Latin Via Ovid — opinions?

[n_j_f]

Has anyone used Latin Via Ovid and would like to share their thoughts, comments or have any suggestions on how best to use the course? My interest was piqued when I came across this text while browsing the classics section of one of the few decent bookstores left in Sydney. I am somewhat familiar with the various ‘Greek Through Homer’ texts, but haven't heard about Latin Via Ovid previously. My impression from what I have seen is that it could be a good complement to Lingua Latina and Assimil's Le latin sans peine. I enjoy series like Lingua Latina, the Italian adaptation of Athenaze, Le français par la méthode nature, L'italiano secondo par il metodo natura and the various inter-linear texts. An additional bonus for me is that I enjoy reading about mythology and Greek and Roman literature.

My only hesitation would be the scarcity and cost of the audio. Does anyone think it is worth it? For reference, my knowledge of Latin is fairly meagre but I have just recently enrolled at Schola Latina Europæa & Universalis for their Sermo Latinus course which uses the Assimil Le latin sans peine as its textbook.

[AlexTG]

I didn't know this exists but it sounds great, I wish they'd make things like this for living languages... "Italian via Dante" TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY.

Latin poetry is difficult because it does crazy stuff like place adjectives two lines away from the noun they alter. I think it would be good to start early so that such things feel more natural. This may also have the advantage of forcing you to focus on declensions since you won't be able to use the relatively predictable word positioning of prose as a crutch.

I don't think you should bother with the audio, you'll already be getting a passable pronunciation model into your head via Assimil and your teachers.

[n_j_f]

I didn't know this exists but it sounds great, I wish they'd make things like this for living languages... "Italian via Dante" TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY.

Latin poetry is difficult because it does crazy stuff like place adjectives two lines away from the noun they alter. I think it would be good to start early so that such things feel more natural. This may also have the advantage of forcing you to focus on declensions since you won't be able to use the relatively predictable word positioning of prose as a crutch.

I don't think you should bother with the audio, you'll already be getting a passable pronunciation model into your head via Assimil and your teachers.

"Italian via Dante," "German via Goethe/Nietzsche," "Russian via Dostoevesky" — I would definitely sign up for that!

Looks like the cheapest option for audio is a USB drive for about USD$125. I'll have to put the audio on my Christmas list methinks

[aravinda]

Has anyone used Latin Via Ovid and would like to share their thoughts, comments or have any suggestions on how best to use the course? ...
My only hesitation would be the scarcity and cost of the audio. Does anyone think it is worth it? For reference, my knowledge of Latin is fairly meagre but I have just recently enrolled at Schola Latina Europæa & Universalis for their Sermo Latinus course which uses the Assimil Le latin sans peine as its textbook.

I have the textbook, Latin via Ovid and the accompanying workbook. I only did a couple of lessons (before moving onto a new project ) but I had already completed the Sermo 1 (first 50 lessons of Desessard's Le latin sans peine) at Schola Latina Europæa & Universalis, so I was not an absolute beginner. In my opinion Latin via Ovid is a thorough and fun course.
However, I didn't bother about the audio because:
1. Latin pronunciation is relatively easy and straight forward for an English speaker (native/non-native), I was doubtful whether audio can add much to the learning process.
2. its cost
3. the best restituted Latin pronunciation I had ever heard was by Avitus (who was responsible for the Latin course at Schola Latina Europæa & Universalis. He made recordings for all the Exercises of the Assimil course (for which there were no recordings at the time). Unlike many available recordings (including Assimil's), Avitus consistently made a distinction between short and long vowels.
4. I was not sure about the quality of recordings for Latin via Ovid.
As AlexTG already said, I don't think you really need to bother about audio.
By the way, I am curious to know about your experience with the Sermo Latinus.

[n_j_f]

Has anyone used Latin Via Ovid and would like to share their thoughts, comments or have any suggestions on how best to use the course? ...
My only hesitation would be the scarcity and cost of the audio. Does anyone think it is worth it? For reference, my knowledge of Latin is fairly meagre but I have just recently enrolled at Schola Latina Europæa & Universalis for their Sermo Latinus course which uses the Assimil Le latin sans peine as its textbook.

