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Latin classes at Bedford High School - learning Latin with Hans Ørberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.



Focus Publishing has a link to flashcard drills on-line: [] An on-line Latin/Latin dictionary specifically for //Familia Romana//

(European) website with Oerberg resources:  http://lingualatina-orberg.wikispaces.com/

chapter outlines from Jacque Myers in Google docs - with clickable links to other stuff -

@https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7RosZ0zAtIYNGY0ZjhmMGQtMDFmZi00NjFkLTg2ZjUtYTQ0N2NiNjZjNmIy&hl=en_US

Under the miscellaneous good advice classification - in order to get better grades in Latin:

· be more attentive in class · ask questions when you don't understand something · try to come up with the right answers before other students do during q & a activities · read the text some every day both out loud and silently · figure out stuff you don't understand at first while you're reading · spend more time doing exercises outside class · be faithful in doing all assigned exercises before their due date · be more productive doing exercises outside class · use the Quia drills and quizzes accessible at my website <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">· know why right answers are right and wrong answers are wrong <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">· pretend to yourself you actually like studying Latin until you realize it's not so bad after all <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">· find out what students who get A's do in order to prepare for quizzes and tests and do something substantially similar

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> "Why is the teaching of Latin composition necessary? Without it God cannot be known. Without it we are mired in damnation. Through Latin composition we weaken - no, overthrow - the empire of the devil. It is necessary for the salvation of our souls." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Olaus Theophilus, headmaster, Copenhagen (1573)

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;">Dexter Hoyos wrote a booklet called //Latin: How to read it Fluently, a Practical Manual//. He has provided a summarized explanation of his main points in this way:

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 1: The Romans didn’t know English (this rule is abbrev’d TRDKE). This is a fundamental rule. THEREFORE word-order and word-group-order in Latin do not follow English patterns, except *by accident*.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 2: <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> a. Phrases, subordinate clauses, and main clauses are all word-groups.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> b. The arrangement of word-groups in a sentence is crucial to the meaning.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> c. The order of words within a word-group obeys logical patterns. The order of word-groups in a sentence also obeys logical patterns.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> d. You can train your eye to recognise all these patterns, which are fundamental to the meaning of the sentence. This is how Romans read Latin.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> e. Read and re-read each sentence so as to understand its structure and its constructions, before you start to translate it.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 3: <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> a. Don’t try to find an English meaning for each separate Latin word, to see if accumulating the separate words in English gives the meaning of the sentence. This method thinks of a Latin sentence as actually Hidden English, and yet TRDKE.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> b. Don’t believe that a Latin sentence is simply equivalent to English words in a mixed-up order. TRDKE.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 4: <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> a. Each word in a sentence tells you about the grammar and sense of the words around it. Therefore each word is a signpost to other words.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> b. <span style="font-family: Times,Georgia,Courier,serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">**The endings of the words are as important as the beginnings. The endings tell you the grammar of the sentence. The beginnings tell you the sentence’s message.**

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 5: How to recognise a subordinate clause:– <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> - It has to start with a conjunction like cum, ut, postquam or the like, or with a relative word like qui. <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> - It must contain at least 1 finite verb, i.e. a verb with a subject. (Sometimes the subject is implied, not given as a separate word—e.g. libros lego.) <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> - It cannot form a sentence by itself, but is subordinate to a main clause.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 6: How to recognise a phrase: <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> - A word-group without a Finite Verb is a phrase. A phrase <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> [i] may be governed by a preposition, e.g. ex urbe, propter gaudium, in Britanniam, ad urbem videndam, multa cum laude <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> [ii] may consist of words describing a person, thing or event mentioned nearby, e.g. librum legentes, capillis longissimis, multis annis, urbem ingressus, (puella) maximae pulchritudinis <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> [iii] may be an Ablative Absolute phrase, a gerundival phrase of purpose, an infinitive phrase, or the like. E.g. Cicerone consule, senatu vocato, ad urbem pulcherrimam aedificandam, pacis petendae causa, parentes amare, librum optimum scribendo.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 7: <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> a. A word-group of any kind (main clause, subordinate clause, or phrase), once it has begun, has to be grammatically finished, before the writer can continue with the rest of the sentence. [This statement is an example] <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> For the same reason, a sentence must be grammatically completed before the next one can start. [As also in English.]

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> b. The only exception to these rules is that one word-group can 'embrace’ another one. But then 7a applies: the embraced word-group must be grammatically completed before the writer can go back to the ‘embracing’ <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> word-group. <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> E.g. Cicero, qui olim consul erat, nunc in senatum raro venit. <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> - This main clause embraces the subordinate clause, which itself must be completed before the main clause can continue.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> NOTE 7a & 7b are unbreakable rules in Latin (and in English, if you think about it).

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> c. A phrase can ‘embrace’ a subordinate clause, and a subordinate clause can ‘embrace’ a phrase. E.g. urbe quae magna erat condita, and ut Romam multis post annis iterum videret.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> NOTE If one main clause embraces a second, the latter has to be in brackets or between long dashes.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> 8: <span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> a. In narrative Latin sentences, all the events are reported in the proper event order, even if the various events are stated in various types of word-groups.

<span style="font: 15px Times,Georgia,Courier,serif;"> b. In descriptive Latin sentences, the various word-groups are written in the order that seems most logical to the author.