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LLR4
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Our 10 y.o. daughter has been very eager for over a year now to learn Latin. She will be in the 6th/7th grade level, not that that matters I guess.
She has not yet formally studied any foreign language, but just loves to pick up vocabulary words in French, Spanish, and Latin, and record them in notebooks.
There is a priest who helps out our parish, who she has quite the friendship with. She serves virtually every last Sunday mass, and he is often presiding the mass. So they talk a lot in the sacristy before and after mass. He has been teaching her Latin words/phrases, and she has been writing them in a notebook.
So she says she is under the impression that there are 2 forms of Latin; Roman Latin, and church Latin??? She says she wants to learn church Latin, and that Roman Latin would be very different because it doesn't use d's?
I know nothing about Latin (yet) and so am left with lots of questions I am hoping to get some insight with from the kind people here who have Latin knowledge to offer me:
1) Would she / could she fair well to start with Latin, if she has not had any other foreign language yet?
2) Is there different Latin languages?
3) Is this a reasonable age/grade to take Latin if she has such a strong interest in it??
4) What is the best way to go about researching Latin lesson options out there? I'm thinking it's important to HEAR pronunciation to properly learn how to speak a new language.
I think that is all for now. Just beginning to gather information on this matter she is subject she is so determined about will be helpful to me, so thank you in advance for any input.
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~ Laura
Blessed: Mama to dd{A}13 y.o., and 7 y.o. triplets ds{J}, dd{O}, ds{S} and wife to Michael
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allegiance_mom
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| Posted: June 19 2008 at 5:17pm | IP Logged
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LLR4 wrote:
1) Would she / could she fair well to start with Latin, if she has not had any other foreign language yet?
2) Is there different Latin languages?
3) Is this a reasonable age/grade to take Latin if she has such a strong interest in it??
4) What is the best way to go about researching Latin lesson options out there? I'm thinking it's important to HEAR pronunciation to properly learn how to speak a new language. |
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Latin is a great introduction to modern languages! French Italian and Spanish are based on it!
There is only one Latin language. There are two "schools" of pronounciation. I have mostly heard them called "classical" and "ecclesial."
My children have studied Latin since Kindergarten.
We have always used Memoria Press' products. There are pronounciation cd's (ecclesial), but they have a (US) southern accent!
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folklaur
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| Posted: June 19 2008 at 5:32pm | IP Logged
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I took Latin all through college (I had never had foreign language before, except for a half-year of Spanish in High School.) I LOVED it.
Most colleges use the classical pronunciation, I think that might be what your dd means. "Church Latin" is pronounced a little differently. But there aren't two different languages, no.
I have to be honest, after learning Classical pronunciation, I had a hard time with teaching Church Latin to my kids. They think I am saying things wrong all the time  . I think classical pronunciation endings are easier to memorize, and less confusing in my own mind when translating back and forth to English. But that is likely because I learned Classical first.
I think Church Latin sounds prettier, though.
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LLR4
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| Posted: June 19 2008 at 6:37pm | IP Logged
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cactus mouse wrote:
I took Latin all through college (I had never had foreign language before, except for a half-year of Spanish in High School.) I LOVED it.
Most colleges use the classical pronunciation, I think that might be what your dd means. "Church Latin" is pronounced a little differently. But there aren't two different languages, no.
I have to be honest, after learning Classical pronunciation, I had a hard time with teaching Church Latin to my kids. They think I am saying things wrong all the time . I think classical pronunciation endings are easier to memorize, and less confusing in my own mind when translating back and forth to English. But that is likely because I learned Classical first.
I think Church Latin sounds prettier, though.
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Ok...Thank you Laura (and Allegiance) for your experiences.
So Laura, considering my daughter is stressing that it is the 'Church Latin' she wants to learn, she I let her learn that form with that pronunciation? Is there a curriculum you were using when teaching your kids 'church Latin'? I'm a little confused, and yet not as much as I was....
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~ Laura
Blessed: Mama to dd{A}13 y.o., and 7 y.o. triplets ds{J}, dd{O}, ds{S} and wife to Michael
Our House of Joyful Noise
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folklaur
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| Posted: June 19 2008 at 7:59pm | IP Logged
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Memorial Press has that, in a pretty easy to use format, with Latina Christiana 1 & 2, and, I think, Henle is Ecclesiastical too.
I'm not trying to confuse you, I promise! But, it is all in the pronunciation. So, like, the endings of words in Latin let you know what the word is doing. So, for example, you have to decline all your nouns, and you learn the ending in tables.
So, the ending are the spelled the same for a 1st declension noun in both pronunciations:
Singular:
a
ae
ae
am
a
Plural:
ae
arum
is
as
is
But see the "ae" ending? In classical, that would be pronounced like "eye". In Church Latin, it would be pronounced like "ay". Little things like that. But it can get confusing (especially since in English, we don't pay as much attention to the ends of words. We don't need to.) And then throw in regional accents, and it can get really confusing. 