I have the textbook, Latin via Ovid and the accompanying workbook. I only did a couple of lessons (before moving onto a new project ) but I had already completed the Sermo 1 (first 50 lessons of Desessard's Le latin sans peine) at Schola Latina Europæa & Universalis, so I was not an absolute beginner. In my opinion Latin via Ovid is a thorough and fun course.
However, I didn't bother about the audio because:
1. Latin pronunciation is relatively easy and straight forward for an English speaker (native/non-native), I was doubtful whether audio can add much to the learning process.
2. its cost
3. the best restituted Latin pronunciation I had ever heard was by Avitus (who was responsible for the Latin course at Schola Latina Europæa & Universalis. He made recordings for all the Exercises of the Assimil course (for which there were no recordings at the time). Unlike many available recordings (including Assimil's), Avitus consistently made a distinction between short and long vowels.
4. I was not sure about the quality of recordings for Latin via Ovid.
As AlexTG already said, I don't think you really need to bother about audio.
By the way, I am curious to know about your experience with the Sermo Latinus.

Thanks for the review. Personally, I find it difficult to learn a language with reading material without audio, until at least the "advanced beginner" stage. That's not to say I would immediately discount something, and perhaps it's a personal preference, but having the audio means I don't waste too much effort fretting that I'm not pronouncing something correctly and it also helps develop an "inner voice" in the language. I couldn't use Modern Russian Nicholas J. Brown's The New Penguin Russian Course, for example, when I was studying Russian intensely a couple of years ago and I tend to go for courses like Cortina, Assimil, Linguaphone et. al. that have nice, clear audio recordings and substantial reading passages.

As for Sermo Latinus, It helped having a schedule that I needed to stick to, and having someone on hand to ask questions if I got stuck. Fortunately, however, due to a background in Romance languages and language-learning in general — not to mention the excellent Assimil text — any questions I had were either in the text, course notes or were asked by someone else. I fear, however, that I didn't pass the course as I still haven't checked my results Unfortunately, I got too far behind towards the end of the course due to work and personal matters I had to attend to, that I ended up making a total pig's ear of the final examination as well as my university coursework.

Still, I learnt a hell of a lot of Latin to the extent that I could compose some Latin phrases and basic sentences in my head without needing to translate from English, and quite often spontaneously without any intention of doing so. So it wasn't to the extent of dreaming in Latin or anything like that, but it was definitely a good start. It was time-consuming as I was creating both Anki flashcards from the Assimil mp3s, as well as an interlinear English translation similar to Ilya Frank method (one line of Latin, one line of literal word for word translation in subscript noting the case of each noun, and one line of a more readable English translation).

I have only done Sermo I which, as you know, covers the first half of Le latin sans peine Great to know that someone else is this country has done the course as well. What were your thoughts on the course? Are you planning on doing Sermo II?

[aravinda]

Thanks for the review. Personally, I find it difficult to learn a language with reading material without audio, until at least the "advanced beginner" stage...
...I have only done Sermo I which, as you know, covers the first half of Le latin sans peine Great to know that someone else is this country has done the course as well. What were your thoughts on the course? Are you planning on doing Sermo II?

Thank you for the detailed reply. Sorry I couldn't reply earlier. I fully agree with what you say about the need for audio support. I too had the same issue with the New Penguin Russian Course and Russian Made Simple (both otherwise excellent courses).

My experience with Sermo Latinus was somewhat similar to yours. I did it a couple of years back before migrating to Australia. As I am very inconsistent in my studies, enrolling in that course forced me to study Latin daily during that period. I actually enrolled in the Sermo I & II (combined) program which was rather intensive. If I remember correctly, we had to do a new lesson every other day or so. For me, who had never studied Latin before, the pace of the course became hectic after ten or so lessons. I was so busy with work and personal matters, I didn't listen to the audio for each lesson more than a couple of times. Most of the other students had some previous experience in Latin, and some of them were Latin teachers who wanted to improve their speaking skills. In the beginning, my primary aim was to read Latin but at some time during the course, I became interested in speaking. I enjoyed the course and learned quite a bit of Latin but the course was aimed at speaking skills and emphasis was on "assimilating" the language by listening repeatedly to the audio (which I didn't follow exactly). I would have done better with a little bit more grammar and reading. Overall, I appreciate the amount of time and effort went into creating that course, and ever grateful to Avitus and his team for it.

