latin

@derry123 (610)
March 9, 2009 4:41pm CST
Does anyone know any Latin .. is there an easy way to get started .. like a Latin for beginers book or maybe a website i could look at .. Any help gratefully recieved *
3 responses
9 Mar 09
I know a few bits and pieces, from when I studied it at school years ago. You know, stuff like "salve!" (hello) and "canis canem" (beware of the dog). My oldest brother can virtually speak it, but then he's weird and can do stuff like reading hieroglyphs and so on. To begin with, my guess is you'd need to find somewhere with conjugations of verbs and all that jazz. It's a pretty complex structure for English speakers, as every noun has a dozen different forms and every verb as well (much like French or German for the verbs). Something that in English is simple - like "I went to the man" or "They went by the man" or "We went with the man", where both parts remain almost unchanged - has several different forms in Latin (3 in that example, since "the man" is adjusted by whether you're using "to", "with" or whatever, and the verb changes form for first person, third person and so on). Maybe there's a 'Latin for Dummies' sort of book/site that would give you an idea?
@derry123 (610)
9 Mar 09
sounds pretty complicated .. i like the idea of Latin for Dummies .. THANX*
1 person likes this
9 Mar 09
It's not actually as complex as it sounds. Take something like the verb "to love". Amo - I love Amas - You love Amat - He/she loves and so on. It's much like French: J'aime Tu aimes Il aime The odd thing is the nouns do it, too. So "girl" (puella) goes like this in the singular: Puella, Puella, Puellam, Puellae, Puellae, Puella - each of which is used depending on if she is the subject, the object or whatever (nominative, vocative, accusative, dative, ablative and other great terms like that). So "amo puellam" means "I love the girl" (I think!). The cool thing is that you could also say "puellam amo" and it'd mean the same thing. The order matters little.
16 Mar 09
Heh, shows how much I know. Cave canem, you're right. Dunno why my brain put canis in there.
@maenad (46)
• United States
9 Mar 09
Check out Wheelocks Latin. It's the book I used when I took latin in college. It's very good, and very well used.
@derry123 (610)
10 Mar 09
Thanxs maenad .. thats really helpfull ... i will look on ebay for it and at my local libruary .. many thanks ***
• Philippines
9 Mar 09
I remember University of the Philippines offering Latin as an elective language. I know few decades back it is a requirement. I think you can check online and there will be online learning tools for Latin. Good day!
@derry123 (610)
9 Mar 09
thanx i will look on line and try and get started *