Form series. I'm leaning towards Rosetta Stone just because the format would be so different and new it would almost feel like a different subject. It also seems like its strengths are the opposite of the Form series.

 

I would love to hear of other ideas or reviews of Rosetta Stone.

[frogger]

He really wanted to get the Hobbit in Latin but we have read that it is a bad translation. He has translated passages, poems or songs from the Lord of the Rings.

 

I do wish I could find a local club or something that would give him some encouragement.

[Dmmetler]

The Cambridge Latin Course is a nice way to add reading in Latin to a more grammatical book. My DD did it the other way-stages 1-4 of CLC, followed by Latin Prep for Grammar while similtaneously continuing to read CLC stages 5-6. Your DS could probably start at a later stage. There's also a lot nice Roman history and culture built in. And, for Doctor Who buffs, the family in the CLC books is the same one the Doctor and Donna meet in Pompeii :).

Edited May 11, 2016 by dmmetler

[OnMyOwn]

Lingua Latina might make a nice supplement.

[Tranquility7]

Lingua Latina might make a nice supplement.

 

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

 

I recently responded to another thread about Latin with the following:  (note epsecially the "What to Read After the Boring Textbook" article!!)

 

 

Lingua Latina, hands down. Among other (including more important things), it is simply SO much more fun than Henle.

 

It is a serious Latin program, and it does get hard. But really, it is SUCH a fun and effective way to learn a *lot* of Latin (both grammar and vocab). And it lends itself to developing a fluency with the language that IME is seldom developed with grammar-translation programs like Henle.

 

Henle is very dry, and IIRC, very focused on the Gallic wars. Lingua Latin is more like a novel, but inserts just the right amount of grammar and vocab in each chapter to make it just the right level of challenge.

 

Have you read this article by Dwane Thomas, the Visual Latin teacher? What to Read After the Boring Textbook. It is a comparison of Henle and Lingua Latina, and his commentary is spot-on!

 

Lingua Latina is a college-level Latin text and covers *all* Latin grammar, and about 2000 vocab words. I suspect your son would enjoy reading it. It would start off extremely easy for him, but it does get harder, and would probably add considerably to his vocabulary even if he already knows most of the grammar.

 

Also, check out this post which has a list of several good reads that might add some fun to his Latin studies.

[frogger]

That does look interesting.

[frogger]

Would you recommend the workbooks that go with Lingua Latina if a student already does a lot of Grammar? I can't see the inside of the workbooks to see if they are a lot of translation and vocab or just grammar exercises.

[OnMyOwn]

Would you recommend the workbooks that go with Lingua Latina if a student already does a lot of Grammar? I can't see the inside of the workbooks to see if they are a lot of translation and vocab or just grammar exercises.

Well, see what the experts say, but I don't think you need the exercitia if you are already doing another program. It mostly consists of grammar and vocab exercises. It does not give the English translation of the Latin. There are lots of free online resources for Lingua Latina. You can find video translations, vocab practice by chapter, etc. The Latin Library is one place to look for some of the vocab info/practice.

[Mbelle]

We are doing 4th Form next year too.  We did get Lingua Latina last summer and read through a paragraph a day and he did enjoy his time doing that. We might do that again this summer. We haven't done that during the regular school year, because we just had too much work and it was a struggle getting it all done as it was.   He also enjoyed figuring out the latin in Asterix and Obelix.  There's the occasional spoken/sung latin in church and that's fun.

[Haiku]

Inexpensive options would be Salvete or Ecce Romani if you are looking for something that is more of a formal course or any of the free Latin readers that you can find on Google Books for practice with reading and translation.

 

Honestly, the problem you are describing is why we did not go with a grammar-first curriculum for Latin. I read too many reviews from people who learned the grammar but couldn't "translate" that into fluid reading. I chose a curriculum that balanced grammar and translation from the beginning.

Seconding (or thirding?) Lingua Latin.  I especially like the follow on book, Roma Aeterna, which has simplified retellings of parts of the Aeneid, ab urbe condita, etc.

 

One thing that's a bit hard to do at first, but is very useful, is to try not to translate LL into English, but rather, just read it in Latin without translating, but understanding the Latin as Latin.

 

Oh, and I cannot more strongly recommend against using Rosetta Stone Latin.

Edited May 11, 2016 by GGardner

[laughing lioness]

 

 

Oh, and I cannot more strongly recommend against using Rosetta Stone Latin.

 

Very interested in your thoughts on this. tia.

