Classical Languages - Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
Arnaud
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Arnaud » Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:47 am

For francophones people, I stumbled upon Cercle Latin which proposes several interesting ressources to learn Latin.
I was looking for a book similar to "Russian in exercises". Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to exist. Do you know of a book which would review each latin cases one by one with an easy and simplified vocabulary like "Russian in exercises" ?
Edit: Well, perhaps the "Exercitia Latina" of Ørberg will do the job...
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Beli Tsar
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Beli Tsar » Sun Jun 02, 2019 5:37 am

Arnaud wrote:For francophones people, I stumbled upon Cercle Latin which proposes several interesting ressources to learn Latin.
I was looking for a book similar to "Russian in exercises". Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to exist. Do you know of a book which would review each latin cases one by one with an easy and simplified vocabulary like "Russian in exercises" ?

I'm not aware of one in English, certainly, and hopefully an actual Latinist can point one out.

But two options you could look at:
1. Keller and Russell's 'Learn to Read Latin' has, I have been told, an enormous number of exercises compared to most textbooks. The vocabulary isn't huge (less than 600, I believe) and I'm sure it would practice the cases pretty logically.
2. Try some prose composition books, for instance the older ones free at textkit (https://www.textkit.com/latin_grammar.php). They do something a bit different, obviously, but could work for case review pretty helpfully - if they are anything like their Greek counterparts they will add cases systematically bit by bit.

Edited for mistakes and details.
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aravinda
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby aravinda » Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:09 am

Arnaud wrote:...I was looking for a book similar to "Russian in exercises". Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to exist. Do you know of a book which would review each latin cases one by one with an easy and simplified vocabulary like "Russian in exercises" ?
Edit: Well, perhaps the "Exercitia Latina" of Ørberg will do the job...

I second Beli Tsar’s first suggestion. I’m not a Latinist by any means but I have used the book for a brief period. It is sold in several formats and packages but essentiallay you need both the textbook and the workbook (in two volumes). Both are hefty volumes and the workbook has ample exercises. However, you don’t get the answer key unless you ask the publisher (unlikely to work) or one of the authors (more likely).
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/search/node/ ... ad%20latin

A smaller book with exercises (but not exactly what you’re looking for) is TY Latin Grammar You Really Need to Know.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Latin-Grammar- ... way&sr=8-1

I didn’t really like the TY book because it is organised by “the parts of speech” and also because it doesn’t mark all the long vowels with a macron but it’s worth having a look.
Last edited by aravinda on Sat Jun 08, 2019 1:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Querneus
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Querneus » Mon Jun 03, 2019 1:41 am

Beli Tsar wrote:Keller and Russell's 'Learn to Read Latin' has, I have been told, an enormous number of exercises compared to most textbooks. The vocabulary isn't huge (less than 600, I believe) and I'm sure it would practice the cases pretty logically.

aravinda wrote:I second Beli Tsar’s first suggestion. I’m not a Latinist by any means but I have used the book for a brief period. It is sold in several formats and packages but essentiallay you need both the textbook and the workbook (in two volumes). Both are hefty volumes and the workbook has ample exercises. However, you don’t get the answer key unless you ask the publisher (unlikely to work) or one of the authors (more likely).

A few years ago I worked through Learn to Read Latin as my second textbook (only the textbook with the readings, not the workbook, as I didn't know the workbook existed at the time), and it's not really true the vocabulary is small. The vocabulary you're absolutely expected to learn is around 600 words, but the readings (which are many) introduce about five times that much vocabulary. You simply get that extra vocabulary as footnotes below the relevant reading.

If you've ever looked at the Loci Immutati section of Wheelock's Latin, that's basically what Learn to Read Latin is about, extended for over 650 pages.
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indeclinable
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby indeclinable » Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:20 am

Arnaud wrote:Do you know of a book which would review each Latin cases one by one with an easy and simplified vocabulary like "Russian in exercises".


In this case there is little option that's not Ørberg. The most prominent of the old-school Latinists obsessions is that they wanted the students to encounter only "real" Latin, even in the most basic of exercises or explanations. So pretty much all you encounter will have very complex and obscure vocabulary to explain the most basic and essential of phenomena. Wheelock is a very good example of this, perhaps the best example. What a better way to teach a 10yo schoolboy about cases than letting him have a taste of Horace's most complex and compact verses?

I've taken a look at the "Russian in exercises" and I find it to be very similar to the Ørberg's Latine disco, a viable alternative could be Nutting. The Exercitia Latina are as of today unsurpassed so far as exercises with easy vocabulary go. Is there any reason why the LLPSI is not to your tastes?