I am not familiar with Ilya Frank method. As you already know in his lessons Avitus virtually gives us a complete "Latin with Ease /without Toil" in English (but not an interlinear translation). I am not clear as to how an interlinear translation could add to the learning process.

At the moment, all my time is taken up by other things, I don't see myself doing the Sermo II too soon. And now I am not too keen about spoken Latin. When I get back to Latin, I will probably start with the JACT course, Reading Latin and start reading (with graded readers). If I need more practice, I have too many choices (in addition to Assimil): Latin via Ovid, Ørberg's Lingua Latina, Intensive Latin Basic and Intermediate Grammar Workbooks (Routledge), Latin: An Intensive Course and Latin for Reading (Yale). When I can read comfortably in Latin I might consider doing the Sermo II.

Although not directly relevant, as Ancient Greek is on your list, there's a Greek course conducted by a French organization named Connaissance Hellénique. They use the French textbook by J-V Vernhes, Initiation au grec ancien (There's an English translation too). They charge a nominal fee and allocate you to a (retired) Greek professor as your tutor who would guide and correct your answers. All communication, of course, is in French.
http://ch.hypotheses.org/le-cours-de-co ... hellenique

And when you start studying Sinhala, let me know if you need any help.

Edited to add the link for Connaissance Hellénique and to correct/add few sentences.

[Iversen]

The prudent learner will jump the fence where it is lowest and pluck lowest-hanging fruits first. And that's not Ovid.

[MorkTheFiddle]

As background, I studied Latin at three different times of my life and quit each time.
The first time was at a university, where I took 2 semesters. The first semester was a beginner course centering on Caesar and the second semester covered the first half of Virgil's Aeneid.
In my opinion, if you liked the Assimil course, stick with it.
If you want something different with audio, have a look at the Adler Audio Latin Course at Latinum. Not an endorsement, just a heads-up.
The JACT Latin books might be worth a look.
I would not advise anyone to start Latin with Ovid.
As long as good audio were available, I would never try to learn a language, any language, without it.

Edit 1 time to add remark about audio.

[aravinda]

The prudent learner will jump the fence where it is lowest and pluck lowest-hanging fruits first. And that's not Ovid.

I agree in principle. Just a little obsevation.
The title Latin via Ovid can be slightly misleading if one is not familiar with the format of this textbook. In the authors' own words, "[T]he readings begin with abridged and simplified versions of stories from the Metamorphoses." And only in the middle of the 31st chapter (out of 45 chapters) the poetic verses ("real Ovid") do appear, even then with lot of additional support. So why Ovid? Again, authors seem to be well aware of the implications of the task they undertook: "We chose abridged versions of Ovid's Metamorphoses for the readings, both for their value as background in mythology and for their rich, narrative style, which should impel the reader to continue his pursuit of meaning in a foreign language. " For me as a language learner that is one feature of a good language course. And in my view, they accomplish it admirably well. After all, its a matter of striking the right balance between the difficulty and the intrinsic appeal of the text. Admittedly, I came to this book with some previous knowledge of Latin but still the text is not unlike many other Latin textbooks in the level of difficulty. Here's an extract from the Chapter 2, EURŌPA ET TAURUS:
"Eurōpa est puella pulchra. Eurōpa in Tyrō, īnsulā in Phoenīcā, habitat..." and ends with "Poēta Ovidius fābulam dē Eurōpa et taurō nārrat." One can't make the fence lower than that short of removing it altogether.

Edited for clarity & typos

P.S.
This discussion made me think and reminded me of other similar textbooks for language learning. I will start a new thread for those.
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =19&t=6377

[Iversen]

(...) still the text is not unlike many other Latin textbooks in the level of difficulty. Here's an extract from the Chapter 2, EURŌPA ET TAURUS: "Eurōpa est puella pulchra. Eurōpa in Tyrō, īnsulā in Phoenīcā, habitat..." and ends with "Poēta Ovidius fābulam dē Eurōpa et taurō nārrat." One can't make the fence lower than that short of removing it altogether. ;-)

Well, I was thinking of Ovidius in the original. The excerpt above is definitely Ovid light, and if the rest is at a similar level then the experience shouldn't be as frightening as I originally feared.