[forty-two]

Would you recommend the workbooks that go with Lingua Latina if a student already does a lot of Grammar? I can't see the inside of the workbooks to see if they are a lot of translation and vocab or just grammar exercises.

 

Lingua Latina itself has three sets of exercises at the end of each capitulum (chapter).  Pensum A is 10-15 lines of Latin prose in which you need to fill in some missing endings.  Pensum B is 10-15 lines of Latin prose in which you need to fill in some missing words (including the correct ending).  Pensum C is about 10 questions, in Latin, about the reading, and you are supposed to respond in Latin.  IMO all these would be worth doing, even if done orally for a quick review.  (I've found that when I've internalized the Latin, I can just read out the Latin lines and almost automatically fill in the right ending/word.)  But writing out the Latin is worthwhile, as well.  (And it allows you to better check your work.)

 

Each capitulum is divided into 2-3 sections (lectio), plus a grammar section, and the Exercitia have 3-4 exercises for each lectio, plus 1-2 exercises for the grammar section.  So there's 11-12 exercises for each capitulum in the Exercitia, in addition to the three exercises for each capitulum in the text itself.  They are similar to the exercises in the text: fill-in-the-missing-ending grammar practice, fill-in-the-missing-word vocab/grammar practice, and reading comprehension questions that also give practice in Latin composition.  It's *extra* practice, but I don't think it's substantially *different* practice than what's already in the text.  Since your student has already presumably mastered the grammar, and just needs to learn to think in Latin-as-Latin, probably just reading and re-reading the text is the main practice he needs.

 

Lingua Latina has no translation work - everything's in Latin - all the input *and* all the output.  The idea is to facilitate being able to think and work *in* Latin.  It helped me get over my wrong-headed notion that you translate in order to find out what the text says; rather, you understand the text *first* and then translate.  Makes so much more sense that way.  I really struggled in Latin once multiple meanings for each case were introduced - couldn't figure out *how* you knew which one applied in a given case???  Well, you figure it out the same way you do in English - context.  But as I couldn't understand the Latin without translating it - *all* I had were dictionary definitions and formal grammar rules to try to puzzle out the meaning (and that wasn't remotely sufficient on its own) - it seemed like a catch-22 to me: I had to know what the Latin said in order to know what the Latin said???  It was a major revelation to me that I could understand Latin like an actual language ;).

 

But so long as you can read and understand Lingua Latina as Latin, you could then use bits of it for translation practice.  I do think there's a lot of benefit to translating between languages - just so long as you can think and understand both languages *without* translating. 

Edited May 11, 2016 by forty-two

[Tranquility7]

You are getting lots of good advice here re: the Lingua Latina exercitia. It sounds like your DS already has enough grammar and translation. What he needs is simply fluency and enjoyment.

 

I would agree with PP that just doing the Pensum already included in Lingua Latina would be sufficient in your son's case, or he could even skip those and just enjoy the reading. Don't translate to English - just read and understand. If you don't understand, read again. Ask yourself questions in Latin (provided in Pensum C of each chapter) and then respond in Latin. Better yet, write summaries of the chapters in Latin. Or write your own "versions" of the chapter using your own life and experiences.

 

The one thing you might want to get is the College Companion, as that does provide grammar explanations *if* he runs into some tricky structure he has not yet learned. I don't know the Scope and Sequence of the series he uses, but LL can be quite different, so he may encounter something unfamiliar, and it would be helpful to have the College Companion just as a resource in case he needs it.

[Corraleno]

Rosetta Stone is useless for learning to read Latin. It uses the same program for every language, just switching out the vocabulary words. So unless you think you'll someday have a need to say "Look at the red balloon!" or "I'd like to order a glass of water" in Latin, I'd avoid Rosetta Stone.

[Corraleno]

Another option (shorter than Lingua Latina) that you could combine with 4th Form for a solid Latin 2 credit would be 38 Stories; it was designed to accompany Wheelock for Latin 1 & 2 and it includes short passages based on real Latin, although simplified in the beginning and increasing in difficulty and authenticity as the book progresses. Scribblers, Sculptors, and Scribes is a similar option designed as a supplement for grammar-based Latin classes. Latin 3 is usually a reading course, and there are lots of readers to choose from for that, such as Wheelock's Reader, Oxford Latin Course 3, Cambridge Latin Course 3, or any of the single-author works (Caesar, Catullus, Ovid, etc.) from Bolchazy-Carducci.