I could look around to see if I could try to find something more to your tastes if you'd like.
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Arnaud
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Arnaud » Tue Jun 04, 2019 4:23 am

indeclinable wrote:
Arnaud wrote:Do you know of a book which would review each Latin cases one by one with an easy and simplified vocabulary like "Russian in exercises".


In this case there is little option that's not Ørberg. The most prominent of the old-school Latinists obsessions is that they wanted the students to encounter only "real" Latin, even in the most basic of exercises or explanations. So pretty much all you encounter will have very complex and obscure vocabulary to explain the most basic and essential of phenomena. Wheelock is a very good example of this, perhaps the best example. What a better way to teach a 10yo schoolboy about cases than letting him have a taste of Horace's most complex and compact verses?

I've taken a look at the "Russian in exercises" and I find it to be very similar to the Ørberg's Latine disco, a viable alternative could be Nutting. The Exercitia Latina are as of today unsurpassed so far as exercises with easy vocabulary go. Is there any reason why the LLPSI is not to your tastes?

When I asked my question, I didn't know that there were exercises books for Ørberg, I bought the main textbook and the "latine disco" a few years ago : the books were sleeping on my bookshelf and I had completly forgotten about the exercises books. After having asked my question, I found a file with the exercises books (and the "companion books", very useful) and saw that the Ørberg's exercises books would probably fit the bill: I've ordered the first volume on Amazon.
I'm starting Chapter 8 of LLPSI today but I feel that my knowledge of the cases is still very wobbly, so I need to work on them more systematically. As my vocabulary is still very very limited, I asked my question, in case of... Anyway, it always better to have several ressources (I'm also reading Colloquia Personarum and Fabellae Latinae after each chapter of LLPSI), so thank you all for the answers and suggestions you've given me.
Stay tuned, I'll have other stupid questions ;)
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Elexi
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Elexi » Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:28 pm

You could have a look at Practice Makes Perfect Basic Latin - which is pretty much like all PMP books in the type of exercises it offers. The Amazon entry has a 'look inside' feature: https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Makes-P ... B00IUW5IMU
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David1917
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby David1917 » Sun Jun 16, 2019 2:01 am

Curiosity, anticipation, and most importantly, language wanderlust have gotten the best of me and I checked Amazon for a pre-order of the forthcoming Teach Yourself Old Norse course. The author listed is Todd B. Krause of the University of Texas at Austin (home to the TYS Hindi baron Rupert Snell and the Dunwoody Persian tycoon Michael Hillman, among many others I'm sure).

His personal page and CV, which includes publications on teaching old Germanic languages and indicates that he has also developed the UT Austin online resources for Gothic (no word yet on who is authoring the TYS course, could be him doing both, though a colleague at the University has authored a Gothic dictionary, so who can say?), Old Church Slavonic, Classical Armenian, and Tocharian (first I've heard of this: an ancient Indo-European language spoken in what is now more or less the Xinjiang region of China. Fascinating!)

UT Austin Old Norse - could be good to get a feel for what is likely to be included in the TYS book.

Now we just have to hope that Assimil decides to let Prof Arguelles write an Old Norse book and release it next year as well so we can all get on Viking mode.
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Beli Tsar
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Beli Tsar » Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:15 pm

Duolingo Latin is out, at long last. The course is very short, and probably not going to get you reading much. It's perfect for the intended purpose, though, which is to get me to spend loads of time I should be doing something else trying to crawl up the leaderboards, and in the process seeing lots of ads.

I notice 'Roma in Italia est' features pretty early on, so there's a little nod to Lingua Latina.

Classical pronunciation, too.
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David1917
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby David1917 » Thu Sep 05, 2019 2:04 am

Yesterday arrived the new version of Teach Yourself Old English by Mark Atherton that I foolishly pre-ordered awhile back. It is actually a great expansion upon the old book by Atherton. The first has 20 chapters, the new one has those same 20 plus four more chock full of readings. The glossary contains about 800-1,000 more words, which would ideally make it all the more useful when moving beyond the textbook into other OE materials. The book is larger and laid out a lot more like a college textbook (including the more asinine types of "self-assessment" checklists at the end of each chapter), which could make it a little easier to use and lay open on a desk than the older one. It's an odd instance of TYS expanding a previous offering, rather than minimizing. I'm excited to finally finish the course, especially now with some new material to work with!

Size comparison:
rsz_img_7323.jpg

TOC comparison, note newer edition chapter titles are in OE now:
rsz_img_7324.jpg

TOC comparison, end of old edition at Chapter 20:
rsz_img_7325.jpg

TOC comparison, end of new edition at Chapter 24:
rsz_img_7326.jpg
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