I think Latina Christiana is a good choice for what she wants. It teaches prayers, songs, etc. It is very nice.
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LLR4
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| Posted: June 19 2008 at 8:41pm | IP Logged
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THANK YOU LAURA!! 
That explanation is very helpful!
I truly appreciate your time and efforts!
I'm going to look into what you suggested.
__________________
~ Laura
Blessed: Mama to dd{A}13 y.o., and 7 y.o. triplets ds{J}, dd{O}, ds{S} and wife to Michael
Our House of Joyful Noise
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SallyT
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We love Latin around here! We have done ecclesial Latin (all in the pronunciation, as has been said) via 1) learning hymns, chants, and prayers using Lingua Angelica from Memoria Press, 2) working together on learning what they actually say, 3) playing around in the early years with "fun" Latin using the Minimus program from Cambridge University Press (classical Latin, but we ignore that and pronounce everything ecclesially anyway), and 4) finally moving into formal Latin, which in the case of my oldest happened this year, in 9th grade. Having basically just played around with Latin for years, she slid very easily into work with Henle.
There is no "too young" for at least an informal introduction to Latin. I've been singing Latin chants and hymns to my younger kids since they were babies, and they can sing them themselves now. We also say our table blessing in Latin (and then we translate into English -- I think people are amused by our "subtitled" blessings). I learned French as a young child through songs and basic repetitive conversation -- "How are you?" "Very well, thank you" -- so I've taken that "modern language immersion" approach to making Latin a part of our life as a family. I'm not a Latin scholar myself and only became interested in it through choral singing, so I guess I've just applied that to my kids as well.
Latin is fantastic as a basis for learning modern Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc), and also at teaching English grammar. Lessons about syntax and the parts of the sentence finally "stuck" for my 9th grader this year when she had to do them in Latin. It probably helped that I'm an English teacher by background, so could explain the grammar from an English standpoint, but working through it in Latin was what made it cohere in her mind. And now we recognize all kinds of words in English and in other languages, because we're familiar with the Latin roots.
Anyway, that's what we do -- immersion first (well, partial immersion -- we're not holding all-day all-Latin conversations around here!), and later the formal grammar. I do really recommend Minimus as a fun introduction -- you learn Latin vocabulary and basic grammar through a comic-book-format story (about a real family in Roman Britain --the historic bits are very interesting, too)and easy, often-oral exercises. I also recommend Lingua Angelica -- not the whole reading course, but the CD and the songbook (and maybe the teacher's manual, because that gives you lots of translation help -- later on you can do all the parsing!). It's wonderful to get your family singing in Latin, and the CD is lovely enough that you'll want to play it a lot for everyone to hear. Inspire a love for the beauty of Latin and its place in the Church's heritage, and then even the nitty-gritty grammar has meaning and a reason for being.
My $.02, anyway!
Sally
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LLR4
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SallyT wrote:
We love Latin around here! We have done ecclesial Latin (all in the pronunciation, as has been said) via 1) learning hymns, chants, and prayers using Lingua Angelica from Memoria Press, 2) working together on learning what they actually say, 3) playing around in the early years with "fun" Latin using the Minimus program from Cambridge University Press (classical Latin, but we ignore that and pronounce everything ecclesially anyway), and 4) finally moving into formal Latin, which in the case of my oldest happened this year, in 9th grade. Having basically just played around with Latin for years, she slid very easily into work with Henle.
There is no "too young" for at least an informal introduction to Latin. I've been singing Latin chants and hymns to my younger kids since they were babies, and they can sing them themselves now. We also say our table blessing in Latin (and then we translate into English -- I think people are amused by our "subtitled" blessings). I learned French as a young child through songs and basic repetitive conversation -- "How are you?" "Very well, thank you" -- so I've taken that "modern language immersion" approach to making Latin a part of our life as a family. I'm not a Latin scholar myself and only became interested in it through choral singing, so I guess I've just applied that to my kids as well.
Latin is fantastic as a basis for learning modern Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc), and also at teaching English grammar. Lessons about syntax and the parts of the sentence finally "stuck" for my 9th grader this year when she had to do them in Latin. It probably helped that I'm an English teacher by background, so could explain the grammar from an English standpoint, but working through it in Latin was what made it cohere in her mind. And now we recognize all kinds of words in English and in other languages, because we're familiar with the Latin roots.
Anyway, that's what we do -- immersion first (well, partial immersion -- we're not holding all-day all-Latin conversations around here!), and later the formal grammar. I do really recommend Minimus as a fun introduction -- you learn Latin vocabulary and basic grammar through a comic-book-format story (about a real family in Roman Britain --the historic bits are very interesting, too)and easy, often-oral exercises. I also recommend Lingua Angelica -- not the whole reading course, but the CD and the songbook (and maybe the teacher's manual, because that gives you lots of translation help -- later on you can do all the parsing!). It's wonderful to get your family singing in Latin, and the CD is lovely enough that you'll want to play it a lot for everyone to hear. Inspire a love for the beauty of Latin and its place in the Church's heritage, and then even the nitty-gritty grammar has meaning and a reason for being.
My $.02, anyway!
Sally |
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Thank you Sally!!
I assure you it is worth more than 2 cents to me!
__________________
~ Laura
Blessed: Mama to dd{A}13 y.o., and 7 y.o. triplets ds{J}, dd{O}, ds{S} and wife to Michael
Our House of Joyful Noise
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ALmom
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| Posted: June 23 2008 at 7:42pm | IP Logged
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Caveat: This is simply repeating what our Latin tutor told us. I, myself, am virtually ignorant about Latin.
There are actually 5 different pronunciations for Latin, one being Ecclessiastical Latin. Supposedly, classical Latin (whichever one of those pronunciations is the more common) tends to be easier to use if you are trying to learn the grammar. According to the prof./tutor, it is easier to go from classical to ecclesiastical than to go from ecclesiastical to classical. (We wouldn't know, we did classical). There seem to be more grammatical exceptions to the rules in ecclessiastical Latin or some such according to him if I am recalling what he told us correctly.
The one thing I noticed is that my dd, who had no language background prior to this course, had no problem keeping up with the class, etc. I think she had a hard time getting enthused about classical Latin as it seemed impractical to her. We had hoped to get more into knowing enough for the Latin Mass. She felt she couldn't say anything particularly useful at the end - ie she can tell you a lot about Caesar in Latin but not follow the Latin Mass or say Hi in Latin. She sort of burned out on it without the interest.
I would weigh in for learning whichever your dd is motivated to learn and worry about transitioning later - if she is motivated, she'll do it even if it is more difficult.
Janet
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SallyT
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That's really interesting, re the correspondence between the pronunciations and learning the grammar, Janet. I'd never heard that, but it makes a lot of sense.
I do think motivation is a big part of it, as Janet says. We just started learning Latin as it's pronounced in church, and worked hard at memorization once we hit the formal-grammar stage. My oldest memorizes easily, which I think made this year much easier for her. Knowing a lot of vocabulary going in -- more than she thought she knew, actually -- also helped. My instinct has been to treat Latin as you'd treat any language you were trying to pick up actually to use, and as my kids have been singing in our parish treble choir, there's been some crossover and reinforcement as they've done Latin chants. All that seems to make it far more "real" to them.
My daughter, who's 14, has everything good to say about Henle: she loves that it's a mix of classical themes (lots of sentences about Caesar, Gallia, and so forth), AND Catholic ones (after Caesar and the slaves and the winter quarterse, you have a sentence about Mary being Queen of Heaven). And she found the approach, starting with nouns and declensions, easier to follow than the Latina Christiana method, which begins with verbs -- but that's purely personal preference and probably based on my shortcomings in attempting to teach her, and hers in willingness to be taught by me. Henle, meanwhile, is definitely an advanced text! But she really likes it and was able to cope with it handily with the rather schizophrenic informal background she had had in Latin. So as Janet is saying, you really don't need to worry that much about transitioning, because a kid who wants to learn will cope with the challenges.
Sally
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LLR4
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I'm happy to see this thread still active, because I'm still reading!
I am leaning towards Latina Christiana. My daughter has been trying to learn Latin all she can on her own, with no curriculum or formal program--and has been begging to have it as a subject in the next school year. So so far she seems pretty motivated/determined to learn. I hope she ultimately loves the curriculum to learn it too.
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~ Laura
Blessed: Mama to dd{A}13 y.o., and 7 y.o. triplets ds{J}, dd{O}, ds{S} and wife to Michael
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LisaR
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what is the latin that Elizabeth Foss said she was purchasing?? I can't find the link??
somehow on the website they compared / contrasted to Memoria Press latin and other methods. It was really helpful!
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LLR4
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LisaR wrote:
what is the latin that Elizabeth Foss said she was purchasing?? I can't find the link??
somehow on the website they compared / contrasted to Memoria Press latin and other methods. It was really helpful! |
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Oh, that sounds interesting!
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~ Laura
Blessed: Mama to dd{A}13 y.o., and 7 y.o. triplets ds{J}, dd{O}, ds{S} and wife to Michael
Our House of Joyful Noise
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LisaR
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| Posted: June 24 2008 at 3:14pm | IP Logged
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this is it!!
www.classicalacademicpress.com
Latin for Kids
anyone want to give me a refresher as to how to highlight/add a web link?? 
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Lisa
dh Tim '92
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Maria Gianna 5
Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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4Real Forums : The Arts in the Everyday
Topic: Questions regarding Latin
